Tree Stories unfolds as a generative landscape shaped by the movement of three autonomous cursors. Each cursor creates and replaces map assets as it moves through the image. Overtime, the assets break free from their position in grid-space, revealing themselves as mobile and occasionally disruptive objects. The system is driven by a recurring storm, allowing the image to reconstruct itself in neverending sequence. As a digital landscape, Tree Stories presents an alternative space where organic and inorganic life exists in continuous opposition. Through this cyclic and simultaneous process of construction and destruction, the work offers a vision of precarious balance, one in which opposing actors dictate the future of a system forever on the brink of collapse. Bridget DeFranco (b. 1996) is an artist working in generative animation and ambient game systems. Her practice explores how space is constructed behind the screen particularly through the formal arrangement and movement of digital objects. Central to her practice is the tension between models of perspective as simulated in 3D virtual environments and the fragmented, often unstable spaces of media technology. Though game-like in nature, her work remains largely without interaction, instead functioning as emergent, infinite systems.

Tree Stories is a generative video application built with Unity and C#. Once the application is launched, the program will run infinitely. The aspect ratio can be adjusted for various screening capacities.