Project Orientation

ANAT Micro Talk 10/10/24

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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.

ANAT advertising image, Oct 2024 (Image courtesy ANAT)

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.

ANAT Speakers for Microtalk (Image courtesy ANAT)

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:

Mixophyes fasciolatus/Great-barred-frog, in pathway through adjacent forest, October 7th, 2024 (Image Keith Armstrong)

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)

  1. 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
Arachnid on the artwork site, Oct 7 2024, (Image Keith Armstrong)

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.

New life on the artwork site, Oct 7 2024 (Image Keith Armstrong)
Philosophical_Directions, Project Orientation

Art Intelligences, Accelerators, Interpreters

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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)

The site by moonlight, 7/10/24 (Image Keith Armstrong)

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)

The artwork site at last light, 7/10/24 (Image Keith Armstrong)

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.

A future Ai, awaiting move to the site, 7/10/24 (Image Keith Armstrong)

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, enormus 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 mychorizzal 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.

Proposed log to use as basis for Ai (Image Keith Armstrong)
Proposed log to use as basis for Ai (Image Keith Armstrong)
Proposed log to use as basis for Ai (Image Keith Armstrong)

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.

Fallen myrtle in the corner of the site, Sept 2024, (Image Keith Armstrong)
Lichen on myrtle logs in the corner of the site, Sept 2024, (Image Keith Armstrong)
Fallen myrtle in the corner of the site, Sept 2024, (Image Keith Armstrong)
Fungi on the fallen myrtle logs in the corner of the site, Sept 2024, (Image Keith Armstrong)
Fungi on the fallen myrtle logs in the corner of the site, Sept 2024, (Image Keith Armstrong)

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
Insect gall on developing Eucalypt leaf, Sept 2024 (Image Keith Armstrong)

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.
Paper wasp creates nest underneath one of the artwork site’s LiDAR position markers, Sept 2024 (Image Keith Armstrong)

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).

Spider cocoon grows on installed instruments (Image Keith Armstrong)

 

Science Direction

Myrtaceae(/mərˈteɪsiˌaɪ, -siːˌiː/) Science/Restoration/WWW

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Myrtaceae(/mərˈteɪsiˌaɪ, -siːˌiː/) Science/The Site

“As they slowly come together as a renewed community, they will be an extraordinary and invaluable addition to our Australian heritage.”
Dr. David Tucker (10/8/24, EF grant reference letter)

SERF Myrtacea, Sept 2024 )(Image Keith Armstrong)

“Clearly Eucalypt species such as these are in effect ‘hiding in plain sight’ in the Australian public’s imagination, and I have long asked how we might encourage people to begin to better see what we risk losing. Clearly, we need other approaches beyond science to overcome our ‘plant blindness’, and this is why I support the Forest Art Intelligence project’s aim of bringing attention to the described natural intelligence of this Eucalypt woodland as it recovers over time”.
Dr. David Tucker (10/8/24, EF grant reference letter)

The purpose of this post is to attempt come to come to terms, maybe just a little more,  with some of the artwork sites’ eucalypt  species given the project is focused upon their flourishing. This will  both enhance the shared language with the science team, and further my capacity to differentiate the ‘wood from the trees’ whilst on site 😉 This, based upon a realisation how little I comprehend in a systematic/science0-eyed sense when in the bush, despite the all consuming experience it always engenders. Is it therefore possible to absorb more?

The predominant trees at the two artwork sites are in the order Myrtaceae {the Myrtle family} – a large, cosmopolitan family of plants with over 5000 species worldwide, well represented in Australia contain ca. 12 families with over 70 genera and over 1500 species – can be found in a wide range of habitats and climatic zones – coastal heaths, temperate forests and woodlands, tropical rainforests – even arid and alpine zones.. (https://anpsa.org.au/genera/myrtle-family-myrtaceae/).

All myrtle species are woody, contain essential oils, and have flower parts in multiples of four or five. The leaves are evergreen, alternate to mostly opposite, simple, and usually entire (i.e., without a toothed margin). The flowers have a base number of five petals, though in several genera, the petals are minute or absent. The stamens are usually very conspicuous, brightly coloured, and numerous.

GENERA members of Myrtaceae (i.e. more than one GENUS) include  Eucalypts: Eucalyptus, Corymbia, Angophora  {together collectively known as the eucalypts}.

Many species fall within this genus, including

The eucalypts –  within the plant family Myrtaceae – number among their relatives such well known Australian genera as Callistemon (bottlebrushes), Melaleuca (paperbarks), Leptospermum (tea trees) and Syncarpia (turpentine)

Grassland sunset (Image Keith Armstrong)

Some names in common usage are:

  • Apple – A name used by early European settlers due to a similarity in appearance of some plants to apple trees (eg. Angophora bakeri, Narrow-leaved apple)
  • Ash – Timber is similar to the European ash trees (eg. Eucalyptus regnans, Mountain ash)
  • Blackbutt – The lower part of the trunk has persistent bark which is usually black due to past fires (eg. Eucalyptus pilularis, Blackbutt)
  • Bloodwood – Timber often has pockets of a dark red gum known as kino (eg. Corymbia eximia, Yellow bloodwood)
  • Box – Bark is retained on the tree and is short fibred; plates of bark may shear off with age (eg. Eucalyptus melliodora (Yellow box)
  • Ironbark – Bark is retained on the tree and is hard and deeply furrowed (eg. Eucalyptus crebra, Narrow-leaved ironbark)
  • Mallee – Multi-stemmed trees, usually fairly small in height (eg. Eucalyptus albida, White-leaved mallee)
  • Peppermint – The oil in the leaves has a peppermint-like aroma (eg. Eucalyptus dives, Broad-leaved peppermint)
  • Ribbon Gum – Bark is deciduous and is shed in long strips which often hang from the branches (eg. Eucalyptus viminalis, Ribbon gum)
  • Scribbly Gum – Bark is deciduous and the smooth trunk is marked with “scribbles” caused by an insect larva (eg. Eucalyptus sclerophylla, Scribbly gum)
  • Stringybark – Bark is retained in long fibres which can be pulled off in “strings” (eg. Eucalyptus eugenioides, Thin-leaved stringybark)
Eucalypt Bark Types
We will encourage the transition process on this plot via selective slashing, mulching, weeding, and the introduction of fallen habitat trees & occasional selective planting under Marcus Yates management and with advice and input from Dr David Tucker, Marcus Yates, Dr. Gabrielle Lebbink and Dr. Eleanor Velasquez.

SITE 1: 7164 sq. m passively managed plot – grassed sloping bank, last slashed July 23. Likely similar to the other dominant veg at SERF  – i.e. Myrtaceae woodland on Mesozoic to Proterozoic igneous rocks – specifically Eucalyptus tereticornis, Corymbia intermedia, E. crebra +/- Lophostemon suaveolens woodland on Mesozoic to Proterozoic igneous rocks
. This vegetation is ‘of concern’ Regional Ecosystem classification RE 12.12.12: @ 2021 – only 21.5% of this type remains as it is extensively cleared for pasture.

Re-growth on Site 1, 2024, (Image Keith Armstrong)

Emergent species:
Eucalyptus crebra: Narrow-leaved red ironbark
(Eucalyptus tereticornis, (blue gum /forest red gum/red irongum),
Corymbia intermedia (pink bloodwood),
Corymbia tesselaris (Moreton Bay ash))

Canopy species:
Lophostemon sauveolens (Swamp Box, Swamp Turpentine)

 Pink Bloodwood :Corymbia intermedia http://www.npqtownsville.org.au/native-plants-of-the-townsville-region/corymbia-intermedia/ https://apps.lucidcentral.org/rainforest/text/
entities/corymbia_intermedia.htm

Reference Trees at Barracks (in process learning!)

Reference tree positions @ Barracks (Image Keith Armstrong)

Other canopy/relevant local species we had initially planned to plant
Melaleuca quinquenervia (broad-leaved paperbark, paper bark tea tree),
Melaleuca salicina (willow bottlebrush),
Guoia semiglauca (guioa or wild quince)
with the expectation that many subcanopy and shrub species will passively regenerate through the dispersal of seeds from birds, water, wind etc. following canopy closure and site capture

SITE2: 7035.658 sq. m ‘wetland’, holding area – grassed seasonal wet gulley area – was burnt in August 2023  – likely an ecotone associated with wet gullies RE12.3.6, which reflects the forest type further along the drainage line – Melaleuca quinquenervia +/- Eucalyptus tereticornis, Lophostemon suaveolens, Corymbia intermedia open forest on coastal alluvial plains
weedy grass in foreground and mountain behind
Predominant weedy grass species in SERF active regeneration area gulley, Summer 2024 (Image Keith Armstrong)

EUCLID /Identification Processes:

from https://apps.lucidcentral.org/euclid/text/intro/learn.htm#Identifying

To the uninitiated, most eucalypt species tend to look similar, and while taxa in some groups are indeed difficult to distinguish, in general there are good features and clear characteristics to use in identification. Eucalypt leaf morphology provides a range of diagnostic features (as well as injects a level of confusion in the change from seedling to juvenile to sapling to adult leaves that takes place in the majority of species). Eucalypt fruits (gumnuts) also show great diversity in form and size. Identification in EUCLID for eastern Australian species usually fall back on the less conspicuous and accessible but highly diagnostic characters, often ones that may be less relevant in other plant groups.

In working with eucalypts in the field it is important to recognise whether the trees are cultivated, or occur naturally. If cultivated, they could be from anywhere in Australia. To aid identification take into account other aspects of the specimen, viz. the height of the plant, the number of stems or trunks, the colour of the crown, the overall appearance of the crown to determine if it is composed of juvenile or adult leaves, general size of the leaves (very small, e.g. E. parvula or E. kruseana, or very large, e.g. E. globulus) and the type of bark, basically, whether rough or smooth, and extent of coverage by the rough bark of the smaller branchlets. There is often considerable variation in some characters between trees of the same species in one population, especially in size of parts, such as length and width of leaves, length of petioles, bud sizes, lengths of peduncles and pedicels, and fruit dimensions and position of the disc relative to the rim of the fruit.

The ‘internal’ features of the eucalypt plant, such as the number of opercula in the bud, arrangement of stamens, number of ovule rows and seed shape, are usually more reliable for identification than the ‘external’ features. They are relatively protected from the elements and from various forms of predation. They are the parts that require handling and close inspection or even dissection, as opposed to macro observation.

Calistemon in Flower, SERF, 26/9/24 (Image Keith Armstrong)

Specimens for study may be obtained.. For most trees, a weighted length of rope can be thrown over a low branch which can then be broken off with a sharp tug and pulled to the ground for close inspection of the parts. Alternatively, for trees of moderate height, pole pruners can be used less destructively than the weighted rope. For tall trees it is a curious fact that the flowers and fruits are small and scarcely visible to the unaided eye, e.g. E. regnans. Then the canopy needs to be inspected with binoculars and a useful branch selected. If it is above rope-throwing height, the branch may be reached with the use of a shanghai by shooting a lead weight attached to a fine, light line over the branch and then attaching a thicker, stronger rope to one end of this line and then pulling this line up over the branch. Often the smallest trees or mallees have the largest buds and fruits, e.g. E. pyriformis. These plants are the easiest to sample, examine and assess.

The whole process of identification begins in the field with broad external assessment and ends with microscopic examination. In summary it might be said that the number of opercula on the developing flower bud is of absolute reliability, staminal inflexion, ovule row numbers and seed shape are of high reliability, bud numbers, flower colour and bark type of medium reliability, leaf colour of low reliability, bark colour of very low reliability. External features are very susceptible to seasonal and intra-population variability.

This is the level of detail to expect to shift through scientifically:!

Corymbia intermedia

(Pink Bloodwood) – Myrtaceae: Tree to 35 m tall. Forming a lignotuber. (ie embedded vegetative buds that allow regeneration following crown destruction – forming new stems/trunks (which can become massive) after fire possessing

Introduction to FOREST RESTORATION APPROACHES

Ecologist Susan Simmard (famous for defining the wood wide web) reminds how plants in effect suck up sunlight – photosynthesising via leaves (and sometime stems) – shuttling energy down into roots – and how they share carbon with other trees (e.g. interdependence). Tree roots and soil are the foundation of the forest – . The  mycelium from the mychorizza – infects and colonises roots  – and trade carbon for nutrients, forming  nodes and links/fungal highways – mother or hub trees nature the young – sending carbon to their seedlings in the understory. Forests Simmard reminds us aren’t just collections of trees but complex systems with hubs (hub trees) and networks .. that overlap and allow them to communicate and provide avenues for feedback and adaptation – that make the forest resilient. In the case of FAI – that network is in its infancy/simplified and needs nurture.

Eucalypts form symbioses with mycorrhizal fungi both in their native habitat and in plantations. For instance, one study of sporocarps under Eucalyptus globulus in both plantation and forest settings reported 44 putative ectomycorrhizal (ECM) species; 30 of which occurred in plantations (Lu et al. 1999)

Inter-plant communication through mycorrhizal networks mediates complex adaptive behaviour in plant communities.

See also : the Social Life of Trees – Susan Simmard

Likewise re: sentience/sapience (Sentience: The ability to feel emotions, have a subjective experience, develop a personality, and form a morality.Sapience: The ability to act rationally, to learn, to understand) – Peter Wohlleben (The Secret Life of Trees) makes compelling cases for communication and cooperation among plant species.

Please note that this info on restoration below may not all apply to a subtropical climate.. (Thanks Dr. Gabrielle Lebbinck for this heads up)
 
Approaches to Restoration: Reestablishing native grassy swards in degraded grassy white box woodlands

( Prober et al. 2005). + (Ref 2)A critical stage in the restoration and persistence of native plant composition and diversity is seedling germination and establishment. The seedling stage is often exceptionally vulnerable and determines the distribution of many species. (Harper 1977). Consequently, conditions for seedling recruitment will influence the composition and diversity of restored plant communities (Grubb 1977; Hobbs and Huenneke 1992; Morgan 2001; Clarke and Davison 2004). Restoration of ecological conditions that promote germination and establishment of native seedlings is thus an important component of successful restoration of species composition and diversity.

SERF Forbs (Image Keith Armstrong)

FORBS
Temperate grassy eucalypt woodlands in the agricultural zones of south-eastern Australia naturally support a high diversity of herbaceous perennial forbs among the dominant grass tussocks (McIntyre et al. 1993; Prober and Thiele 1995; Clarke 2000). These ecosystems have become highly fragmented and degraded through nearly 200 years of clearing and agricultural use, and most woodland remnants now have a high abundance of exotic plants and reduced native plant diversity (Lunt 1991; Tremont and McIntyre 1994; Prober and Thiele 1995). Ecological restoration of understorey plant diversity is thus urgently needed to conserve and enhance what remains of these grassy ecosystems (Cole and Lunt 2005; Prober and Thiele 2005; Gibson-Roy et al. 2007), and to ensure the long- term survival of many woodland forb species.

However, restoration of native plant diversity in temperate grassy ecosystems is not straight forward(McDougall and Morgan 2005). Understorey degradation in these ecosystems has been associated with altered ecological processes, particularly enhanced soil nutrient regimes (McIntyre and Lavorel 1994; Prober et al. 2002a; Dorrough et al. 2006). These can favour the long-term persistence of exotics (Prober et al. 2002b, 2005) and modify conditions for establishment and survival of many native species. In particular, competition from exotics may reduce resources for seedling establishment by native species (Grime 1979; Wilson and Tilman 1993; Lenz and Facelli 2005) and suppress slower-growing native species (Alvarez and Cushman 2002; King and Buckney 2002; Prober et al. 2002b).

Oversupply of red natal weedy grass, SERF plot, Sept 2024 (Image Keith Armstrong)

Restoration techniques that have attempted to address these altered ecological processes include spring burning, seasonal grazing and carbon addition. Spring burning removes litter, above-ground biomass and the seed bank of exotic annual grasses (Kost and De Steven 2000; Clarke and Davison 2001; Prober et al. 2004, 2005), reducing the abundance of annual exotic grasses in the following seasons, but variously enhancing broadleaf exotics (Prober et al. 2005). Heavy grazing in spring has similarly been found to reduce the seed set and abundance of exotic annual grasses (Menke 1992; Garden et al. 2000). Carbon addition promotes carbon-limited soil microorganisms, which subsequently compete with plants for available soil nitrogen, dramatically inhibiting the growth of nitrophilic annual exotics and in some cases allowing slower-growing native species a window-of-opportunity to establish (Averett et al. 2004; Corbin and D’Antonio 2004; Prober et al. 2005). Spring burning and carbon addition have proven successful for establishing native grasses in Australia (Prober et al. 2005) and grasses and forbs in tall-grass prairies in the USA (Baer et al. 2003; Blumenthal et al. 2003; Averett et al. 2004), and have led to successful restoration of ecological processes associated with nitrogen cycling in temperate grassy eucalypt woodlands (Prober et al. 2005).

An important next step in restoring woodland understoreys is to enhance native plant diversity by re-establishing sustainable populations of native perennial forbs. However, there is little data on natural recruitment and population dynamics of native forbs to guide this process (Morgan 2001; Clarke and Davison 2004), and responses of native forbs to the above restoration techniques (especially carbon addition) are unknown.

———————- TAXONOMY ADDENDUM —————–

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomy_(bi

LIFE: Eukaryota – Organisms whose cells have a membrane-bound nucleus.

DOMAIN/CLADE: Diaphoretickes – The majority of the earth’s biomass that carries out photosynthesis belongs to Diaphoretickes – 400,000 members.

KINGDOM/PLANTAE – predominantly photosysnthesisers who obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria to produce sugars from carbon dioxide and water, using the green pigment chlorophyll. (Exceptions are parasitic plants that have lost the genes for chlorophyll and photosynthesis, and obtain their energy from other plants or fungi. Most plants are muliticellular, except for some green algae. NB Plantae excludes fungi and some algae.)

PHYLUM/Traceophytes -Vascular plants (from Latin vasculum ‘duct’), also called tracheophytes (UK: /ˈtrækiːəˌfaɪts/,[5]US: /ˈtreɪkiːəˌfaɪts/)[6] or collectively tracheophyta. are plants that have lignified tissues (the xylem) for conducting water and minerals throughout the plant. They also have a specialized non-lignified tissue (the phloem) to conduct products of photosynthesis. The group includes most land plants (c. 300,000 accepted known species)[10] other than mosses

CLASS/Angiosperms – Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, They include all forbs (flowering plants without a woody stem), grasses and grass-like plants, a vast majority of broad-leaved trees, shrubs and vines, and most aquatic plants.

ORDER/Eudicots –  flowering plants (angiosperms) which are mainly characterized by having two seed leaves (cotyledons) upon germination.[1]The term derives from dicotyledon (etymologically, eu = true; di = two; cotyledon = seed leaf).

FAMILY/Rosids – Today’s broadleaved forests are dominated by rosid species, which in turn help with diversification in many other living lineages. Additionally, rosid herbs and shrubs are a significant part of arctic/alpine and temperate floras. The clade also includes some aquatic, desert and parasitic plants

Malvids

The malvids consist of eight orders of flowering plants: Brassicales, Crossosomatales, Geraniales, Huerteales, Malvales, Myrtales, Picramniales and Sapindales.

The Myrtaceae genera – https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Plastome-phylogeny-of-Myrtales-based-on-an-ML-analysis-of-78-genes-from-the-plastome-of_fig2_342821472

 

Project Orientation

Setup (12) Site LiDAR/Photo Scanning day specification 20/8/24

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As noted in the prior post  Setup 11 the entire site will be periodically recorded/imaged – aerially and terrestrially using photo, laser and video, according to periodic and repeatable scientific protocols.

QUT REF aerial team setup @ SERF 20/8/24. (Image Keith Armstrong)
QUT REF aerial team setting up Sony A7 camera, 20/8/24. (Image Keith Armstrong)

Working with the Senior Research Engineer (RPAS and Automation) at the QUT Research Engineering Facility we devised a plan to scan the site using laser and imagery as follows for the ‘mission’ they called UAS-196:

A prior work using LiDAR from SERF – Common Thread shown at ISEA 2023, Barcelona. (Image courtesy ISEA 2023)
QUT REF enterprise drone, 20/8/24. (Image Keith Armstrong)
QUT REF aerial team setup with LiDAR sensor mounted @ SERF 20/8/24. (Image Keith Armstrong)

After some discussion, these are the specifications we agreed to:

  • 2 person 4h long mission conducted by Research Engineering Facility (REF) flight operations team at SERF operating from nearby settlers hut
  • Hovermap ST-X LiDAR onboard DJI M300RTK to cover the area in cross pattern with 70m side offset and orbit around “Mother tree” (the Blue gum overlooking the site).
QUT REF team aerial scan on screen map, 20/8/24. (Image Keith Armstrong)
  • Handheld Hovermap ST-X LiDAR data collection with approx. 20m into the forest and around “Mother Tree” (to get additional under canopy information)
QUT REF team leader Dr, Dmitry Bratanov, preparing to do LiDAR ground scan, 20/8/24. (Image Keith Armstrong)
  • RGB Sony A7IVR (60MPx, full frame) or DJI P1 (42MPx full frame)  geotagged RGB imagery data collection for photogrammetry onboard DJI M300RTK with GSD 0.8cm/px..and the following post processing:
  • LIDAR data post-processing to registered point clouds (.laz) and LIDAR SLAM-based trajectory (.xyz)
  • LiDAR data colourisation post-processing using existing GoPro Hero9 from Hovermap ST-X  colourisation kit

    QUT REF team aerial setup RTK base stations, 20/8/24. (Image Keith Armstrong)
  • Merging airborne and handheld LIDAR scans post-processing
  • Postprocessing RGB imagery to orthomap and export of orthomosaic (hi resolution photo)
  • Survey of GCP targets with Emlid Reach RS2+ (allows 1cm per pixel accuracy geolocated correctly ‘on earth’

    QUT REF aerial team RTK basestations setup @ SERF 20/8/24. (Image Keith Armstrong)
QUT REF team leader Dr, Dmitry Bratanov, and Matthew Swan locating RTK transceivers, 20/8/24. (Image Keith Armstrong)
QUT REF team reflective ground control point + RTK transceiver location, 20/8/24. (Image Keith Armstrong)
  • Prep and post operation data handling and handover to QUT RDSS (Udrive) the project space is included as part of QUT Research Infrastructure subsidy
  • Included transport for the REF team (DMAX)
QUT REF aerial team flying LiDAR sensor, 20/8/24. (Image Keith Armstrong)
A prior artwork using LiDAR from SERF – Common Thread shown at ISEA 2023, Barcelona. (Image Keith Armstrong)

Thanks to the immaculate planning of the REF team – the  day was a success – with nothing untoward the usual glitches – ie things like RTK basestations not talking to the drones always as expected, sun going in and out, etc. But several hours later the data was all collected and ready for subsequent processing.

I wish to acknowledge the support of the Research Engineering Facility (REF) team at QUT for the provision of expertise and research infrastructure in enablement of this project – and special thanks to the wonderful team Senior Research Engineer (RPAS and Automation) Dr. Dmitry Bratanov, RPAS technician Matthew Swan and Senior Design and RPAS Technician Gavin Broadbent.

Project Orientation

Setup (11) Towards a Meta Analog of Intelligent Complexity’ (MAIC)

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I’m now at the first early stage of defining the pieces that I hope will make up the FAI project. The language isn’t sorted – and maybe neither are every element – but I can see achieving these ideas below would be an ideal to begin to work towards at this stage.

New life, FAI Site, August 2024 (Image Keith Armstrong)
Drosera spatulata Labill. (Spoon-leaved sundew) at SERF (Image Keith Armstrong)

Introduction
FAI’s project’s primary artwork outcome is a native forest slowly re-growing on Country at SERF in SEQld. Since 2023 that forest (or more correctly ‘grassy woodland biome’) has begun to recover after 100 years of being slashed back to pasture. As the forest cycles through yet unknown states of recovery, the project’s art-science team are conducting ongoing, ritual caring actions for that forest – in service of Country’s needs (e.g. inoculation of soil materials/burning/weeding and botanical surveys).

Nest with synthetic elements around at SERF (Image Keith Armstrong)

Set within that forest, a range of embedded artwork outcomes will also uncover/speak to the resonances of that Country – suggested through alternative image and narrative.

Drone map for flight on 20/08/24 – to map the site and adjacent forest perimeter – showing ground control points (Image courtesy QUT REF/Dmitry Bratanov)

Scientific Observations
The entire site, some of its non human inhabitants and its atmospheres above ground, will be periodically recorded/imaged – aerially and terrestrially using photo, laser and video, according to periodic and repeatable scientific protocols. (Next aerial scan will be on 20/8/24). Sub-surface soil sampling will also investigate the changing diversity of fungi and other microorganisms. Ambient audio of nonhumans will be also sampled across the entire site 24/7. Together all these collated, time-based, monitoring approaches will recording and assessment of the site’s evolution with scientific accuracy.

Drone map for flight on 20/08/24 – to map the site and adjacent forest perimeter – showing ground control points (Image Nearmap/Keith Armstrong)

“The world is not like a computer; computers are like the world”. Computers are part of nature: They are our creations. (James Bridle, 2022).

“Just as ‘man’ and ‘woman’ don’t reflect the full diversity of human experience, neither can 1’s and 0’s, or digital samplings of the ecological richness of the biological (analog) world.

Grass seed, microscopic closeup. (Image Keith Armstrong)

To act with justice and care towards humans, and more than humans, it’s critical to eschew the binaries that foreground contemporary computing/thinking/creation and allow our ideas/machines/artworks, through their design, to do likewise”. (James Bridle, 2022)

Aesthetic Observation Installations (AOIs) – producing ‘Aesthetic Analogs of Intelligent Complexity (AAIC)
A suite of five ‘Aesthetic Observation Installations’ (AOI’s) embedded in the forest will detect subtle/slower/localised/smaller scale ecological intelligences at five representative sites. These (art) installations, considered as ‘natural creations’, and will inhabit their own ‘niche’ in the forest’s ecological systems, and also step through their own states of evolution – in ways that directly and indirectly benefit that forest.

Grass seed closeup (Image Keith Armstrong)

The locations of these five Aesthetic Observation Installations (AOIs) will be:

  • (O1) Adjacent to the 200+ year old Qld Blue Gum ‘Mother Tree’ that overlooks the site.
  • (O2) Northern edge of the adjacent forest,
  • (O3) On the dry sloping bank
  • (O4) Inside the wet gulley
  • (O5) At edge of the site’s ephemeral wetland pond
    Proposed AOI Sites (Image Keith Armstrong)

    Each AOI will respond to changes it detects locally by producing a 3D ‘analog’ or ‘interpreted form’ of that localised complexity – called an ‘Aesthetic Analog of Intelligent Complexity (AAIC)’ which can be experienced by visitors on site.

    ‘Mother tree’ Qld Bluegum Eucalyptus tereticornis at sunset (Image Keith Armstrong)

     

Outcomes from these 5 on-ground  installations are also connected via wireless networks to an online website that presents an analog/overview the entire Forest Art Intelligence site – Forest Art Intelligence’s ‘Meta Analog of Intelligent Complexity (MAIC)’. This aesthetic analog/interpretation of the ‘entire site’, will be viewable online, set alongside the other ‘scientific observation data’ being collected on site.

An autonomous, tourable version of this MAIC and scientific data will also be developed for future exhibitions, festivals and galleries, further enhanced by other sensory mediums inspired by the site, including light, sound, touch and scent. Hence the project’s  ‘Meta Analog of Intelligent Complexity’ uncovers/speaks to the ‘resonances’ of Country which is slowly recovering, re-flourishing and unfolding according to its own desires and aims.

Eucalypt tree cap, fallen at SERF, microscopic closeup (Image Keith Armstrong)

Recap
Forest Art Intelligence therefore comprises these diverse streams of activity:
•    ECOLOGY: A protected, self-recovering eucalypt woodland site in South East Queensland, assisted by regular care rituals and botanical and soil surveys to ensure the health of that site.
•    OBSERVATION: Five Aesthetic Observation Installations (AOIs), spread across the site (viewable on-site by ad-hoc audiences), with wireless data recording/capacity – each of which produces a local 3D ‘Aesthetic Analog of Intelligent Complexity (AAIC)’. Furthermore a range of observations based upon scientific protocols are also periodically recorded and collated.
•    META-ANALOG: ‘Analog interpretations’ drawn from the 5 observation sites together form the online ‘Meta Analog of Intelligent Complexity’ (MAIC) – intimating resonances of the entire site: – diverse narratives in light, sound and movement composed from the site’s five distributed Observation Installations, and associated scientifically recorded media and data. A tourable artwork version of the MAIC will also be developed using additional sensory media.

Eucalyptus leaf, fallen at SERF, microscopic closeup of green photosynthetic tissue (composed of cells with chlorophyll-bearing chloroplasts) (Image Keith Armstrong)
Project Orientation

Outcomes {3} Leonardo Laser Talk at ISEA 2024

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The Leonardo Laser talk (Tuesday, June 25, 2024, from 3.30-5.30 pm) at Brisbane Convention Centre was a great success art ISEA – and it was a very enjoyable occasion  working with the wonderful Brett Leavy and Kelly Greenopp, chaired by: Dr. Anastasia Tyurina.

Leonardo Laser Panel, Brisbane Convention Centre, 2024, (Image courtesy of Suzon Fuks)

Fellow Speaker Brett Leavy descends from the Kooma people whose traditional country is bordered by St George in the east, Cunnamulla to the west, north by the town of Mitchell and south to the Queensland/NSW border.   As a multimedia producer and Indigenous advocate, Brett heads up Australia’s leading First Nations social impact cultural design company– Bilbie Virtual Labs(link is external), designing an innovative and connective program known as Virtual Songlines – a suite of immersive, interconnected multi-user virtual heritage simulations that showcase the history and heritage of fifty cities and regional towns across Australia.

Dr Kelly Greenop is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Queensland’s School of Architecture, Design and Planning. Her research is in Digital Cultural Heritage, utilises 3D laser scanning of heritage environments to document and archive fragile, remote and at-risk heritage sites, and research the use of digital heritage.

Bret Levy watched Forest Art Intelligence video at Leonardo Laser Panel, Brisbane Convention Centre, 2024, (Image courtesy of Suzon Fuks)

The purpose of the panel discussion was to delve into innovative approaches for advocating, preserving, and celebrating Australian Culture and Country in the digital age, highlighting the transformative power of the arts as a catalyst for social and ecological change.

For this talk I spoke about the following topics:

The transformative power of the arts as a catalyst for
social and ecological change

Active Optimism ..
  The world is in deep trouble
  The world is getting better
  The world can be much better still

AllyshipBuilding community – creating contexts for ethical and respectful
knowledge exchange around Care for Country

My/Our Creative Objectives:
  Experimental practices inviting audiences to
envisage and experiment with pathways towards socially/ecologically-  just & regenerative futures

Further Contexts/Inspiration/Working Spaces:

  • Art+Ecological Science (field collaborations)
  • Regeneration as a creative practice
  • Sensitive advocacy for the ‘More than Human World’
  • Integration of practice & ‘campaign’

How Intelligences (microbes, fungi, invertebrates, plants, ..) are each embodied & embedded – and mostly not like ‘us’ and mostly unknowable

So we should ask less: Are you like us? as more: What is it like to be you?

.. remembering .. there hasn’t been a single study in the past decade that shows animals or plants to be dumber than we thought
(Robin Wall Kimmerer)

Some Big Picture Questions:

Need to re-educate ourselves on many levels – reframing priorities

Can we transcend the narrow frequency of ‘being human’?

Use mediating technology to sense non humans’ time scales and (maybe) some part of their embodied, embedded intelligences

Because:
The ‘more than human world’ has answers to questions we struggle to even ask..

Image from slide deck, Leonardo Laser talk, ISEA 2024 (Image Keith Armstrong)
Project Orientation

Setup (10) ANAT Team Visit to SERF + Angie Abdilla

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It was wonderful to welcome almost all the ANAT leadership team to SERF on 28th June, during ISEA 2024 – MELISSA DELANEY Chief Executive Officer, JENN BRAZIER Program Manager, CAROLLYN KAVANAGH Marketing and Communications Manager and AUSHAF WIDISTO Arts Administrator.

We were also very happy to have ISEA  keynote presenter and artist and Palawa woman and ANU Professor Prof. ANGIE ABDILLA (also director of Old Ways New – whose mission is “Creating Systemic Change, Indigenous Agency and Autonomy“).

The ANAT leadership team and Angie Abdilla accompany David Tucker and myself on a walk at SERF, July 2024 (Image courtesy of ANAT)

My science collaborators David Tucker, Marcus Yates and I were able to show them the project site and take them on the site Science Walk.

Here is how Angie is introduced in the ISEA catalogue .. “Professor Angie Abdilla, Palawa is the founder and director of Old Ways, New. Angie created the company’s strategic design methodology, Country Centered Design, leading projects for the public and private sectors over the past decade. She is an Advisor to the federal government for Services Australia, the Attorney General’s Copyright and AI Reference Group, CSIRO’s Data61, and the National AI Centre Think Tank, and previously was a member of the Global Futures Council on Artificial Intelligence for Humanity as part of the World Economic Forum. In her professorial role at the Australian National University’s School of Cybernetics, she works with Indigenous knowledges, systems, and technology as a cultural practice. Her published research explores Indigenous deep-time technologies and Artificial Intelligence, informed by the Indigenous Protocols and AI working group (IP//AI), which she co-founded“.
(courtesy ISEA 2024 Program)

Furthermore Angie’s company – Old Ways, New on their website states : “Country Centered design is our methodology, which utilises Indigenous knowledge in the design of places, experiences, and critical technologies. Our process incorporates systems and design thinking, combined with futuring techniques to deliver culturally, socially, and environmentally sustainable outcomes“.

Chatting with Angie Abdilla at the SERF headquarters kitchen. (Image Courtesy of ANAT)

Earlier in the ISEA 2024 artistic program I had very much enjoyed experiencing her work ‘Meditation on Country‘ at the State Library of Qld – a work that beautifully “brought together Indigenous knowledges and Western astrophysics through charting Creation time and evolutionary events.”  For me especially hearing the voices of Uncle Ghillar Michael Anderson and Aunty Bronwyn Penrith in the artwork’s soundtrack, and then yarning to them afterwards, was a truly memorable experience! Thanks so much Angie and team for bringing your moving stories to us in such a powerful way!

(Angie Abdilla’s work poster for ISEA) Image courtesy of ISEA 2024

After coffee and an introduction from Marcus Yates –  we all walked the new SERF Engaging Science Trail together – through the mature forest towards the clearing on the other side where the site is located.

Discussing the route of the new Engaging Science trail (Image Aushaf Widisto).
Walking with the ANAT team towards the FAI site (Image courtesy of ANAT)
The ANAT team and Angie Abdilla, walking on Country (Image courtesy Aushaf Widisto)

We then lingered at the Forest Art Intelligence plot (which is a stop on the trail), and circumnavigated much of the 2Ha space- to discuss where we had come to and possible next steps.

Discussion at the FAI project site with the ANAT team (Image courtesy of ANAT)

Angie’s advice during. that time to me was to try to accelerate the consultation process with local elders – to bring them actively into the process early if possible. The situation at SERF in terms of clear Traditional Owner recognition is still under discussion – so we discussed possible strategies in a situation of uncertainty. One we alighted was to take a walk going forward with Prof. Wesley Enoch – who works at QUT – and who was also an ISEA 2024 convenor – and that is something I have initiated subsequently.

Another amazing thing happened on that walk! As we stopped on the way back at what we call the mother tree – Soon after absorbing the presence of this hundreds of years old blue gum, ANAT CEO Melissa Delaney’s hearing returned – she had been close to functionally deaf for quite sometime due to an unknown ailment.

SERF’s mother tree – Eucalyptus tereticornis, Fam. Myrtaceae (Image courtesy of ANAT)
Discussions at SERF’s mother tree – the site of Melissa’s return to hearing (Image courtesy of ANAT)

Coincidences can be acknowledged or ignored – we all chose the former – ending  the day on a particularly joyful note 🙂

Marcus Yates (SERF Property Manager/Collaborator), Melissa Delaney, Carollyn Kavanaugh and Aushaf Widisto (Image courtesy of ANAT)
Jenn Brazier on one of the walk’s bridges engaging in some contemplative imaging (Image courtesy of ANAT)
Late afternoon light in the vine forest (Image courtesy of ANAT)
Late afternoon light in the Melaleucas (Image courtesy of ANAT)
Ancient lichens in the older forest area (Image courtesy of ANAT)
Marcus Yates (SERF Property Manager/Collaborator), Melissa Delaney, Jenn Brazier and Aushaf Widisto (Image courtesy of ANAT)

 

 

 

Project Orientation, Science Direction

Setup (9) Second Plant Survey – 2024 (How are we tracking?)

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On June 11th 2024, almost a year after the first (winter 2023) plant survey, Dr. David Tucker and Dr. Gab Lebbink undertook the second botanical survey on site – using three established transects that crossed the passive regeneration artwork site, and one end of the newly named wetland artwork site.  The vegetation types had now shifted from a recently mowed winter site back in 2023 (following a dry season and pre-burn) to a now actively regenerating area after extensive rain – which had also long recovered from its winter 2023 burning.

We surveyed the site along the three prior transects – with each of the 5 sites along each transect marked by a ground peg installed in 2023.

Plant transects and quadrat sites for botanical survey (approx.) (Image Keith Armstrong)
Botanical Survey transect (with tape measure on the ground) running across survey site, June 11th, 2024 (Image Keith Armstrong)

An ecologists’ quadrat (1x 1m) was laid at each pegged point (see diagram above) and estimates of ground cover (% ) and lists of species recorded. As before the agreement on the floristic content was negotiated through  a wonderful, gentle dialogue between the two ecologists – a soundtrack I again recorded a part of for use in a future artwork – just as I had used it the artwork Analog Intelligence. Next  a 5x5m square, originating from that quadrat point at each peg was surveyed for tree growth – with species names, counts and heights recorded. These figures therefore gave us an estimate across the entire site of vegetation type, quality and mix.

Typical bare plot from initial survey in June 2023 – with young trees marked with tape (Image Gabrielle Lebbink)
Typical rich plot from second survey in June 2024 – Dr. Gabrielle Lebbink laying down a quadrat at the second site plant survey, June 11th, 2024 (Image Keith Armstrong)
A plethora of life in the renewing forest/grassland (Image Keith Armstrong)

As a result, the plots were each quite dense and broadly speaking the number of trees had generally grown well (although some had been lost in the 2023 burn, the very wet summer – or possibly were also hidden in the long grasses and forbs).

Re-growth of trees now evident everywhere at the site, Botanical survey day, 11/6/24 (Image Keith Armstrong)
Dr. David Tucker and Dr. Gabrielle Lebbink working in the field at the second site plant survey, June 11th, 2024
Dr. Gabrielle Lebbink at the second site plant survey, June 11th, 2024 (Image Keith Armstrong)
A plethora of life in the renewing forest/grassland, June 2024 (Image Keith Armstrong)

In due course, the results of the survey will be collated and compared – which will tell us about the practical progression of the project’s science/ecological meta-aims – i.e. to regrow a native forest from a cleared block – whilst allowing the natural intelligence  of the forest and all its constituent species to direct that progress, and with minimal intervention.

Scene from the artwork ‘Analog Intelligence, 2024’ that suggests the nascent forest returning to the artwork site (Image Keith Armstrong)

Comparative Surveys 

Here is how the site had progressed ny 11/6/24  (or regressed in some cases since the initial survey – which was followed by a burn). There had certainly been some significant changes with some problematic weeds decreased ) e.g. Paspalum urvillei – and at that stage the field still had end of the epic native Fimbristylis spp. crop!

Life Form Key (Perrenial/Annual P/A     Graminoid/Forb G/F.   Shrub/Climber S/C)
# Species Provenance Life
Form		 1707
23		 1106
24
1 Cynodon dactylon Exotic PG Y Y  
2 Digitaria spp. Exotic PG Y (*1) Y
3 Centella asiatica Native PF Y Y  
4 Hypochaeris radiata Exotic PF Y Y  
5 Imperata cylindrica Native PG Y Y  
6 Fimbristylis spp.   PG Y N  
7 Ageratum houstonianum Exotic PF Y Y  
8 Sporobolus spp creber Native PG Y Y  
9 Bidens pilosa Exotic AF Y Y  
10 Polygala paniculata Exotic AF Y Y  
11 Eragrostis brownii Native PG Y Y  
12 Arundinella nepalensis Native PG Y Y  
13 Alloteropsis semialata Native PG Y N  
14 Lobelia purpurascens Native PF Y Y  
15 Sonchus oleraceus Exotic AF Y Y  
16 Paspalum notatum Exotic PG Y Y  
17 Eremochloa bimaculata Native PG Y Y  
18 Wahlenbergia gracilis Native AF Y N  
19 Epaltes australis Native PF Y N  
20 Schenkia australis Native AF Y N  
21 Melinis repens Exotic PG Y Y  
22 Velleia spathulata Native PF Y Y  
23 Polygala spp Native   Y N  
24 Phyllanthus virgatus Native AF Y Y  
25 Cheilanthes sieberi Native PF Y Y  
26 Paspalum urvillei Exotic PG Y N *2
27 Apiaceae spp Exotic PF Y*3 Y
28 Cymbopogon refractus Native PG Y Y  
29 Phyllanthus spp big     Y N  
30 Lantana camara Exotic S Y Y  
31 Dianella caerulea Native PG Y Y  
32 Parsonsia straminea Native C Y Y  
33 Passiflora suberosa Exotic C Y N  
34 Senna pendula Exotic S Y Y  
35 Lomandra multiflora Native PG Y N  
36 Drosera spathulata Native AF Y Y  
37 Aristida queenslandicum Native PG Y N  
38 Leucopogon juniperinus Native S Y N  
39 Gomphrena celesoides Exotic PF Y N  
40 Setaria sphacelata Exotic PG N Y  
41 Sauropus hirtellus Native PF N Y  
42 Scleria sp. Native PG N Y  
43 Schoenus sp. Native PG N Y  
44 Cyanthillium cinereum Native PF N Y  
45 Cyperus sp.   PG N Y  
46 Desmodium sp. Native PF N Y  
47 Hypericum gramineum     N Y*4
48 Panicum repens Exotic PG N/Y Y*5  

Notes
*1 Awaiting seed head to confirm and id to species. Maybe D. violascens

*2 Was originally Big weed paspalum (2023)

*3 Maybe Ranunculus inundates

*4 Needs further identification

*5 Needs further identification; identified in 2023 as Cynodon dactylon in wetland area

Project Orientation

Outcomes {2} SERF Science Trail Launch

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My collaborator Dr. Eleanor Velasquez, in her role as TERN education manager, was instrumental in funding and helping set up a new Science engagement walk at SERF – and the Forest Art Intelligence Site, it was decided, would become a key stop along the way – ensuring that the project would be part of a circuit visitors would regularly make to the site.

The Engaging Science/Science Walk Launch Event took place at SERF on June 4th and was launched by the Qld Chief Scientist. It was followed by a full day symposium where all researchers connected to the site presented their work.

Qld chief Scientist Prof Kerrie Wilson with SERF manager Lorrelle Williams and my collaborators Dr. Eleanor Velasquez and Marcus Yates. (Image courtesy of TERN)
Engaging Science Trail Station, SERF, June 2024 (Image Courtesy of TERN)
Engaging Science Trail Station, SERF, June 2024 (Image Courtesy of TERN)

The Engaging. Science Trail signboard at the artwork site (Image Keith Armstrong)

Setting up for the day involved the negotiation of text and signage with the TERN graphic designers – which initially (June 2024) was printed on core-flute to test the idea. A video was also shot at the site and a web page associated via a QR code.

The Engaging. Science Trail signboard at the artwork site (Image Keith Armstrong)

On the launch date I also showed a preliminary version of the artwork Analog Intelligence  and also presented the project to an assembled group of scientists and other interested visitors in a talk called Forest Art Intelligence: Art, Science and a Red Backed Quail Meet at the Forest’s Edge.

Kieth Armstrong presenting at the Engaging Science Trail Launch and SERF Showcase Event (image Eleanor Velasquez)
Kieth Armstrong presenting at the Engaging Science Trail Launch and SERF Showcase Event (image Eleanor Velasquez)
The artwork ‘Analog Intelligence’ showing the The Barracks at SERF, Tue 4 June, 2024

 

Project Orientation

Outcomes {1} Initial Artwork – ISEA 2024 ‘Analog Intelligence’ + Laser Talk

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After much deliberation, it became clear to me that the artworks at the site at SERF were very much still in development, and therefore a planned showing for ISEA 2024 on site would not be feasible.

Still from Keith Armstrong: Analog Intelligence (4k 5min Video Loop), 2024)

Instead, I decided to access a Lidar (laser scan) aerial and terrestrial data set of the site – that had been prepared by the QUT REF Operation team/Dr. Dmitry Bratanov – and use it to design and render an aesthetic, part representational, part symbolic  fly through of both the passive regeneration and wetland sites –  that would introduce the site/project to audiences at ISEA.  The soundtrack included voices of Dr. David Tucker and Dr. Gabrielle Lebbink conducting the 2023 plant survey, and included the call of the Quail that had been so influential in the setup of the site. The  work – called Analog Intelligence, will be  included in the juried ISEA exhibition ‘Constellations’ during June 2024. It will be accompanied by other smaller screens showing different media from the project.

Still from Keith Armstrong: Analog Intelligence (4k 5min Video Loop), 2024

The ISEA page for the event within Constellations is here – Part of the text reads ..

This video installation (Analog Intelligence) speaks to the projects’ first tentative steps – into uncovering and bringing to attention the extraordinary natural intelligences of a land in self-repair after decades of clearing, providing the inspiration for a non-extractive, hybrid art-science work capable of growing and evolving with the forest, whilst also actively benefitting it.

Analog Intelligence explores the future artwork site by land, air and soil, speaking poetically to early findings into conceiving loosely coordinating site-wide artworks, able to bring the forests’ regeneration process to public focus, whilst finding and occupying their own intelligent, beneficial ‘niches’ within that re-emerging forest ecology.

ISEA 2024 page for the artwork (Image courtesy ISEA 2024)

And here is the dedicated  page on my own site embodiedmedia.com Further imagery will be posted here in due course once the work is installed.

Ill be talking about this work in this event too – ANAT Synapse in Conversation :: 20 Years of Art + Science Collaboration – 29 June 2024, Sunshine Coast Field Trip, University of the Sunshine Coast, ISEA2024 Everywhen.

I also  agreed to speak during IEA 20024 at a Leonardo Laser Talk  around ideas connected to the project, (Tuesday, June 25, 2024, from 3.30-5.30 pm, AEST at the Plaza Auditorium, Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre, specifically talking to the power of such artworks within the promotion of ecological regeneration of First Nations country talking on a panel with Brett Leavy and Dr Kelly Greenop. The panel discussion will delve into innovative approaches for advocating, preserving, and celebrating Australian Culture and Country in the digital age, highlighting the transformative power of the arts as a catalyst for social and ecological change.

Leonardo Laser Talk Advert. (Image courtesy Leonard Laser)

Recipient of ANAT Synapse Residency 2024