Carey Christie of Seattle

Lo-Fi Arts Festival, Smoke Farm, Arlington, WA, 2014

The Secret Life of Trees was an immersive, interactive, 2-part sound installation designed to explore intimacy, confession, and the unseen networks that connect us.

WHERE

LoFi was the most magical event I’d ever attended. On a 360-acre farm in the warm effervescent Arlington summer, it was a winding bucolic paradise riddled with more than 50 performances, installations, recitations, concoctions. All ephemeral, belonging entirely to the place and time. You had to be there.

After a few years attending as a guest and supporting other artists, I proposed a work of my own for the 2014 festival. Which, thank God, because it turned out to be the last year. And I had a vision that was deeply rooted in the land of Smoke Farm.

WHAT

Guests encountered a solitary tree along a winding farm path, where a sign invited them: “Shame will break your heart. Tell your secret to the tree.” After whispering their secrets into the tree’s hollow, they continued along the path—only to discover, half a mile later, a small cedar grove where slow, rumbling voices emerged from within the trees. A second sign warned: “Never Trust a Tree.” Seated on a rug under the grove’s canopy, visitors often lingered for hours, listening as anonymized confessions floated through the space, distorted as if passing through earth and roots.

HOW

Technically simple but emotionally potent, the installation used a hidden recording system at the first tree, gathering new secrets hourly. These were mixed with a library of pre-recorded, anonymized secrets collected in advance from Seattle volunteers. My creative collaborator, Durin Gleaves, employed experimental Adobe sound editing techniques to obscure identifying details and create the sensation of secrets traveling through an underground network. Updated audio files were planted in the “talking” tree throughout the day, ensuring each visitor’s confession entered the living archive.

WHY

The Secret Life of Trees highlighted the invisible, often fragile webs that link us—human to human, and human to nature—through vulnerability, risk, and trust. This project kicked off my obsession with the intimate power of disembodied voices—secrets, prophecies, and reflections on existence—woven into public spaces through sound installations.