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.