Entangled Landscape

In a world where soil is increasingly sealed, degraded and overlooked despite sustaining much of Earth’s biodiversity, Entangled Landscape invites audiences to reconsider the invisible underground relationships that support life and the mutualistic behaviors from which ecological and computational systems can learn. The work is a real-time computational installation that gives form to the mutualistic interactions of mycorrhizal soil networks. Experienced through mixed reality, audiences encounter a dynamic virtual structure shaped by machine learning agents trained on the principles of mutualistic exchange between fungi and plant roots. Responding continuously to live environmental soil data from South West Flanders, Belgium, the installation adapts in real time, bringing otherwise imperceptible soil processes into an immersive encounter. Concept & Design: Studio Above&Below (Daria Jelonek, Perry_James Sugden) | Production: Studio Above&Below | Creative Coding support (Computational Shading): Adam Samson | Creative Coding support (ML Agent): Three Ten | Sound Design: Einar Fehrholz | Project partners: Snowball, Gluon, Leiedal | Research Partners: Nikolaas Boucquey (Howest), Joke Calcoen (Vives), Bart Muys (KULeuven), Joske Ruytinckx (VUB), Erik Verbrugge (UAntwerpen), Eddy Loosveldt (Natuurpunt), Bart Vercoutere (Ventures4Growth) | Supported and funded by: S+T+ARTS, European Commission