Dendromacy is a neologism meaning intimacy with the tree.

How can we regain empathy with the non-human?
It was after meeting Karen Houle, a philosopher of ethics at the University of Guelph in Canada, and then Claire Damesin, an ecophysiologist at the University of Orsay, that the desire to create pieces in collaboration and around this theme was born.

In 2014, I discovered Claire Damesin's practice, which combines field experimentation and laboratory analysis. I also met Ludwig Jardillier, a plant ecologist specialising in micro-organisms at Orsay, and Matthias Rillig, director of the Rillig Lab at Berlin's Freïe Universität.
Together we're trying to redefine our relationship with trees through a sensitive approach to pieces about our invisible exchanges with plants.

Dendromacy
In intimacy with a tree
Colour and black and white movie, 10’22, digital support, 2017
Karine Bonneval, artist, Claire Damesin, écophysiologist Paris-Sud university,
Montage : Gabrielle Reiner, sounds : Jean-Michel Ponty
Production Light Cone, catalog Collectif Jeune Cinéma

Dendromacy seeks to connect the breathing of a human body with that of a tree. The space of the film is inspired by the measuring chambers that allow to isolate an area of the plant in order to record and analyze its gas exchanges with the atmosphere, and the scientific protocols that result. A room was "reinvented" for the needs of the film and then thermic cameras made it possible to make perceptible the breathing of the tree and the human breathing. A sensitive relationship is established between the two bodies transforming the scientific experience into a sensual and poetic experience. The word chamber is then to be taken in the double sense of "specific instrument of measurement" and "domestic space": the viewer, like the personage of the film, is "in the room with the tree", invited to share his intimacy. The title is a neologism forged on the contraction of this last term and the prefix of Greek origin dendro- which refers to the tree.
Dendromacy offers an experience of an empirical nature to the viewer. It comes in three parts which correspond to camera functions types and induce different chromatics and picture rhythms. These colors and pulsations change according to the interaction between man and plant. A hand on the bark leaves its mark, the breathing of the character as that of the trunk becomes perceptible ...

The shoots were taken with a cooled lens thermic camera which is normally used to detect CO2 leaks on industrial sites. This project was carried out in collaboration with Claire Damesin and was supported by Diagonale Paris-Saclay and FLIR .
The editing was done in collaboration with Gabrielle Reiner. Jean-Michel Ponty's original soundtrack was created from prepared wood instruments and sounds made from wood material