An outgrowth of a collaborative artist residency at the Château de Monthelon in Burgundy, France in 2021, Grotto II continues the visualization research comprised of point cloud modeling and 3D scanning first developed with Grotto.

The three sites explored for this project include the Grotte de l’Ermitage situated within the Moissey and in the heart of the Massif de la Serre, France. The grotto’s uncanny formation was made by the underground spring’s erosion of limestone bedrock, a naturally ‘architectural’ formation further augmented by human hands. Grotte de l’Ermitage has served as both hermit’s forest home and secret meeting place of the Bons Cousins Charbonniers. Its two-story structure becomes an ambiguously cultural site suggesting new modes of forest inhabitation.

In the larger sense, Grotto II continues an investigation into the new milieu of a post-humanist reality, one which finds the human decentered relative to planetary forces and technology itself. How might we learn from the past while imagining the future?

Project Credits
Art Direction: Cathryn Dwyre & Chris Perry
Project Associate: Crystal Griggs