Ella Chedburn

Ella Chedburn is a Somerset based artist who explores themes of nature, technology and mysticism.

This image is a still from Ella’s two minute film ‘Forest Virus.’ It features a broken virtual forest originally created for a virtual reality headset, overlaid with scientific and folkloric subtitles.

It was inspired by an article which described the forest’s communication network using digital metaphors; calling it an ‘underground fungal internet’ known as the ‘Wood Wide Web’. Forests even have their own version of ‘cybercrime’, attacking intruders with ‘viruses’. The digital forest steadily decays and the subtitles slip between fact and folklore as though delirious with the ‘virus’ they describe.

The collapse of the digital forest creates a commentary not only on our current deforestation crisis, but also our increasing dissonance with nature and reality in today’s digital era.

Still from ‘Forest Virus’ (2019) Digital Forest