In this installation for the Austrian Cultural Forum New York, the artist has created a retreat. Viewers, upon descending to the subterranean gallery, emerge into a simulated forest clearing. Trees, depicted on wallpaper, cover the walls. In the middle of the space, eight tons of soil and sand support over 200 lavender plants growing under fluorescent light. This uncanny sanctuary in Midtown Manhattan is facilitated by the most unlikely of sources: tweets. The artist has created a system by which the strength of the grow lights above the rows of lavender plants increases in direct relationship to the tweets of powerful public opinion shapers: as these statements are retweeted with greater frequency, the lights get stronger. Through this system, the lavender plants become a kind of a perverse index of the politico-cultural climate, metamorphosing these conditions by their thriving.
