Matt Spahr and Valerie Molnar: Collaborative and Time Based Installation

Vibration Rate
Vibration Rate







Vibration Rate 




Vibration Rate





Vibration Rate





Matt and Val’s most recent and ongoing project, Vibration Rate, is centered around four Ficus trees that they have given aspirational names of Billy Jean King, Steven James Anderson, Nee Moffitt, and André René Roussimoff.  The Ficus reside in an indoor environment that takes care of the plants’ both physical and metaphysical needs.

They start their care of the plants with water, light, food, and go beyond to bounce off of the fringe scientists of the 1970s with music, meditation, tesla plates and spirit walks.  Inside their home base the plants receive regulated spring water, light, humidity, a hand knitted simulated sunrise and sunset, curated music through their watering system, a tesla plate for healing vibrations, and mirrors with images of mature trees for inspiration.  As an extension, Matt and Val project what these potentially sentient beings might want or need in order to be happy.  The plants are taken out to see things like sunsets from mountain tops and moss gardens on boulder streams.  A system is currently being built to give the plants a voice. In order to tell if these measures are amounting to happiness or growth in the plants Matt and Val will track the four’s success though precise computerized monitoring. 

Matt Spahr and Valerie Molnar, collaborative team since 2012, investigate the transfer of energy and the dynamic exchange within nature with color, form, and complex time based installation. Through plants, residual haunting, sculpture, and painting they experiment and debate on both real and romantic ideas of the inherent and potentially inherent attributes of naturally occurring phenomenon in our universe.

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