Cast your voice into the mic and start walking, as your words become color, sound, and music at Discovery Green’s Hello, Trees!, on stage nightly for free through Sunday, February 25, 2018.
Created specifically for Discovery Green’s stunning Brown Promenade by Montreal art collective Daily tous les jours, the winter light installation transforms your voice messages into light and music.
The installation is inspired by the inaudible connections and processes that exist in nature, and the century old live oaks lining the walkway.
A series of connected arches leap across the promenade, grounded at each end by a large microphone encouraging visitors to speak their mind and greetings to nature.
Once spoken, the word turn to light and begin their journey through the arches. If you keep up with the light, you’ll get to hear your words repeated through the ground-level speakers at the bottom of each arc. Gradually, they’ll turn to music, creating an organic, pleasant, ethereal, musical score.
Turning Your Voice Into Light & Sound
Motivated by the 100-year old live oaks that dominate Discovery Green, Daily tous les jours conceived Hello, Trees! as a metaphor for the way trees use nonverbal cues to communicate complex information.
As visitors utter their greetings into the microphones at each end of the walkway, their voices turn into light and sound, traversing through the series of arches. As they intersect, they create new sounds, music, and tones.
The result is an immersive experience that Daily tous les jours likens to a “crowd-sourced concerto,” changing gradually as visitors walk underneath the installation and mimicking the way trees create pathways of communication.
New scientific discoveries of trees as social beings have found that, to increase their resilience, trees utilize communication in many forms to share needs and provide mutual assistance.
Visiting Hello, Trees!
The perfect time to visit Hello, Trees! is at dusk, or after the sun has gone down.
Busier weekend nights will make the display more colorful and musical, while visiting on a calmer weekday night means that you and yours can more easily track your vocal contribution through the loops.
Hello, Trees! A Walking Serenade Winter Lighting Installation at Discovery Green
- Dates: Daily through Sunday, February 25, 2018
- Hours: 6am to 11pm daily, but sunset and after is the optimum visitation time.
- Location: Discovery Green, 1500 McKinney Street, Houston, TX 77010
- Admission: Free. Click here for more information.
