As a harpy through the rainforest

From tropical birds of prey to black caiman: the installation "Inside Tumucumaque" transports visitors to the Amazon as animals.

From a harpy's point of view, the world looks very different: The sharp perception of the tropical bird of prey makes everything happen as if in slow motion, even the smallest detail on the forest floor is visible in a hair's breadth, every prey as if on a platter. At least that is the way "Inside Tumucumaque"Animal perception simulated. Tumucumaque is the name of one of the world's largest rainforest conservation areas in north-eastern Brazil.

In "Inside Tumucumaque", visitors dive deep into a virtual world, go to another place. They swim through the river landscape as a black caiman, crawl across the forest floor as a tarantula or sail through the night with a vampire bat. The perception of the animals is recreated with ultraviolet colour spectra, super slow motion and spatial 3D sound. The animals are detailed right down to the position of their feathers in flight. The virtual rainforest includes 7500 plant species created in consultation with scientists from the Museum of Natural History. The whole thing is a co-production of the Kreuzberg Interactive Media Foundation, its partner company Filmtank and Artificial Rome. For all its scientific pretensions, the installation has something playful and exploratory about it, but in purely media terms it is clearly detached from the main exhibition with its art objects, photos and video projections. How do the two fit together?

From Ina Krüger's point of view, the virtual rainforest expedition offers numerous docking points. "We want to draw attention to the beauty and biodiversity of this area - and sensitise people to get more involved in the conservation of this unique nature," says Krüger, who led the project as creative director together with her colleague Patrik de Jong. The starting point for "Inside Tumucumaque" was a documentary film series about the "Deltas of the World", which Filmtank produced for Arte. The installation already celebrated its premiere last year at the Centre for Art and Media Karlsruhe, and is now touring the globe, as can be seen at the Website can see. Hopefully it will also come to Switzerland!

Source: tagesspiegel