SILICON FOREST
Understories of Trees and Data

The term "silicon forest" (analogous to California's "Silicon Valley") refers to the uniquely positioned industrial corridor of Oregon and the state of Washington. Manufacturing of technological hardware and data storage in the Pacific Northwest illustrates a profound literal and conceptual connection between the growing necessity for networks — the mechanisms by which the ecological features of our landscape speak to one another and help us to store and transmit information of our own.

Silicon Forest: Understories of Trees and Data is an ever-evolving exhibition by artist collective Futurefarmers. Through months of engagement with Oregon State research faculty in the fields of forestry, engineering and other sciences, Futurefarmers present a series of material gestures reflecting the university's hopes around technological innovation, environmental policy, and capacity for being thoughtful actors in each. The artworks in the exhibition function as a storyboard for examining these questions with academic faculty, staff and community members, while introducing tropes of world-building common to science-fiction storytelling.

Futurefarmers is a group of diverse practitioners aligned through an interest in making work that is relevant to the time and place surrounding us. Futurefarmers are artists, designers, architects, anthropologists, writers, computer programmers and farmers with a common interest in creating frameworks for exchange that catalyze moments of "not knowing." Through participatory projects, the collective creates spaces and experiences where the assumed logics of the explored disciplines disappear.