Forest_Art_Intelligence
WHAT:
Forest Art Intelligence (FAI) 2021 – aims to understand how to develop art forms capable of growing and evolving alongside a regenerating forest, whilst also actively benefiting that forest’s health: in collaboration with Samford Ecological Research Facility (SERF) and the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN).
The extraordinary intelligences that underpin natural systems is currently inspiring and directing the development of our experimental sci-art process. Our aim is to understand how to develop art forms capable of growing and evolving alongside a regenerating forest, whilst also actively benefiting that forest’s health. We envisage embedded artworks, comprised of ecological materials, capable of slowly finding, and then occupying, their own intelligent ‘niches’, within the forest’s ecology - a speculative form we call an ‘Art Intelligence’. Outcomes will include both these Art Intelligences, the regenerated forest, an ongoing scientific survey of botanical and biodiversity changes, and a series of external hybrid art works suitable for touring exhibition.
Our art+science team have secured unprecedented permission to restore a currently cleared block of land back to high conservation-value forest at the partner's site, Samford Ecological Research facility (SERF) @ Camp Mountain, close to Magandjin (Brisbane). The artwork site is also part of the site’s Engaging Science trail instigated by the TERN’s Education and Training manager Dr. Eleanor Velasquez. As the forest ecology slowly returns to health, we will investigate how to develop symbiotic, process-based artworks across that entire site. We imagine that these ‘Art Intelligences’, would be capable of growing & evolving with the forest whilst occupying their own intelligent, ecological ‘niches’ within that emerging forest – with the forest itself being the project’s ‘meta-artwork’. Our project’s actions, & our on-site creations are therefore intended to directly benefit the forest through both 'performing' ecological functions, whilst also encouraging public engagement with the forest's processes of intelligent natural regrowth. Our project’s actions, & our on-site creations are therefore intended to directly benefit the forest through both 'performing' ecological functions, whilst also encouraging public engagement with the forest's processes of intelligent natural regrowth.
(See the project's ANAT 2024 developmental blog, and 2025 developmental blog).
WHO: Collaborating Science Team: Dr David Tucker (QUT Landscape Ecologist), Dr Gabrielle Lebbink (QUT Freelance Plant and Invasion Ecologist), Dr Eleanor Velasquez (TERN Education and Training Manager at Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network TERN Australia) and Marcus Yates (QUT/SERF Site Technician). Further supported by A/Prof Caroline Hauxwell (QUT Microbiologist and Agricultural Biotechnologist).
PARTNERS: The ANAT Synapse residency program is supported by the Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT), Samford Ecological Research Facility (SERF) and the NCRIS-enabled Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) and QUT. FAI is also supported by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body.
INITIAL OUTCOMES:
Artwork 1 - 'Analog Intelligence' (2024) for ISEA 2024 (see Web Page)
Public Outcomes: Stop on the SERF Engaging Science Trail
Public presentation at the SERF open day
FURTHER PROPOSED DETAILS: (@Aug 2024)
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. 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: the Northern edge of the adjacent forest, on the dry sloping bank, inside the wet gulley, at the edge of the site’s ephemeral wetland pond, and adjacent to the 200+ year old Qld Blue Gum ‘Mother Tree’ that overlooks the site. 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 will be connected to an external artw or artworks 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 also be viewable online, set alongside the other ‘scientific observation data’ being collected on site. The 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 ‘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.