This insightful and unique experience told guests more than they would ever want to know about what will happen to them after death.

Created by artist duo French and Mottershead, Woodland, which took place in tranquil openings in the Stanmer Park forest, is a 20 minute description of the body’s return to the earth.

Participants were given a piece of material to lie on, a smartphone and headphones and sent into the woods, guided to a specific spot with the aid of a mobile app.

Once there, we rolled out our mats, lay down, and pressed play on our devices. What unfolded was often informative, sometimes uncomfortable but always enlightening.

The event was created with input from forensic anthropologists and ecologists and that meticulous approach shone through as we were presented with the intimate details of our own demise.

We learnt how our body temperature will fluctuate wildly in the hours and days after death, how maggots will begin pupate in the area around our corpse, and how, eventually, tree roots will start to grow through our skeleton, wrenching it horribly out of shape.

There were a few nice linguistic touches, too, such as when the softly-spoken narrator talked of the “scorched island” that would appear around us on the forest floor.

For all the grizzly facts, though, there was something uplifting and weightless about Woodland. For one thing, it certainly put our everyday stresses into perspective. The neutral, non-sentimental tone the monologue was delivered in was highly effective.

It was fascinating and bizarrely liberating to listen to how our dead bodies will provide nutrition to the surrounding plant and animal life, continuing the grand cycle of life.

Woodland was the kind of event that Brighton Festival excels in; a site-specific experience that educated and enthralled.