I was happy to be part of the ANAT Micro talk series last week – featuring Melissa DeLaney from ANAT plus Jennifer Kemarre Martiniello + Prof Simon Haberle (ANU) and myself Keith Armstrong + Dr. Eleanor Velasquez (TERN) alongside the ANAT team.

I made the following notes for the talk – much of which was covered in the discussion – and which will in time be made available on video.

FAI is an art-science collaboration with Samford Ecological Research Facility (SERF) in SEQ, and the ecological data science organisation TERN (Terrestrial Ecology Research Network). The project is an examination of the innate, more than human, regenerative and creative intelligences that are allowing a 2 ha pasture, to slowly return itself back to a biodiverse forest, with minimal human assistance.

Our aim is to re-vegetate a 2 hectare site at Samford Ecological Research Station (SERF) in SEQ, acting as caretakers rather than directors, whilst also adding subtle, forest-enhancing artworks (Called Forest Art Intelligences) to the plot that will both benefit the forest and also allow audience engagement and interpretation with the myriad non-human intelligence of the site.

My collaborators are:

• Dr. Eleanor Velasquez – from TERN (B/g in arts and ecology & education officer)
• Forest restoration ecologists Dr. David Tucker and Dr. Gabrielle Lebbinck (strategy and practice for stewardship and botanical survey of the site)
• SERF Land manager Marcus Yates (all on site aspects of management and deeply lived advice)This steering group/panel/all committed to the same outcome and engaged with examining the idea of art intelligences from our different perspectives and cross fertilising. Because the artwork benefits the forest that allows the science team to both advise and then suggest approaches – as our capacity to co-develop slowly enhances.

Show slideshow of  photos:

What have been the highlights of your residency (to date)?

• Innumerable visits to the site – to spend time, walk on Country and listen, observe, activate senses, and slowly, surely learn – (Access to powerful Country).
• Watching the forest begin to recreate itself.
• ISEA Visit of the ANAT team and Angie Abdilla – New Ways Old – to see the affect the site and concept has on others (i.e. it’s not just us feel the power of this place!)
• Having the artwork become a key feature of the SERF ‘Engaging Science’ trail
• Discovering a rare red backed button quail after summer 2024, and changing our project plans to accommodate it
• Being at the table around all decisions related to the long future protection of the site
• Understanding that intelligence is far more than being just ‘like us”
• Conceiving how we might make an artwork for the forest: that is appropriate, beneficial and respectful to the forest – and envisaging how we might establish analogs of the forest’s natural, metabolic intelligences that will allow both art and general audiences (on site and remotely) insight and engagement: (e.g. ART INTELLIGENCES, ACCELERATORS, INTERPRETERS)

3. Where to next?

• The site should be indistinguishable from the adjacent forest within 50-100 years! We expect the trees to double in size by the end of this season and then onwards.
• This Collaboration is just beginning.
• Keen to establish ongoing engagement with Traditional Owners – a work in process determined by the site’s owners
• Now starting creation of the first 3 of a series of interventions on site  – and then allowing time and ecological process (2025 onwards) to direct those artworks (evolution/decay) – with human audience engagement then emerging through direct experience, documentation and other forms of aesthetic translation

How has your art practice been influenced by the residency environment? 

• Understanding better how to put analog life at the centre of a respectful making process
• “With the recent rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI), we have overemphasised algorithms and other mathematical abstractions, based upon ourselves, and have neglected tacit, embodied, living more than human intelligences. As a consequence, our ability to be in the world – in other words, our wisdom – seems to have diminished dramatically”. (Paraphrased Capra quote)
• This project offers me/us a powerful challenge to do better – to try to overcome what Laura and Stoller’s call colonial common sense/ ‘settler logic – recognise and counteract that embedded, unacknowledged, disciplinary violence.
• Develop responses that are appropriate, respectful sustainable and regenerative.
• Not be afraid to uses appropriate materials – and draw upon technology just where appropriate – engaging with lively analog materials as much as electronics and computation

What have you learnt from one another as collaborators and what traces will you leave at the completion of the residency?

Science’s shares a passion and ideals for a better world. Often its self-imposed limits dictate ways of seeing problems, and disallow outlets for the anger, dread and hope that scientists feel. This collaboration presents one different way of engaging to promote the shared passion all who care for the environment feel, and asking different questions/asking questions differently.

The ability to form abstract concepts, symbols and mental images is a key feature of our consciousness, and human intelligence today includes the abstractions we associate with mathematics and with computers – algorithms, mathematical models and the like. However, from the systemic perspective of life at large, these mathematical abstractions are peripheral to the intelligence inherent in all living organisms. Living intelligence is tacit and embodied. Its key quality is the ability to be in the world, to move around in it, and to survive in it.
(Fritjof Capra, Resurgence and Ecologist Magazine)

With the recent rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI), we have overemphasised algorithms and other mathematical abstractions and have neglected our tacit, embodied, living intelligence. As a consequence, our ability to be in the world – in other words, our wisdom – seems to have diminished dramatically. Indeed, a civilisation that sees making money rather than human wellbeing as its main goal and in the process of doing so destroys the natural environment on which human survival depends can hardly be deemed very intelligent.
(Fritjof Capra, Resurgence and Ecologist Magazine)

Emerging Rationale: 8/10/24
FAI comprises the entire re-growth site at SERF, as it develops over the years – with the associated land management processes being the site’s curation and maintenance functions.  Within that emerging forest, site specific (art) interventions dotted across the land are each designed to both benefit the site ecologically (and in some cases aesthetically), whilst also providing window of engagement into the site’s ecological recovery for future audiences.

1:  Ai ‘Art intelligences’ & Aii (‘Art intelligence interpreters’)

Art Intelligences (Ai) = Experimental artworks, embedded within the forest site, compatible with, & allied with the profound, natural intelligences of the forest (the meta-artwork) as it repairs and re-grows. These hybrid installations across the site  ‘evolve with’ and ‘learn from’ the evolving forest whilst directly benefitting its growth.   Ais might also evoke awe and encourage public engagement with the forest’s fluxes of intelligent natural regrowth. Ais are placed at principal, representative sites, and therefore stand in as proxy for the entire forest development

Art Intelligence accelerators (Aia) = Additional/embellishing, creative elements added to Art Intelligences to enhance and accelerate local ecological processes – therefore intended primarily for non-humans. For example these may add additional benefit or encouragement to certain organisms to be and become,  that in turn will further aid forest recovery.

Art Intelligence interpreters (Aii) = Elements that create additional layers of engagement with the Ais, and their hosting forest, intended predominantly for human audiences (art and otherwise). Interpreters  may be accessed both locally and/or remotely – (e.g.  they may involve on-site translations in light sound & vibration and forms of online observation). Aii interpreters may also draw data from the existing on-site scientific observatory instruments  (eg. scientific standards such as laser scanners, ‘acoustic observatory’ stations, veg-change cameras & carbon sequestration soil/air probes), and may also employ an analog material palette of ‘lively materials’ capable of detecting & registering changes above & below the soil in colour, light, movement & growth (including absorbent flexing woods and metals, reflective materials, sensitive litmus papers, continually circulated water & seed banks) as well as networked analog sensor systems accessible remotely.

Hence whereas the entire site  is an experimental artwork –  these added elements Ai’s + Aia’s further activate the site  with Aii’s then encouraging further human observation and engagement.

Mark Rifkin, a literary scholar, develops the concepts of settler common sense in ways that are resonant with anthropologist Laura and Stoller’s concept of colonial common sense.  .. their ‘common sense’ is a normative, embodied multi-sensory effectively and politically charged way of knowing. As a kind of common sense, it sediments and habituates the difference between good and bad and right and wrong in settler worlds. It is .. highly attuned to colonial values and norms, attentions, sensibilities, aesthetics, desire. ..Its..  economies and forms of nostalgia dictate what is seeable, sayable, thinkable and knowable, and what cannot be seen, said, imagined or felt.  It limits, for example, what we think, what we can experience, what we value and how we intervene in the world, especially how we engage land, forests and plants.

If settlers would make space, there are many other stories to be heard about these lands and their relations.

Natasha Myers –  Becoming Sensor for a Planthroposcene  (October 22, 2020).mp3

Introducing first 3 on-site Ais 

1: Ai (1) – tetericornis
This 2tonne, enormous fallen limb from ancient Forest Blue Gum (E. tetericornis), in a far corner of the site,  is scheduled removal for for H&S reasons. Hence we have decided to move it to the sloped bank site to form one of the initial site’s Art Intelligences Ai’s. This carefully placed fallen tree limb, will be set amongst the young, emergent trees already on site, to slowly become a home for insects, other creatures and seed spreading perching birds – supporting biodiversity in its own unique way – becoming in effect a low cost low rent housing for a myriad of future species. This addition of additional current and future carbon and nutrients to the emerging forest  – a site currently missing  the richness of a forest floor or any real form of shading – will also feed the regenerating ground, and encourage development of mycorrhizal networks – whilst also providing shelter, food, and habitat for a variety of creatures. In otherwords – it will be a gift to the ecosystem.”

Consistent with the idea of an Ai – it will thus become embedded within the forest site, compatible with, & allied with the profound, natural intelligences of the forest’s (meta-artwork) as it repairs and re-grows. As a hybrid, dramatic installation will  ‘evolve with’ and ‘learn from’ the forest whilst directly benefitting its growth.  Furthermore such a dramatic structure has the capacity to evoke awe and encourage public engagement with the forest’s processes of intelligent natural regrowth through its physical presence.

2: Ais (2+3) – acacias
These fallen older acacias trees already lie within the site and are already both actively degrading and forming a protective site for emerging young trees. They will form the second and third Ais – being in essence on-site readymades.

Step 2: Initial Art intelligence accelerators = Creative elements added to the Art Intelligences to enhance and accelerate ecological processes

Aia’s (Art Intelligence accelerators) are creative elements, added to the first three Art Intelligences (ie the fallen limbs/trees), and are designed to enhance and accelerate ecological processes. More of these would initially be applied to the smooth, still mostly whole Bluegum limb. They may include aesthetic organic and inorganic additional elements; Organic elements, tbc may include:

• initial temporary housing for native insects, borers, wasps and bees (e.g synthesised mud/hollow tubes/drillings)
• soil-submerged tree ends to encourage early termite activity
• young tree(s) transplanted from another area where in greater abundance
• a formal series of furrows/holes in that vicinity that will in time catch leaf matter/seeds
• selective weeding and grass care around trees to enhance their sound root growth

And then inorganic AIa (Art Intelligence accelerators) elements may include:

• a gravity fed slow-drip water system to keep an area of ground/the log permanently damp – encouraging both growth of lichens and fungi and accelerating breakdown.
• a perspex sided soil window to encourage root and fungi growth whilst providing observational capacity.
• machinic versions of mammalian soil: digging/scratching/manuring/aerating) – realised by electronically controlled/solar powered ‘muscle wire’ bark scratchers/depositors – designed to agitate and slowly break down the surface of wood and soil over time.
• formal, sculptural provision of attractants for local pollinating species (native honey/pollen sculptures).
• seasonal, occasional low level lighting to attract night- time pollinators and other insects.

Step 3:Initial Art intelligence Interpreters = Additional creative elements added to the Art Intelligences suited for the engagement/comprehension of human audiences – with both local and remote access capacities.

This may include a temporary analog material palette of ‘lively materials’ capable of detecting & registering changes above & below the soil in colour, light, movement & growth (including absorbent flexing woods and metals, reflective materials, and periodically installed sensitive litmus papers.

An Arduino powered, cellular ‘flux cycle’ recording station  may also be used to track changing analog fluxes day by day and month by month ..  with only their uncalibrated patterns, shapes and intensities providing an abstract online analogy of the Ai site, set alongside captured video imagery and sound highlights from the on site ‘Acoustic Observatory recorder’.

Other AV outcomes will be developed from existing on-site scientific observatory (eg. from LiDar/laser scans, ‘acoustic observatory’ stations, veg-change cameras & carbon sequestration soil/air probes).

 

The next step was to Consider how discrete sites might  be connected/’networked‘ together – i.e. ‘real time’, ‘offline’ or abstract connectivity?

Another way of seeing the world was possible, one infinitely more vital and interconnected than any I had previously imagined. In their worlds, information pulsed beneath the ground and floated on the breeze, interactions pulsed and shifted to the rhythm of the seasons, and knowledge and understanding grew, slowly but sturdily, over decades and centuries.
Bridle, J., 2023, Ways of Being

Assuming points of interest within the artwork site will somehow link within the work I began to consider the many ways such connectivity might be developed between the sites – on a continuum between the literal and the abstract- remembering that outcomes should be in some way beneficial (ie regenerative) rather than extractive.

I was also aware of the importance of looking beyond the site (remembering it as a Mortonian ‘mesh’) – given the interconnections – for example the rich, cool dark vine forests along Samford Creek might one day be akin to the gulley area maybe? Could these be what some have called ‘mother sites’ (see the ‘mother tree’ concept from the wood wide web – highly-connected hub trees who share their excess carbon and nitrogen through the mycorrhizal network with the understory seedlings, which can increase seedling survival) –  places of deep time that the art work site is heading (back) towards – sites that imagine the future elsewhere – potentially where the exchange of materials happens ?

 Options

It struck me that connectivity might be be framed by the diverse ways that plants communicate/procreate/signal/interconnect with each other and the broader atmosphere throughout their lifecycles. For example could we mimic the ways plants send out signals to each other like grass seed pollen (impossible odds you’d think to hit a target??) – suggesting chance but rich interactions between nodes – or could nodes somehow come together to create something summative?

In a transitional aesthetic, art supports human and other forms of life, often exploited through extraction. Rather than fulfilling an extractive aesthetic, can ecosystems be reconstructed without overreach, but through regenerative acts?
Mary Mattingly (Link to source)

Mattingly’s words also offered up some possibilities :

My intuition at that stage was to engage a different/arguably more appropriate metaphor of connectvity for the work than the regular computational node and network models (eg the one that  wood wide web analogy riffs off) – a model/concept that for me maps less comfortable with the profoundly entangled universes of a site such as this. This might include:

• Line of sight (but assumed visual signalling not relevant)
• Electronic (signalling/osmosis through tubes/fungal hyphae/liquids/plumbing)
• Gaseous (Chemical signals/VOCs/root absorption)
• Wind (pollinated/semi random anther and stigma
• see further notes at the bottom of this post

These questions led me back to some of the thinking of Karen Barad and her particular quantum brand of new materialism.

Barad reminds us of a foundational paradox of the universe: that according to Quantum Physics, all matter paradoxically exhibits properties of both waves and particles.  Everything from light to compound molecules are according to  science observable both as particles—unique, finite, and (in most cases) material, and yet also as waves–in essence oscillations that carry energy as they propagate through media.  

A wave is therefore a form of energetic activity that in Barad’s words arises from/requires profoundly complex ‘intra-activity’ between particles – thereby forming shapes that self perpetuate and move through a medium – without being defined or entirely confined by that medium (think moire patterns or oceans).

Brad speaks to intra-activity as not two bodies acting upon one another but rather a process of becoming phenomena or becoming bodies. This suggests that the entire universe is a continual state of emergence – in which nothing is certain or fixed – but is always becoming itself through its intra-action with everything else. The material world is the constant intra-action of particles – of electrons touching everything else.

Intra-action is a Baradian term used to replace ‘interaction,’ which necessitates pre-established bodies that then participate in action with each other. Intra-action understands agency as not an inherent property of an individual or human to be exercised, but as a dynamism of forces (Barad, 2007, p. 141) in which all designated ‘things’ are constantly exchanging and diffracting, influencing and working inseparably. Intra-action also acknowledges the impossibility of an absolute separation or classically understood objectivity, in which an apparatus (a technology or medium used to measure a property) or a person using an apparatus are not considered to be part of the process that allows for specifically located ‘outcomes’ or measurement. Source

IN SUM
At that stage I resolved that the work should in someway engage the (geo and bio) spheres as they inflict each site – and that the connectivity between sites should be/or speak to in some way forms of wave motion rather than movement of discrete elements. To use another analogy – rather than the interconnectors being thought of as a pollen, instead focus on the waves of air caused by changing pressures that can be indicated by such pollen particles caught within them..

At that stage I was also continuing to ask:
What does beneficial mean within a respectful human plant engagement – does this suggest facets of ‘gardening’ maybe that create optimal conditions for flourishing – but what happens once then process stops??

How also might the overall work tune in and itself evolve over lifecycles – such as annual or perennial?

What might birth, growth and death means for the artwork – initiation, development, atrophy, decomposition, reintegration and new life ?

The ‘Intelligence’ of Plants
The founder of the ‘plant neurobiology movement’ Stephan Mancuso takes the view that our ” fetishisation of (mammalian) neurons, as well as our tendency to equate behaviour (and intelligence) with mobility, keeps us from appreciating what plants can do.” (Quote source).

Indeed, because they don’t move like animals, plants must by necessity develop an extensive, relational, and nuanced understanding of their local environments – arguably far beyond that of mammals like us. Plants therefore have to find everything they needs where they are located – and must have the capacity to defend themselves, while all the while remaining fixed in place. They must also cultivate ‘vectors’ – eg insects, animals or the wind to move their pollen to reproduce.

This “sessile life style,” as plant biologists term it, calls for an extensive and nuanced understanding of one’s immediate environment, since the plant has to find everything it needs, and has to defend itself, while remaining fixed in place. A highly developed sensory apparatus is required to locate food and identify threats.

Plants of course do frequently get eaten and so they would not want to have any irreplaceable organs like a brain or legs. To cope with this, plants therefore developed a modular design which can in some cases allow them to lose  to 90% of their body and yet still survive.  This an extraordinary capability and which has now parallel in the animal kingdom. “ Plants therefore have a level of resilience. that we can barely imagine”.

In this introductory talk Neuro-Botanist Dr. Stefano Mancuso presents intriguing evidence about how plants behave in what might be termed as ‘intelligent ways’ from a human perspective – i.e. fighting predators, maximising food opportunities. (It’s worth considering where/if his analysis falls into the trap of categorising intelligence as ‘like us’.)

(Excerpt from above video re root growth tips  – Stefano Mancuso: The roots of plant intelligence)

In his article in the New Yorker  ‘The Intelligent Plant’ Michael Pollan suggests that plants have evolved between fifteen and twenty distinct senses, including analogues of our five: smell and taste (i.e. they sense and respond to chemicals in the air or on their bodies); sight (they react differently to various wavelengths of light as well as to shadow); touch (a vine or a root “knows” when it encounters a solid object); and, it has been recently discovered, sound.

In a recent experiment, Heidi Appel, a chemical ecologist at the University of Missouri, found that, when she played a recording of a caterpillar chomping a leaf for a plant that hadn’t been touched, the sound primed the plant’s genetic machinery to produce defence chemicals. Another experiment, done in Mancuso’s lab and not yet published, found that plant roots would seek out a buried pipe through which water was flowing even if the exterior of the pipe was dry, which suggested that plants somehow “hear” the sound of flowing water. (Source)

Hence, whilst these are all further reasons to celebrate plants,  the  focus of this research will lie in discovering, listening to, celebrating and (where appropriate) encouraging the flourishing of the multiple forms of  ‘intelligence’ living at the artwork site, and its environs/atmospheres. This may include

• • Behaviours of plants (notably the emergent and established trees, grasses, sedges at the site)

  • Actions of related insects (various)

  • Changes in soil and soil bacteria (Notably in our case Purpureocillium)

  • Changes in atmospheres at the site

Being with Plants

Whilst plants are always in flux (often going through extraordinarily different phases where sometimes as much as 90% of their mature bodies can be become absent) – their fixated/sessile nature offers us an amazing opportunity to return to be with them, time after time. Plants therefore offer us an opportunity to be fully present with them. This idea is summed up  poetically by Ryan Shea in this podcast from the Nature Institute – in which he also reminds us that “the trees can’t actually grab your face and turn you towards them, so you have to do some of the work yourself.”

Setting Limits/Direction

Setting limits is vital in any arts project – and certainly one of this potential scope. @ April 2024, I have elected to make the following choices to frame subsequent initial work.

The project's starting focus will predominantly be on:

1: Observing/'coming to terms' with the  plant, fungal and invertebrate life and the supporting atmospheres that are profoundly governing and directing the evolution of the biological life at the site. {i.e. the on-site/in range non-human intelligences}.

2: Investigating the multiple, entangled 'intelligences' perceivable on site: consistent with the driving concept that 'intelligence' (a notoriously difficult to define term) is just one among many ways of being in worlds; and that it is profoundly entangled - given that everything in the more than-human (and of human) world is hitched to everything else. Hence, intelligence 'in the field' should not be categorised or reduced to something that is necessarily 'like us'. 

3: Developing commonality with First Nations 'right ways' of knowing and understanding intelligence within Country.

4: Using learnings from 1 - 3 to frame direct and shape the imagined symbiotic art forms.

FAI will therefore attempt to avoid repeating theories/practices  that have often (reductively) chosen to categorise ‘intelligence’ within human terms, as a implicit pillar of humanity’s longstanding taxonomic and anthropocentric project.

FAI also recognises and values the unique values of Indigenous biocultural knowledge and practices, and intends that the project’s key questions should remain constant with ‘cross-cultural’, ‘two-way’ or ‘right-way’ knowledge making/re-reviving . (See this related interview on ethnobotany and biocultural knowledge with Dr. Gerry Turpin from my prior project Carbon_Dating).

These stated foci build on my past projects (like the native grasses themed project Carbon_Dating) to recognise plants in so many ways define our biocultural environments – and therefore our capacity to live and share worlds with them.

What’s in it For Us? vs. Rights to Be/Become

The FAI team are effectively therefore acting as ‘native plant (and other species) guardians’ – playing our small part in guaranteeing their capacity to flourish.

Plants are super-critical to our survival because they provide us with oxygen, sustenance, clothing, medicine and more. However, the flourishing of any of these non-humans should not simply be dependent on their utilitarian use. Plants, like all other non-human life, have their own rights to be and become, and on their own terms. (This idea is endemic to the mission statement of the Australian Earth Laws Alliance ‘rights of nature’)

Recognising the Rights of Nature in law, means that we reject the notion that nature is human property and we legally recognise the rights of the natural world to exist, thrive and evolve. Recognising that the natural world is just as entitled to exist and evolve as we are, necessarily changes the way humans act.

‘Rights of Nature’ is grounded in the recognition that humanity is just one member of the wider earth community, and that we have evolved with, and are dependent upon, a healthy, interconnected web of life on Earth. Rights of Nature laws create guidance for actions that respect this relationship.

This assertion doesn’t suggest that we shouldn’t harvest or eat plants or use them in other ways: However critically we should act respectfully towards them – and consider them  as much more than a back grounding to our human worlds (something  Wandersee and Schussler noted in 1999 that stems from our innate ‘plant blindness’). 

FAI’s aim therefore is that the site/artwork will evolve predominantly according to its own needs – and not ones that necessarily suit humankind. Its worth noting that science based management decisions, such as weed control or replanting, are also therefore understood and planned within that altruistic process.

The intention of this series of posts is to develop some of the philosophical threads that will bind the project.

Forest Art Intelligence (FAI) comprises

1. 1.  A regenerating forest; which is also regarded as the project’s meta-artwork

   2. a series of planned, temporal actions that our art and science team take to encourage that forest’s regeneration.

   3. a series of on-site hybrid creations (named ‘Art Intelligences’) invented as the project unfolds that evolve to occupy their own ecological ‘niches’ that can assist supporting that forest’s growth.

   4. a public engagement strategy/campaign to
      – illuminate the forest’s unique processes of intelligent natural regrowth
      – promote an more inclusive definition of intelligence that engages with  the non-human world.

The FAI project therefore poses the following key questions:

• How to develop a series of speculative, embedded forms, called ‘Art Intelligences’, capable of growing and evolving alongside a regenerating forest that can ALSO benefit that forest’s health.

• How might such Art Intelligences slowly find, and then occupy, their own intelligent ‘niches’, within that forest’s ecology

• How might such artworks bring attention to the extraordinary non-human intelligences that underpin natural systems AND harness them to inspire and direct this experimental sci-art process.