Brood & Parasite

The bark beetle has become one of the most visible indicators of climate change in Europe, its mass proliferation directly driven by human intervention in nature. Brood & Parasite adopts the perspective of these insects.

The video installation follows a bark beetle on its journey through an increasingly infested forest. It reveals a landscape teeming with maggots and beetles, an abundant natural environment that is progressively decaying. As the population multiplies, the forest can no longer sustain them. Having exhausted their resources, the swarm moves on, heading straight for the city.

They conquer this new environment, flooding into public parks and invading domestic spaces. Bolstered by human-induced imbalances, this unnaturally large population of beetles claims new territory. Only now, the space they are taking over is ours.

The artists traveled to various infested locations across Austria and the Czech Republic to capture 3D scans of the terrain, collect infested wood, and record audio in the field. Back in Vienna, they processed these materials to create sculptures and models, which were then digitized to introduce constructed characters into these real-world habitats.