the trees have something to say

1. Research

The Trees Have Something to Say began through a combination of tactile exploration and philosophical inquiry during my MA in Experimental Sound Practice. I was handling branches, stones, reeds, and shells — letting them sound, resist, and respond — while also questioning how an artistic practice might move closer to ecological thinking.
Through this material play, the agency of the objects became palpable: they shaped the interaction as much as I did. This recognition pushed the work away from a human-centred model and toward improvisation as a form of co-creation — a way of making that listens to nature as an active partner rather than a passive source.

2. Inductive Performance Environment

The project centres on an aural score composed from field recordings. In performance, the score acts as a gravitational field the performer moves within.
An inductive performance environment is one where no element is central: recordings, materials, instruments, and gestures all influence one another. The performer follows the emergent logic of the environment, participating in it rather than controlling it.

3. Material Instruments

A set of instruments were built from gathered natural materials — branches, leaves, bark. Contact mics reveal each material’s internal rhythms and textures. Rather than designing instruments for musical purpose, the work lets the materials guide: each object behaves, resists, and responds in its own way. Embracing chance, one can never truly knows what bowing or tapping a particular spot may sound like.

4. Performance

The result is a 30-minute ecological improvisation where field recordings, material behaviours, and embodied gestures form a shifting sound-field.
The performance invites audiences into a mode of listening shaped by more-than-human rhythms and textures.
The Trees Have Something to Say has been performed at Ballina Arts Centre and theNCF Cultural Co-op, Ballina with each iteration adapting to the space like a living environment.