HYPERSYNTHESIS, 2025 | chromosapiens

SARA
CHRISTOVA

HYPERSYNTHESIS

(populus alba)

multimedia installation

white plastic tree miniatures, orange strip light, black sand, blue antifreeze, steel basin.

2025

Fractured Continuum

Sound Art Museum

Vampiric vegetation growing from a pool of antifreeze and sand, lit by an artificial sun, and auroras which no longer dance above the atmosphere.

HYPERSYNTHESIS (populus alba) channels a future in which the Earth has been stripped of its resources, and whose magnetic field has been disturbed beyond repair, while imagining the future of industrial farming.

A common feature on the sides of many of the Beijing main roads are countless nearly perfectly neat rows of trees whose barren branches hibernate in the bleak midwinter. When driving past at speed, their unnatural symmetry creates repetitive optical alignments, which seem to go on endlessly. Following research into local urban forestry, and particularly the planting of populus alba (white poplar), a non-native invasive species introduced over the last 20 years, this work pays homage to industrial greenhouses and the unfathomable scale of human intervention in natural environments.

HYPERSYNTHESIS (populus alba) was presented at Fractured Continuum (9 March - 30 April 2025, Sound Art Museum, Beijing, China), curated by Cheng Xi and art director Yu Er. Culminating Christova's 2-month residency with Elsewhere Culture and Dulwich College Beijing, the exhibition featured a series of works developed during her time in Beijing, as well as pieces and performances by local guest artists Ning An, Li Yanzheng, Xu Han and Yang Yu.