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
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
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.
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)
Following on from the quail sighting (see –The Quail Turn ) the artwork sites were reconfigured as follows: The previously named ‘passive area’ or ‘passive regeneration area’ would remain as an area largely left to its own devices. Within that area, FAI site artworks would be placed that would in some way benefit localities – but it would, apart from that, remain as is – i.e. an active grassland with a healthy emerging forest cover.
The artwork ‘passive regeneration area’, June 11th (winter), 2024 (Image Keith Armstrong)
And the so called ‘active area’ – the long ‘wet gulley’ would, rather than being planted out, also be also left to self-manage – with the hope that the rare quail would return – and that grassland species would continue to favour this area – something that does seem to be happening at least with currently resident common Brown Quail. (Coturnix ypsilophora). Of course within that area we might also conduct some small growing experiments – but this approach would also conserve the soil sampling approach that had begun (See Setup (7) Further Soil-biology Adventures – from the Artwork Burn Site).
Artwork site – prior nomenclature (Image David Tucker)Artwork Site – new nomenclature – passive regeneration and wetland (Image Keith Armstrong)The artwork site situated within SERF’s overall infrastructure (Image David Tucker/SERF)
Again, this new setup was reflected in the artwork ‘Analog Intelligence’ shown at ISEA 2024 – notably with the sound of the red breasted Quail echoing through the soundtrack.
Dr. David Tucker’ standing in the artwork’s ‘wetland’ area, June 2024 (Image Keith Armstrong)
After our initial forays into the micro-biology of the soils at the artwork site, Dr. Eleanor Velasquez and I returned to A/Prof Carrie Fisher’s lab to delve further into the investigation of the health of pupureocillium bacteria. This lab investigation marked the culminating stages of A /Prof Hauxwell-led study into the effects of the burning we had done in 2023 – and how it had affected soil bacteria under the burnt areas (the area we were now calling the wet gulley or wetland). This marked the end stages of the 2nd stage of what will now be a long-term study into the effects of burning on particular soil health indicators.
Original burn in 2023 at the SERF artwork site (Image Keith Armstrong)
This therefore was time to really begin to understand what bacteria morphotypes had been identified and isolated from the soil samples across the site’s 13 transects (a feature which I also added to the loosely representational animation I was creating for ISEA 2024, as a series of stylised, subsoil ‘pots’ – see screenshot below).
Still from the ISEA 2024 presented artwork Analog Intelligence – indicating stylised soil samples across transects (Image Keith Armstrong)Fungal Morphotype extracted and grown from the artwork site at SERF -with a wonderfully filamentous form. (Image Keith Armstrong)
Whilst this visit therefore allowed us to view the outcomes in the flesh, a couple of weeks later we were also able to listen to students present their analysis of the fungal strands that they had being attempting to identify, culture, re-test and analyse from the site – as shown in the following images:
pre-prepared samples of cultured morphotypes come out of the chilling cabinets and are handed out for lab use (Image Keith Armstrong)Doing the hard yards in the lab to identify, and investigate soil bacteria (Image Keith Armstrong)Attempted fungal isolates prepared and analysed by the students from the artwork site. (Image Keith Armstrong)Details of fungal isolates from the artwork site prepared and analysed by the students. (Image Keith Armstrong)Fungal isolates and Tween – a frequently used supplement for cultivating bacteria. (Image Keith Armstrong)Comparing the plates against known/perfectly grown morphotypes supplied as a reference sheet (Image Keith Armstrong)Another filamentous bacterial form. (Image Keith Armstrong)An alternate bacterial morphotype (Image Keith Armstrong)
Presenting the Results of the Fungal Analysis
Flashback to the burn that started this whole process – the artwork site, 2023 (Image Keith Armstrong)
Results of the effects of the burn on the artwork during were subsequently presented at a student poster session to Faculty staff (with Dr. Eleanor Velasquez and myself present as guests). Dense information was presented via digital posters on large screen TVs in order to communicate outcomes – mostly in a language suited to fellow scientists. These presentations predominantly focussed on the differences between samples at the transects – i.e. whether the fungal activity differed significantly deep inside, towards the edge or on the outer of the transects (running across the artwork burnt gulley site).
Details of (anonymous) student presentation showing the background, methods, aims and type of data they had gleaned from their process (Image Keith Armstrong)Details of (anonymous) student presentation showing the background, methods, aims and type of data they had gleaned from their process (Image Keith Armstrong)
Given the number of variables – and the time the survey had been done after the burn (several months) – some student results were arguably less clear cut than perhaps we might have expected – but most showed some indications that the fungal diversity had suffered initially towards the centre of the burn site – with the assumption that it would return strongly into the future.
A so called ‘heatmap’ that indicates the abundance of bacterial morphotypes across the sample sites (Image Keith Armstrong)Still from the ISEA 2024 presented artwork Analog Intelligence – indicating stylised soil samples across transects (Image Keith Armstrong)
A Further Morphotype Workshop
Around that time Eleanor and I were also invited to participate in another ‘microbiology 101’ workshop – which we attended with interest given its hands on possibility and our need to increase our understanding of the processes involved in culturing and analyse. At this lab (led by A/Prof Hauxwell and initiated by Prof Jenn Firn (another prior collaborator from my prior Carbon_Dating project).
During this session we counted professionally pre-prepared morphotypes (a morphotype refers to the ability of certain fungi to switch between different growth forms) from agar plates with isolates (a specific strain or individual fungal soil organism that has been separated or cultured from its natural environment). This is the sort of class that’s run by the science faculty to first years a taste of biology and ecology.
The session allowed us to investigate a full set of clean, cultured reference specimens from 2 years of sampling at another local site, plus some fresh soil samples plated out for us. We then did some basic quantitative assessment of morphotypes using a guide provided – which would allow then heat mapping (two-dimensional tables of numbers as shades of colours – a popular plotting technique in biology, used to depict multivariate data) and the derivation of a Simpsons diversity index (a measure of diversity which takes into account the number of species present, as well as the relative abundance of each species).
Project collaborator Dr. Eleanor Velasquez council fungal morphotypes (Image Keith Armstrong)A type 15 Morphotype – used as a reference (Image Keith Armstrong)Expertly prepared, ‘clean’ fungal morphotypes as references, prepared by A/Prof Hauxwell’s team) (Image Keith Armstrong)Expertly prepared, ‘clean’ fungal morphotypes as references, prepared by A/Prof Hauxwell’s team) (Image Keith Armstrong)Project scientist Dr. Eleanor Velasquez council fungal morphotypes (Image Keith Armstrong)Expertly prepared, ‘clean’ Type C fungal morphotype reference, prepared by A/Prof Hauxwell’s team) (Image Keith Armstrong)
Developing a Timelapse of Fungal Growth
One of A/Prof Masters students Edward Bryans, assisted by Genevieve Dickson very kindly agreed to setup a time-lapse for us so we could see the development of these bacteria across time.
QUT Researcher Edward Bryans examining (exotic) Buffel grass infected with mealy bugs (Image Keith Armstrong)
Time lapses are a bit of a staple of science shows, but trying to make your own is a totally different thing as it becomes an ’embodied’ experience. If you watch someone’s else’s – you don’t really know how long it took – but making it yourself, you have the experience of the actual bacteria that you’ve sighted – that can ultimately become compressed into those 30 seconds. You share life with that thing that you’ve been photographing, and by embodying it, it becomes a totally different way of experiencing and understanding the world that more than human is a part of.
Edward and his colleague Genevieve built a simple system in an airflow protected cabinet in their lab using a 35mm camera with protective coverings – so that we could monitor the bacteria in action. The process turned out to be quite a fiddle – with the heat of the lights drying out the fungal plates and restricting growth – so it’s an ongoing project!
QUT Researcher Edward Bryans showing a preserved fungal growth plate (Image Keith Armstrong)QUT Researcher Edward Bryans at the cold cabinet preserving fungal growth plates (Image Keith Armstrong)The time lapse setup for recording final growth of purpureocillium in a hot cabinet. (Image Keith Armstrong)
This is the first outcome – showing the purpureocillium and a rather more aesthetic contamination yeast moving in unexpectedly! More to come as Edward and Genevieve work out an improved method to get a larger more impressive growth 🙂
The complexity and variety of nonhuman intelligence, the subject hood and agency of every being, the potentiality and politics of technology, and the wealth of knowledge and ideas we have to gain by opening ourselves to the more than human world with which we are in inextricably and gloriously entangled. James Bridle: Ways of Being: p307
Still from the forthcoming artwork Analog Intelligence, 2023, 4k video loop, (Image Keith Armstrong)
During FAI’s R&D to date I’ve been often influenced by James Bridle’s thinking in his book ‘ Ways of Being’ (2022) – notably his assertions that in order to act ecologically in the world we should strive to design our ecological (computing) creations accordingly. He speaks in his prior book (New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future) about the ‘new dark age’ of incomprehension we are experiencing of the digital systems that control our worlds (e.g. we can’t as easily explain how email works vs. the more comprehensible old school post office) – and highlights the immense violence that digital/sampled models of the world have been integral in contributing to the extractive mindset (think corporate AI). Bridle asks that we instead should seek to move our thinking and creations away from this predominant ‘model’ and ‘mastery’ ethos.
“The world is not like a computer; computers are like the world”
Bridle cites developments from history, or from the edges of today’s thinking (e.g. unconventional computing and alternate engineering) that give him hope of a kind of computing that is more analog (i.e. as is the world) and that works within, and for it, rather than as an tool to master it. Computers, he reminds us, are natural: – they are part of nature: they are our creations.
Consistent with this thinking, FAI must therefore itself, at each level, be envisaged as an ecological creation – one that invokes care and justice across both human and more than human contexts. This is consistent with Barad’s thinking discussed in my prior post – which suggests engaging/energising ‘wave-like’ motions through the work rather than working with individual sampled data points – an analogy that presents analog complex change in the site (intra-actions) over time through an analog mediums, as opposed to a focus upon individual ‘particles’ or binary states. This intention to create an artwork invoking a connective, wave-like, analog, computational structures across the reforestation site, raises the possibility that the creation might be better able to resonate with the mystery and unknowability of the site’s innumerable intelligences.
FAI should hence resonate with, rather than seek to directly model or represent the natural intelligences at the site. Bridle gives an example: complex actions of systems fed via electrically powered agitators to create complex, multiple ripples in a bucket of water – which, he says, is a form of ‘pre-processing’ that allows complexity to become somehow readable to us.
Consistent with Bridle’s thinking therefore, FAI’s (analog) works should embody three tendencies: ‘non-binary’, ‘decentralised’ and ‘unknowing’.
‘non-binary’ 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.
‘decentralized’ We are not the most important species or the focus for everything else, but simply a specialised, equal part of a vast more than human world – within which everything is equally evolved (Ref Lyn Margulis). We should ask how can we design our actions and the constituent tools/artworks we create to become contributions to, and mediations with everything else – as opposed to considering what we do as “unique, and uniquely, powerful, artefacts of human superiority”. Decentralisation acknowledges the power of communal, cooperative undertakings, intra-actions/becoming- togethers that foster outcomes greater than their parts. In this way of thinking, actual power must also be transparently shared rather than centralised.
‘unknowing’ This requires us to comfortably acknowledge limitations of that which we are able to know, and respect rather than ignore or erase that which is beyond our understanding. Rather than considering unknowing as a form of helplessness we should rather trust our ability to navigate a complex, ever-shifting landscape that we cannot control. (e.g. traditional cosmologies used ritual and respect for non-human beings to enable their survival.
(Note to self) The pre-used term ecological niche in the original description of the work may therefore not be the right terminology – as it is often thought of as a “job” or “role” in an ecosystem. The idea that just as individuals have specific roles in society (e.g., doctors, teachers, farmers), species have specific roles in their environment now seems inconsistent with the design.
An Initial Punt at Artwork Components
These are the potential components of the artwork on site: 4-5 ART Intelligence installations + scientific instrumentation equivalent to that used elsewhere at SERF, at the following locations.
Proposed Sites for Artwork and Sci Instrumentation, May 2023, (Image Keith Armstrong)
Site 1 An emerging, self-seeded tree site on the regeneration bank, within easy reach of the central access path on the sloping bank. (Surface emergence):
Site 2: The current forest edge – suggesting old and new integration (Relational emergence)
Site 3: The ephemeral pond in the wet gulley (Temporal emergence)
Site 4: Single transect at the Southern/road side end (Subsoil emergence)
Site 5: Multiple transects along the wet gulley (Subsoil emergence)
Fungal Transects (A/Prof Caroline Hauxwell’s project) For each 50 m transects, 0.25×0.25m plots were sampled along the site: First sample point was on the outside of the now recovering area. The next three consecutively within the previously burnt area and the 5th sample outside on other side of the burnt area.
Ideally these artwork sites should
playfully uncover the rich intelligence of the site – in terms of its complex intra-actions locally, and beyond
Somehow attune to/benefit their sites
Somehow bring this natural intelligence to human attention
Exhibit co-creative, playful devolution of part of the ‘processing’/ ‘thinking’, to nonhuman actors: (e.g. c.f. bucket of pre-processing water/slime moulds). At the heart of the system there is something ‘doing its own thing’ (Ref. Turing’s Oracle (not a machine)/ decentralised)
Audiences should sense the site’s intelligence without needing to understand the ‘intra-actions’ of each site (i.e. retain unknowability) – such an atmosphere of unknowing requires a kind of tryst, or solidarity with non human others.
Scientific Instrumentation
Phenocam 1: – Top of grassy bank looking down Phenocam 2: Bottom of Grass Bank looking up Phenocam 2 – Wet Gulley RHS Phenocam 3 – Wet Gulley LHS
BAR Acoustic Recorder 1/100m range: (consistent with David Tucker’s ‘Acoustic Observatory’ project), at the intersection of the wet gully and bank
TERN runs a phenocam network across Australia – monitoring vegetation. Image courtesy TERN
The preliminary idea is to use an interpretation of the analog complexity of each site – and its local outcomes as drivers for a further ‘analog computational art work’ – available either online or in a physical space (e.g. gallery). Data from Sites 1-4 will therefore be somehow ‘pre-processed’ locally (analog/analogous) – and collected ‘offline or remotely’, (local data cards, images, observations + other Arduino remote sensing) and subsequently assembled to ‘drive/activate/direct’ a further analog/analogous installation speaking to the site’s intelligent complexity, non-representationally. This summative work is accompanied by site images of ‘intelligences’ (aerial, terrestrial and sub-terrestrial), point clouds and other artefacts driven from the collected experience).
The Analog Intelligence Artwork
The first outcome of the project will be a single channel animation work of the site (called ‘Analog Intelligence’ for ISEA 2024), + 1-3 iPad auxiliary screens? Will serve as an introduction to the expansive aims of the project and the site and will be presented for two days during ISEA 2024 (June 21-30) – and potentially during the SERF Engaging Science Trail Launch – and Showcase on June 4th, 2024> the artwork will be used to promote the FAI project and add to the ongoing documentation.
This work will:
Be built using the SERF point cloud model
Indicate the artwork sites (as animated points of interest) – and potentially suggest forms of connection
Exploit capacity for subsoil animation (fungal transects) – and added scanned/point cloud items
The next step was to Consider how discrete sites might be connected/’networked‘ together – i.e. ‘real time’, ‘offline’ or abstract connectivity?
Another way of seeing the world was possible, one infinitely more vital and interconnected than any I had previously imagined. In their worlds, information pulsed beneath the ground and floated on the breeze, interactions pulsed and shifted to the rhythm of the seasons, and knowledge and understanding grew, slowly but sturdily, over decades and centuries. Bridle, J., 2023, Ways of Being
Assuming points of interest within the artwork site will somehow link within the work I began to consider the many ways such connectivity might be developed between the sites – on a continuum between the literal and the abstract- remembering that outcomes should be in some way beneficial (ie regenerative) rather than extractive.
Part of the artworks gulley area (Image Keith Armstrong, 24/4/24)
I was also aware of the importance of looking beyond the site (remembering it as a Mortonian ‘mesh’) – given the interconnections – for example the rich, cool dark vine forests along Samford Creek might one day be akin to the gulley area maybe? Could these be what some have called ‘mother sites’ (see the ‘mother tree’ concept from the wood wide web – highly-connected hub trees who share their excess carbon and nitrogen through the mycorrhizal network with the understory seedlings, which can increase seedling survival) – places of deep time that the art work site is heading (back) towards – sites that imagine the future elsewhere – potentially where the exchange of materials happens ?
Options
It struck me that connectivity might be be framed by the diverse ways that plants communicate/procreate/signal/interconnect with each other and the broader atmosphere throughout their lifecycles. For example could we mimic the ways plants send out signals to each other like grass seed pollen (impossible odds you’d think to hit a target??) – suggesting chance but rich interactions between nodes – or could nodes somehow come together to create something summative?
In a transitional aesthetic, art supports human and other forms of life, often exploited through extraction. Rather than fulfilling an extractive aesthetic, can ecosystems be reconstructed without overreach, but through regenerative acts? Mary Mattingly (Link to source)
Mattingly’s words also offered up some possibilities :
My intuition at that stage was to engage a different/arguably more appropriate metaphor of connectvity for the work than the regular computational node and network models (eg the one that wood wide web analogy riffs off) – a model/concept that for me maps less comfortable with the profoundly entangled universes of a site such as this. This might include:
Line of sight (but assumed visual signalling not relevant)
Electronic (signalling/osmosis through tubes/fungal hyphae/liquids/plumbing)
Gaseous (Chemical signals/VOCs/root absorption)
Wind (pollinated/semi random anther and stigma
see further notes at the bottom of this post
These questions led me back to some of the thinking of Karen Barad and her particular quantum brand of new materialism.
Intr-action of light and solar pump panel, SERF back paddock, April 2024 (Image Keith Armstrong)
Barad reminds us of a foundational paradox of the universe: that according to Quantum Physics, all matter paradoxically exhibits properties of both waves and particles. Everything from light to compound molecules are according to science observable both as particles—unique, finite, and (in most cases) material, and yet also as waves–in essence oscillations that carry energy as they propagate through media.
A wave is therefore a form of energetic activity that in Barad’s words arises from/requires profoundly complex ‘intra-activity’ between particles – thereby forming shapes that self perpetuate and move through a medium – without being defined or entirely confined by that medium (think moire patterns or oceans).
Brad speaks to intra-activity as not two bodies acting upon one another but rather a process of becoming phenomena or becoming bodies. This suggests that the entire universe is a continual state of emergence – in which nothing is certain or fixed – but is always becoming itself through its intra-action with everything else. The material world is the constant intra-action of particles – of electrons touching everything else.
Active area edge of forest, 2023 (Image Courtesy of QUT REF team)
Intra-action is a Baradian term used to replace ‘interaction,’ which necessitates pre-established bodies that then participate in action with each other. Intra-action understands agency as not an inherent property of an individual or human to be exercised, but as a dynamism of forces (Barad, 2007, p. 141) in which all designated ‘things’ are constantly exchanging and diffracting, influencing and working inseparably. Intra-action also acknowledges the impossibility of an absolute separation or classically understood objectivity, in which an apparatus (a technology or medium used to measure a property) or a person using an apparatus are not considered to be part of the process that allows for specifically located ‘outcomes’ or measurement. Source
IN SUM
At that stage I resolved that the work should in someway engage the (geo and bio) spheres as they inflict each site – and that the connectivity between sites should be/or speak to in some way forms of wave motion rather than movement of discrete elements. To use another analogy – rather than the interconnectors being thought of as a pollen, instead focus on the waves of air caused by changing pressures that can be indicated by such pollen particles caught within them..
At that stage I was also continuing to ask:
What does beneficial mean within a respectful human plant engagement – does this suggest facets of ‘gardening’ maybe that create optimal conditions for flourishing – but what happens once then process stops??
How also might the overall work tune in and itself evolve over lifecycles – such as annual or perennial?
What might birth, growth and death means for the artwork – initiation, development, atrophy, decomposition, reintegration and new life ?
Intelligence is not something to test – but rather to recognise ..
The Quail Turn: A Project Pivot
EXCITINGLY in late April a rare Red backed button quail (Turnix maculosus) had been sighted by the SERF bird group/Peter Storer. These birds are rarely seen and poorly studied – being agents of disguise within their preferred wet grassland environments – with a call that is a soft repeated ‘oom-oom-oom-oom’ and with the end of each note ascending in pitch. They are most often seen breaking wildly for cover when disturbed and flying elsewhere in the grassland. They are listed as vulnerable (to extinction in NSW), although not in Qld. The itinerant ones are thought to arrive Oct/Nov and likely leave for the North late Feb/March – but this year’s wet hot season has likely kept them longer. (It is likely that the birds had in this case left end of April – pre the slashing season at SERF which is later than normal).
Rare Red-backed button quail (Turnix maculosus) sigthed in the artwork site (Image Peter Storer)
By chance I met Peter Storer in the paddock with his binoculars looking for the quail in late April using call sounds – as I was working late in the afternoon on setting up key sites. During that time at dusk, when they are noted to be active. At that time I spotted a dead juvenile red backed button quail at the edge of the long grass – indicating breeding had happened (they build nests in shallow depressions in the grasses) .. suggesting that great care should be taken entering any of the artwork’s long grassed areas esp. during nesting season.
Deceased Red-backed button quail at the artwork site (Image Keith Armstrong)
Given that the site has been in essence maintained as a grassland by slashing for decades – and that this had attracted a rare find – this raised questions as to whether regenerating the previously burnt gulley/regeneration area with trees, or indeed premature slashing of other parts of the property, may drive them away/destroy their nests/cause them to not stop in the area in the future?
Clearly this finding presaged a project turning point of some kind that would require consultation across a number of groups and the science team. It seemed that the idea of ‘active’ and ‘passive’ areas may now need to change. And that eerie, profound, quail ‘oom-oom-oom-oom’ – it may well resonate across the future artwork ..
FYI .. other birds know to be at the site (ref. Peter Storer) were the Brown Quail (Coturnix ypsilophora) which is quite common and likely resident, the Golden-headed Cisticola (Cisticola exilis), Tawny Grassbird (Cincloramphus timoriensis), and Sacred Kingfisher (Todiramphus sanctus).
Panorama of the artwork sites, mid April 2024, (Image Keith Armstrong)
“I can’t think of a single scientific study in the last few decades that has demonstrated that plants or animals are dumber than we think. It’s always the opposite…We keep revealing the fact that all kinds of creatures have a capacity to learn, to have memory, and that we’re at the edge of this wonderful evolution in really understanding the sentience of other beings.” Robin Wall Kimmerer quoted by James Bridle
To begin the process of imagining an artwork able to ‘cooperatively engage’ with the rich intelligence of the site, I resolved to undertake the observational and listening actions:
Obviously the idea that an artwork could ‘benefit’ the ecological evolution of the site is a relative fiction that must acknowledge the limits of what we can actually know, or indeed assume we might be able to know about worlds we study/work within . In a parallel plane fractal geometry reminds us that there is always more to discover the more you pay attention. Whilst we might expect more order and clarity, in reality ever-closer examination will likely reveal more unexpected variation, nuance and detail. Hence The more accurately you might try to ‘measure’, appraise or describe things, (in so many ways) the more unmeasurable, unappraisable or indescribable they will likely become.
Late afternoon light on the artwork edges (Image Keith Armstrong)
STEP 1: Engaging ‘Spheres’
Classical science tells us that everything can be understood as being part of “spheres”: the so called Geosphere and Biosphere that form the land, water, living things and air – and the infinite complexity of their interactions influence factors such as soil salinity, biodiversity, and landscape formation/composition.
Whilst whilst such conceptual sub divisions are clearly an further divideable abstraction, their value to me lay in reminding me that much that we might easily sense/see/measure/ is limited by our human scale, faculties, ambition, technology and willingness or otherwise to transform the site towards our ends. At best these spheres are therefore interlocking, leaky, and ambiguous – but ideally some facet of each would factor into the forthcoming work.
“lithosphere” (land) – includes the rocks and soils (which we were already engaging with in a particular way through soil bacteria)
“hydrosphere” (earth’s liquid water – visibly present on the surface in the still wetland/gulley region of the site, in teh silos and in the air )
“atmosphere” (the air surrounding (and penetrating) the other spheres)
(N/A) ” cryosphere” (frozen regions, including both ice and frozen soil);
BIOSPHERE
(living things, both visible and non visible)
Initial Actions in Regards to the Geo and Biospheres on site:
I resolved to:
Walk the perimeters of the artwork site and make initial localised observations. Choose and sit down at sites of interest in the ‘passive’ and ‘active’ areas of the artwork, and observe and listen. Observe local plants or plant communities of special interest – which will be temporal in some cases, and sustained in others. (e.g. on 16/4/24 I spotted Scented top grass and Black spear – mid/late summer species doing well in the wet and warmth of this years April – so some sites might flourish at sometimes and be dormant other times of year). Make sketches, think small – begin to consider how to build up deep ‘observations’. Be, and don’t be, methodical. Identify a possible series of representative sites to place future artwork elements – in both the grassland (active) and gulley (passive) areas. To record these activities place custom markers at points of interest.
Scented Top Grass / Capillipedium spicigerum in profusion at SERF 16/4/24 North of Gulley Site (Image Keith Armstrong)
This action was initially completed on Tue 16 + Thurs 18 April – using star pickets for marking key sites (locations of interest/monitoring camera sites). Future intention to use coloured site markers to in the grass to determine paths/minimise disturbance. (e.g. I sat at places of interest (usually where a new tree was pushing through the grass as a place to start), over time just quietly observing – as a result of this action I experienced maybe my first ever hay fever that night, noticed the profusion of insects most notably arachnids, ragged re-growth, and softness under as the Fimbrystis slowly dries out to late April maturity).
Black Spear Grass / Heteropogon contortus at SERF 16/4/24 North of gulley site in small, isolated groups (Image Keith Armstrong)
As the late afternoon wore on my quiet, solo process was surprised by an unexpected person moving on the other side of the rise within SERF’s boundary – walking slowly through the grasses as if searching for something. I’d already heard from site manager Marcus Yates of a rare Quail siting in that area – but this chance meeting was pivotal – and threw into doubt how which ways the project might use the site going forward. (see The Quail Turn post)
During April/May 2024, consistent with SERF’s other monitoring programs, and the need to track progress scientifically on this project, I decided to initially establish 1-2 trail cameras on site – as phenocams (vegetation change cameras) – and acoustic monitoring.
Acoustic Monitoring I determined in consultation with Dr. David Tucker that initially 1 Solar powered BioAcoustic Recorder (Solar BAR) should be deployed near the bottom of the passive plot where it meets the active plot – to record continuous audio data for later analysis – given these devices’ detection radii is quite wide on open pasture (>100m):
Image of the site showing fungal transects, the position of the acoustic recorder and proposed future artwork sites (Image Keith Armstrong)
The choice of this hardware is consistent with the equipment used by the Australian Acoustic Observatory which Dr. David Tucker is a member of – ensuring he will be able to help identify the call sounds.
Acoustic Spectrogram of Bird Sound (Image courtesy of Frontier Labs)
SolarBAR recorder + Dr. David Tucker and Prof Paul Roe (Australian Acoustic Observatory)
The initial acoustic monitor was installed on June 11th 2024.
Dr. David Tucker installing the acoustic monitor settings, June 11, 2024 (Image Keith Armstrong)
Visual Monitoring
Phenocams are digital cameras (usually trail cams more typically used to capture nocturnal animal movements) set up to capture photo time-lapse images of foliage (ranging from one per 30 mins to one per day) at the same times. Scientists use these continuous visual records to observe things like vegetation development, including flowering, fruiting, and leaf lifecycles. I this way they are able to generate quantitative measures of plant phenology (timings of cyclical or seasonal biological events, that might include flowering, migrations, egg laying or hibernation).
4.0cg Sy electronic Technical co ltd Trail Cam with 4G – one of the various cameras I have to hand
Aerial Monitoring This would be a mixture of input from the QUT REF team who fly 35mm quality cameras – and my own Mavic 2 Zooms. Initial photos were taken on 24/4/24 showing some of the area put aside for the artwork.
A part of the artwork site, April 2024 (Image Keith Armstrong)
The ‘Intelligence’ of Plants The founder of the ‘plant neurobiology movement’ Stephan Mancuso takes the view that our ” fetishisation of (mammalian) neurons, as well as our tendency to equate behaviour (and intelligence) with mobility, keeps us from appreciating what plants can do.” (Quote source).
Indeed, because they don’t move like animals, plants must by necessity develop an extensive, relational, and nuanced understanding of their local environments – arguably far beyond that of mammals like us. Plants therefore have to find everything they needs where they are located – and must have the capacity to defend themselves, while all the while remaining fixed in place. They must also cultivate ‘vectors’ – eg insects, animals or the wind to move their pollen to reproduce.
Growth in process at the ‘passive regeneration’ artwork site (Image Keith Armstrong)
This “sessile life style,” as plant biologists term it, calls for an extensive and nuanced understanding of one’s immediate environment, since the plant has to find everything it needs, and has to defend itself, while remaining fixed in place. A highly developed sensory apparatus is required to locate food and identify threats.
Plants of course do frequently get eaten and so they would not want to have any irreplaceable organs like a brain or legs. To cope with this, plants therefore developed a modular design which can in some cases allow them to lose to 90% of their body and yet still survive. This an extraordinary capability and which has now parallel in the animal kingdom. “ Plants therefore have a level of resilience. that we can barely imagine”.
In this introductory talk Neuro-Botanist Dr. Stefano Mancuso presents intriguing evidence about how plants behave in what might be termed as ‘intelligent ways’ from a human perspective – i.e. fighting predators, maximising food opportunities. (It’s worth considering where/if his analysis falls into the trap of categorising intelligence as ‘like us’.)
(Excerpt from above video re root growth tips – Stefano Mancuso: The roots of plant intelligence)
In his article in the New Yorker ‘The Intelligent Plant’ Michael Pollan suggests that plants have evolved between fifteen and twenty distinct senses, including analogues of our five: smell and taste (i.e. they sense and respond to chemicals in the air or on their bodies); sight (they react differently to various wavelengths of light as well as to shadow); touch (a vine or a root “knows” when it encounters a solid object); and, it has been recently discovered, sound.
In a recent experiment, Heidi Appel, a chemical ecologist at the University of Missouri, found that, when she played a recording of a caterpillar chomping a leaf for a plant that hadn’t been touched, the sound primed the plant’s genetic machinery to produce defence chemicals. Another experiment, done in Mancuso’s lab and not yet published, found that plant roots would seek out a buried pipe through which water was flowing even if the exterior of the pipe was dry, which suggested that plants somehow “hear” the sound of flowing water. (Source)
Hence, whilst these are all further reasons to celebrate plants, the focus of this research will lie in discovering, listening to, celebrating and (where appropriate) encouraging the flourishing of the multiple forms of ‘intelligence’ living at the artwork site, and its environs/atmospheres. This may include
Behaviours of plants (notably the emergent and established trees, grasses, sedges at the site)
Actions of related insects (various)
Changes in soil and soil bacteria (Notably in our case Purpureocillium)
Changes in atmospheres at the site
Being with Plants
Whilst plants are always in flux (often going through extraordinarily different phases where sometimes as much as 90% of their mature bodies can be become absent) – their fixated/sessile nature offers us an amazing opportunity to return to be with them, time after time. Plants therefore offer us an opportunity to be fully present with them. This idea is summed up poetically by Ryan Shea in this podcast from the Nature Institute – in which he also reminds us that “the trees can’t actually grab your face and turn you towards them, so you have to do some of the work yourself.”
The Nature Institute https://www.natureinstitute.org/podcast/in-dialogue-with-nature
The Engaging. Science Trail signboard at the artwork site (Image Keith Armstrong)
