The Tree romance - Yvette Teeuwen & Ugo Tonneijck

Описание: The Tree romance 2025
Yvette Teeuwen & Ugo
The Hague
The Netherlands 2025

In our research to understand how AI operates in the world, and how we relate to artificial intelligence and technology in the world, we felt resistance to engaging with the complexity of this topic and a certain inability to fully grasp the vastness of these themes. Yet, in this struggle, we encountered an unforeseen source of knowledge.

Along the way, our desire to connect with nature grew stronger. Among these encounters, our meeting with the trees proved to be of profound significance. In the beginning, our attempts to were awkward, but with time, study, and practice, an entirely new world began to open before us.

The question of how we might relate to nature at all is nearly impossible to answer from a purely rational or technical perspective—it feels like trying to swim on dry land. Yet the deeper we immersed ourselves in a natural state of being, the more we began to understand that our contact with trees happens through the subconscious.

We believe that the best way to truly experience a tree is to recognize it as an actively participating living being—a being that, in its own way, exchanges factual knowledge with its surroundings. (Inspired by scientist Maja Kooistra) In our view, trees are part of a vast social network in which we humans also take part. Why not try it yourself and have a tree romance.