Silicon Forest the Understories of Data and Forests

Silicon Forest: the Understories of Trees and Data is a transdisciplinary gathering conceptualized by the artist collective Futurefarmers that examines the reciprocity between ecology, technological futures, and consumption. Emerging from a year-long research process traversing rivers and forests, laboratories, field sites, workshops, and the campus’s abandoned energy tunnels, Silicon Forest imagines the complex interconnections between the ecological, industrial, and technological histories of Oregon State University and the surrounding Willamette Valley, envisioning a future that addresses the impending energy crisis brought on by the exponential growth of data-mining technologies. 

The resulting book expands this research both in content and in form, documenting Futurefarmers’ first solo exhibition in the Pacific Northwest at the Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Creative Arts (PRAx), Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon. 

Futurefarmers’ stylistic approach to the book challenges readers to reconsider language, printmaking, and the evolution of visual communication. The artists employ a typographic method they call “deforestation,” in which all of the “o”s are removed from the text and reappear as a cloud of letterforms on the cover. The resulting image invites readers to approach their journey through the book as if wandering through a forest that has been logged—or a landfill. 

This visual gesture both challenges and animates the critical reflections found in essays by media theorists, scientists, and science-fiction writers.