Fire, forget with me

A forest that isn't a forest: four windows frame its presence, but they reveal no truth, only the construct of perception. In short bursts of impossible motion, the pink foliage blurs into streaks of linear velocity, rushing past the viewer at unnatural speeds, yet never truly moving. Explosion fumes remain suspended in space, unaffected by the presence of plants and the passage of time, as if belonging to another physical dimension altogether. Moments of absolute stillness punctuate the restless travel: pockets of reality in a world that is slipping away.

Projected across four walls, Fire, forget with me dissects the illusion of place, space and time, revealing the mechanics of its own construction. A simulation of nature, unmasked through movement and contrast, where the real and the artificial fold into one another, leaving only the mirage behind.

Room 3 of Akari, InSpace's exhibition in Mexico City, opened 7 March 2025: one continuous digital forest seen through four synchronised corner projections, mirrors in the gaps between them. Built in Unreal Engine 5.5.

Sister work: &forget with me, Noor Riyadh 2025, below.

&forget with me

Noor Riyadh 2025, "In the Blink of an Eye", 20 November – 6 December 2025.
Curators: Li Zhenhua and Sara Almutlaq; curatorial advisory lead: Mami Kataoka.

The Transposing Forest is an engineered one, and it seems serene and calm at first. Yet it bears a surprise: you will not rest for long in the same place, as it transports you to a different spot in its own vast expanse. You become an involuntary traveller, and the speed is a virtual one.

The screens work as connected windows into one virtual space: a room with windows, travelling through the forest. The light passes from daytime to night. Strange attractors in the form of geometric clouds appear in the view and travel with the viewer, undisturbed by any physical contact with the objects of the forest, touched only by its simulated light. A second picture opens inside the first, and the forest answers whoever stands before it.

The hyper-modern Qasr Al Hokm metro station is the host architecture. In one of its underground passages, leading to the ancient market of the medina, the columns were clad in polished chrome mirror, multiplying the mirrored setup of the two adjacent screens that show the work.

LED screens, picture-in-picture, interactive, no sound.
Main artwork, tech/UE work: Adam Georg Streicher
Interactive version: Josef Pelz