It’s been a while coming, but this week called for amore significant intervention on the site. To date interactions have been mostly necessarily  light touch.  However consistent with the definition in this prior post, it seemed the right time to establish the first of the site’s Art Intelligences (Ai) – which in the context of this project, are considered to be 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 will  ‘evolve with’ and ‘learn from’ the emerging forest whilst directly benefitting its growth.   These Ai’s might also evoke awe and encourage public engagement with the forest’s  fluxes of intelligent natural regrowth – and are placed at principal, representative sites, standing in as proxy for the entire forest development.

As a first step in discovering exactly what this could mean, we chose to focus attention around three fallen trees (again see this post) – two of which are already in place  – and are helping the slow processes of returning biodiversity to the impoverished, ex pasture soil. However this week the third was specifically introduced – a 2 tonne, enormous fallen limb from ancient Forest Blue Gum (E. tetericornis) relocated from a nearby site. By hiring a crane, and with expert assistance Marcus Yates and I decided that it would be possible to locate this carefully fallen tree limb, amongst the young, emergent trees already on site, to slowly become a site for insects, other creatures and seed spreading perching birds. This was also an idea I’d discussed with the team as a viable way forward – and resonated with an earlier idea of bringing a fallen log to the site that Dr. Carrie Hauxwell had previously proposed.

By supporting biodiversity in its own unique way – this Ai/terericornis would quickly become in a low cost low rent housing for a myriad of future species, with the capacity to add 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.

It would also begin to 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.”

Future steps would now involve the development of ‘Art Intelligence Accelerators’ to speed up this process that might otherwise take decades. (More on that in a future post).

The next proposed stages of the process will to instigate the accelerator actions to this Ai: beginning with 1 :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. 2 the invention of 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. 3: Formal, sculptural provision of attractants for local pollinating species (native honey/pollen sculptures).

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.

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.

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:

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).

• Handheld Hovermap ST-X LiDAR data collection with approx. 20m into the forest and around “Mother Tree” (to get additional under canopy information)

• 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

  

• 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’

  

• 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)

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

“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.

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.

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

  

  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.

  

   

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.

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.

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.

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.

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..

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“).

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“.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.