Article December 17, 2012 ISSUE

Upside-down trees

Michael Mooslin

At the entrance to the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams is a sculpture installation by the artist-experimenter, Natalie Jeremijenko, titled “Tree Logic.” This is part of an artists’ collective called the Bureau of Inverse Technology, which is concerned with creating devices and situations for the purpose of gathering overlooked facts.

But what is unique about this installation is that the six trees are hanging upside down! The shape of the tree in nature is the result of the tree growing away from the earth (gravitropics) and toward the sun (phototropics). This experiment proved that even when turned upside down, the branches still grow upward toward the sun—appearing unnatural, perhaps at first glance, yet not really so.