Meredith Leich

A gigantic silver maple, the “Mothership” was given its name by a group of evolutionary biologists from the University of Virginia’s Mountain Lake Biological Station, who found the tree hosted a large population of “forked fungus beetles”. These slow-moving beetles live on the bright orange shelf fungi that emerge from decomposing wood. For several years, the scientists observed the tree and its tiny, nocturnally-active inhabitants by flashlight in night shifts, camped out amidst the ferns. Eventually, the conditions on the tree shifted so that it could no longer support the same population of beetles, and the study moved elsewhere.

Using the Brodie Lab’s video footage of the forked fungus beetles, The Mothership is a site-specific projection that collages video and animation evoking the inner transport system of a living tree (xylem and phloem), the moon rise, spores descending in the forest, and the beetles themselves, presented here as small white ghosts of light.

Thanks to the Professors Vince Formica, Butch Brodie, and Eric Nagy; the Mountain Lake Biological Station staff and community; and sound artist Stephen Vitiello, who recorded additional sound for the Mothership video documentation.