Stranger to the Trees (original) (raw)
Related papers
Feeling the Forest - An Experimental "Paper"
Written for a course on experimetnal research methods, this work is also very much about experimental methods of conveyance. It is a website, of sorts, including images and sound, and it doesn't conform to strict traditions of academic writing. Created during the early days of the u.k.'s covid-19 shutdown, by a master's student yearning to be done with an annoying university and ready to get back to the wider, quieter spaces of the rural u.s., it serves many contextual purposes. OR, it can just be explored as a little multimedia yarn on forests, wihtout all that other contextuality (but, you've already read it here, so...). It's imperfect, like all writing here. Thoughts are very welcome (and desired!).
Attracted by Trees: Art in the Landscape by Patrick Dougherty, Roxy Paine and Konstantin Dimopoulos
Urban Culture Institute, 2016
Life on earth is hard to imagine without trees. Their environmental, biological, economic and cultural functions permeate our existence. Countries that lack trees tend to subsist at the edge of survival. Three leading, contemporary artists from the U.S. and Australia–Patrick Dougherty, Roxy Paine and Konstantin Dimopoulos–have centered their creative inquiry on trees, creating temporary large-scale, site-based installations in the landscape that utilize trees. All three apply the strict modular principles of serial art. How do their works relate to the natural environment in terms of materials, narratives and interpretations? How do these artists’ installations differ from each other?
In 1986, Prince Charles was famously and publicly lambasted and labelled 'potty' for talking to plants. Things have changed. This talk will briefly consider scientific understandings of tree communication and then consider the notion of anthropomorphism. I will then move on to briefly consider how tree communication has been represented in Literature as a fantasy-embedded in the magical and otherworldly. The last part of the talk will focus on a novel called Pollard, by Laura Beatty, and suggest that Literary representations of trees might be changing-perhaps becoming more realistic. As a result of such literary re-evaluation, I ask if we might change our cultural imaginings of trees and thus enable a more productive relationship with them. Recent research conducted into tree communication shows clear evidence that trees can both communicate and form relationships with other trees around them. Professor of Forest Ecology, Suzanne Simard likens the below-ground fungal network of mycorrhiza, through which trees communicate to the internet: a worldwide web , this fungal network functions as a series of myriad biological pathways that allow communication between trees and thus enable the forest to behave as a single organism with a collective intelligence. According to Simard 'trees talk', in order to develop a community with an increased level of resilience. Trees are far better equipped for survival when in the company of others. In his book, The Hidden Life of Trees, the forester and ranger, Peter Wohlleben, similarly, sums up much of the current research to make the case that the forest is a social network. He says that trees are social beings that communicate with their own and other species of tree in a number of ways. For example, when grazed by giraffes on the African savannah, umbrella thorn acacias flood their foliage with a toxic substance that renders them unpalatable. The trees then give off a warning gas that indicates the presence of the impending threat to neighbouring trees. Furthermore, trees are also able to differentiate between the nature of attacks-for example, they can distinguish the difference between the bite of a deer and the cut of a pruning implement. In the first case, the tree is able to detect the saliva of a deer and as a result can then send out signals to produce toxicity, and in the latter, the tree will initiate a wound healing mechanism. This very specific information is then able to be communicated to neighbouring trees.
Creative Encounters with the Dark Forest
Ecopedagogies Symposium: Critical and Creative Approaches. Conference at the Firs Botanical Research Centre and Manchester Museum, 3 July, 2024
I propose a paper and a ‘sonified photograph’ sound installation, sharing my practice-based photography PhD research explored in partnership with Kielder Observatory, in Northumberland International Dark Sky Park. Through conversational and/or sensory engagements with human and more-than-human communities, I explored the dark-sky experience in Northern England through photography practice, distinct from conventional starry-sky ‘astrophotography.’ Creative co-learning was key, where photographic outputs catalysed conversations on the dark-sky experience with Observatory stakeholders, drawing attention to imaginative nocturnal experience. Kielder Observatory is an off-grid facility in Kielder Forest, in England’s largest human-made woodland. Through arts-based research, narrative inquiry and reflective practice, I encountered dark-sky communities, photographed at night and slept under the stars. Whilst a ‘built’ forest, Kielder’s vibrant species of birds, mosses and insects contributed to creative outputs in unexpected ways, marking outdoor exhibited images and enhancing a ‘sonified photograph’ sound trail. When disseminating work through public events and ‘art’ walking tours, I learned how creativity in the dark forest connects human and more-than-human communities through “knowing as you go” (Ingold, 2000, pp. 228-231), where wandering and dwelling enabled learning under dark skies. Ingold, T. (2000) The Perception of the Environment: Essays in Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. London: Routledge. https://ecopedagogies.cargo.site/
A tree cannot grow without roots holding it fast to the ground, procuring its very nourishment. The family tree is equally dependent upon its infrastructure. We are bound to specific lineages that have brought us to this present state in time. Both genealogy and photography work to secure family histories. The evolution of the camera allowed individuals to take hold of the past and photographs have helped to populate history’s narrative ever since. Much of what we know about the people that came before us is archived in both written and visual forms. However, any record of time is never in effect the reality of any given situation, but an acute interpretation. Photographs, for instance, frame the outward appearance of things, while they simultaneously divulge hidden qualities embedded in the artist’s process from initial capture to final presentation. Transformations occur as people continuously examine the past in the present. This is the transformative nature of photography that I embrace in my work. As a book artist I have also explored how words can frame experiences and shape meaning. This work involves the space between memory and imagination where family land and all of its complicated histories are ultimately transformed.
ANTENNAE, Journal of Nature in Visual Culture, UK http://antennae.org.uk/ANTENNAE%20ISSUE%2017.docx.pdf
Front Cover Image: Giovanni Aloi, from the Plant Revolution series, sketch, 2010 © Giovanni Aloi the question: "what is it like to be a plant?" through an adaptation of a book titled The Beauty of Being Plant (yet to become available in English) written by Patrick Blanc, a French botanist who invented the now more and more popular "green walls". His bittersweet narrative is counterpointed by an essay titled Aspects of plants intelligence (2003) by Professor Anthony Trewavas. The essay, a straight scientific offering, bravely addresses the concept of intelligence in plants and goes on to argue that, that not only are plants intelligent beings, but that they are also capable of learning through memory -plenty of food for thought.
Listening to the forest and its curators
Proceedings of the 32nd annual ACM conference on Human factors in computing systems - CHI '14, 2014
Our natural environment is complex and sensitive, and is home to a number of species on the verge of extinction. Surveying is one approach to their preservation, and can be supported by technology. This paper presents the deployment of a smartphone-based citizen science biodiversity application. Our findings from interviews with members of the biodiversity community revealed a tension between the technology and their established working practices. From our experience, we present a series of general guidelines for those designing citizen science apps.
Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices, 2022
This text reflects on an artistic practice based on repeated visits to chosen trees, performing for camera with them in the context of the project ‘Meetings with Remarkable and Unremarkable Trees’. The individual daily practice of becoming a tree, based on a yoga exercise, together with a variety of trees, is complemented with a collective online performance, the ‘Be-coming Tree’ event. The daily practice brought to the fore the tension between a heightened perceptual awareness of the bodymind while balancing and the awareness of the tree and the broader environment. Noticing the tension between an inward and an outward focus, the text proposes that sustaining this very tension is relevant for developing an ecologically informed consciousness of our co-dependency with other life forms, such as trees.