Dusk to Dawn
Kei te noho me ngā Rākau
Zöe Bell
About the work
Kei te noho me ngā rākau (to sit with trees) is an immersive outdoor projection that invites audiences into a shared sensory space with the living ecologies of the Performance Arcade site. The installation uses two layers of real-time input to create a constantly shifting visual world: signals captured from the trees and a public controller that encourages playful audience interaction. Together, these inputs generate a living projection mapped directly onto the trees, transforming their canopy into a responsive digital landscape. The work blurs the boundaries between viewer, artwork, and environment.
Audiences are invited not just to observe the installation but to inhabit it by adding their gestures to a conversation already happening between the trees and the surrounding whenua. By combining ecological data, digital tools, and public interaction, this work offers a moment of shared wonder: a reminder that the living world around us is continuously communicating, even when we are not listening. Kei te noho me ngā rākau encourages us to slow down, tune in, and experience the natural world as an active creative force.
About the artist
Zoë Bell
(Te Āti Awa)
Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa
Zoë Bell is an interdisciplinary artist working at the intersection of ecological data, generative systems, and immersive experience. Her project Sound of the Underground, presented at The Performance Arcade 2025, transformed recorded soil acoustics from Waitangi Park into a surround sound installation with 260-degree projection, inviting audiences into a sensory relationship with the underground world.
Zoë’s work Kei Te Noho Me Ngā Rākau, a visual meditation on kawakawa — received a Bronze Award at the 2023 Best Awards and continues to inform her exploration of projection, live-data inputs, and generative design. Her 2025 work ATOMS, featured at Lōemis Festival, used real-time generative visuals responding to a live band, while her Matariki Festival installation at Pukerua Bay integrated PlantWave technology to sonify plant biorhythms, alongside an interactive reaction-diffusion system activated by audience participation. Across her work, Zoë is driven by a curiosity for non-human systems and how art can act as a conduit for sensing the unseen.