AP 2.1.a Workshop for Scene 1: 31/10/2020 - 01/11/2020
Task 1 – physical visualisation
The first task of the workshop was to start by drawing what the representation root networks was to us. This helped to get both of our perceptions out of our heads and on to paper - there for all to see. It was interesting to see that we both approached the topic from very different perspectives in our drawings. Mine was a focused, but messy depiction of the many voices that are passing across synaptic bridges, whereas Oliver’s focused more on the paths of each signal. This exercise clarified how we were both looking at the network and showed us that there a three clearly different viewpoints which we should be reflecting in the musical expression of it.
The forest as a whole. This can be seen in Oliver’s drawings of the whole forest/network (Fig. 14 on left). Here the network is viewed in a column as a whole, where once underground you cannot differentiate which root came from which tree, and would therefore be acting as one overall voice.
The cacophony of voices. This is visible in my visualisation (Fig 15 on left) as it shows the many different signals which would be passing across microscopic barriers, from plant to plant to mycelium etc. These are all voices carrying separate messages (shown but they yellow highlighter), travelling along complex paths. Each axon has the ability to generate several different nodes and so connect to many other organisms in the network.
The individual voice. This is shown in Oliver’s drawing Fig 16 on the left. Here we see a representation of a single voice – it emulates an electronic signal that is distorting and travelling along a wire.
Task 2 - Performative
The second part of the first workshop involved making use of a mental exercise to try to put ourselves in the mindset of the trees. The first scene involved a traumatic experience within the forest. The main (mother) tree which supplies a lot of the forest with nutrients and support is hit by lightning.
At first, I asked Oliver to stand against a wall. I then asked him to imagine being a tree by imagining that he had roots which were extending into the other rooms next to and below ours. I then went to stand at the opposite side of the room and did the same thing. I then told him to imagine that his roots were meeting my roots in the room underneath us. I then told him that I would be hit by lightning and the electrical impulse would travel all the way through my roots to his. I instructed him that in a moment this would happen and then we would have to describe how this made both of us feel.
Oliver experiences Roxanne struck by lightning:
- - I experienced this as a feeling of going from a solid form to a feeling of powerlessness and jelly. After the strike it was like I had gone from being fully conscious to being half asleep. The strike itself was extremely fast – much faster than anything I had experienced before and very bright then very dark.
- - Oliver reacted to this strike as by feeling a sensation of going from red to blue. Almost like becoming white hot – a heat without actual heat, reflected as colour. The nodes on my (Roxanne’s) roots had gone blue and inaccessible. Oliver also felt a sensation of being drained of energy and warmth, as if there was suddenly a leak that needed to be fixed. This did not happen straight away but was a slow sensation.
Roxanne experience Oliver struck by lightning:
- - When Oliver was struck he described feeling euphoric. There was a moment of intense energy which was scary and lead to a sensation of laughter and terror all at once – almost like being tickled to death. After the euphoria and immense energy began the comedown. This was a sensation of throbbing, like a horrible hangover.
- - I reacted to this by feeling instantly nauseous. I felt a kind of internal recoiling, trying to get away from the trauma but not being able to move. It felt like a sickness was entering my roots, I was also becoming damaged from the lightning strike.
This was as close as we could safely get to understanding the experience of a forest network being attacked by an electrical storm. From this we decided that along with the three viewpoints (whole forest, cacophony, and individual voice) there would also be three chronological sections to the scene. These are; 1. Before the impact 2. During the impact and 3. The hangover.
Developing this understanding and sensory vocabulary for the events of the scene was very useful and would help us in the second day of the workshop.
Task 3 – research into mythology
The last part of the workshop involved reading about mythologies from the Philippines that are connected with forests. There are many of these and many different creatures who reside in the forest. The mythology that I found most connected to our experience in the rest of the workshop was that of Santelmo. This is the existence of two balls of fire in places where there have been accidents, arguments or on land borders. Santelmo also comes from the term St. Elmo which describes an electrical weather phenomenon which turns the sky violet during a lightning storm.
After reading about this I quickly sketched out the image in fig. xx where we can see two interlinked balls of fire at the centre of the forest, underneath the largest tree. These signify the “throbbing” trauma experienced by the tree after being struck by lightning. It also occurred to me that as Santelmo were found at land boundaries and places of argument, it would make sense for there to be Santelmo present where the rainforest had been cut down to make way for plantation. In this sketch I have encircled the rainforest in Santelmo as well.
Whilst I did this Oliver began drawing some depictions of the trees in the plantations. As we can see from these sketches he has depicted the plantation trees as a root ball hanging in a room of mirrors. As the image is reflected back on itself it becomes more and more distorted. This will reflect how the trees in the plantation see themselves. I will discuss this more after the next workshop on scene 2 (The Plantation).
After reading about Santelmo and seeing Oliver’s depiction of the plantation trees I went on to make one more depiction of the forest.
In this depiction of the rainforest (Fig 19) I experimented with different ways to show the way the network connected the trees together, but also that the central tree was connected to them all. Around the edge of the picture is the plantation. This area of land is inaccessible to the rainforest tree roots. They cannot communicate with the trees there and when they try to it is almost just like a white noise signal (the distorted reflection).
We also discussed the difference between the network in trees and similar networks in our human societies. It seemed that the most striking difference was that the network for the forest was one of giving and support, whereas the networks in our western societies, being based around consumerism and a capitalistic structure, often feel more like taking than giving. The altruistic act of giving is seen to us as charitable – something of the ordinary and something special to be done infrequently, not as a daily part of life. Of course some of the trees in a rainforest won’t be able to give in the same way as others, however there is a balance in the amount of giving and taking that we could learn from in our societies.
Day 2
On the second day of the workshop we put aside the tasks for generating an expressive language. We started by listening to our pre written material. With a score in hand we both circled sections which we felt were relevant and reflective of the work from the previous day. Many of the sections that I felt were representative of the network were those that showed a kind of dissemination of information through a repeated motif, or a call and response. I felt that each tree would have a single message. This message would then be sent through all of the roots, meaning that one tree could say the same thing many times (through many different roots), in different distorted ways and directions. After doing this we discussed our choices and decided which sections of the music now seemed irrelevant in light of our recent work and discoveries.
Next we listened again and went through the score labelling sections A, B and C. These numbers corresponded to whether we thought that section represented A. Before the impact B. The impact or C. The hangover. After doing this we again discussed our choices, this allowed for us both to have conflicting opinions about the value or meaning of certain parts of the music. These were resolved and the sections were written out onto three sheets of paper. Each sheet of paper addressed one of the sections (A, B or C) and contained a table splitting the score into three further sections; whole forest, the cacophony and the individual voice. Having decided on which parts of the score related to specifically which part of the scene I cut up a score, and we stuck the different parts of the piece on the wall in three columns corresponding to sections A, B and C (Fig 20).
From there we made more refinement and started to develop a timeline for the scene. Whilst sticking and arranging the sections of score on the wall Oliver also rearranged the score in the Sibelius file on the computer. We decided that some sections would act as a background, representing the viewpoint of the whole forest. Then on top of and within that there are moments of single voice and moments of cacophony.
During this process we also started to get to know some of the characters in the piece. The text I had originally written for this scene was very broad and could be used to indicate characterisations in a number of ways. Through analysing the score, and understanding more about the different sections and viewpoints of the scene some characters started to emerge. The next task for myself and Oliver is to recompose the first scene in light of this new timeline. and develop the emerging characterisations as can be seen in fig 21.
AP 2.1 Cycle 1
The development of this piece started in lockdown where I was lucky to be living with a composer who was able to collaborate with me in person allowing us to engage in direct and important conversations over how we wanted the text and music to come across. We were able to do so through ongoing workshops which explored the performative, scenic and dramaturgical elements of the work.
We began by first composing scenes 1 and 2 which we then workshopped after further reflection made it clear more work would help us to get deeper into the topic and the story. Below the reader will find the reflections from these workshops.
AP 2.1.b Workshop for Scene 2: 22/11/2020
The approach to this scene was very different to the last one. The material we already had to work from was large but much less focused than what we had created for scene 1. This meant that at first it was important for us to discuss what we were trying to really achieve in this scene. This scene is also much harder to connect with as there is no real narrative to the scene, it is just a description of the plantation. We began by making a word list on what we thought described the plantation. This is below:
Mirror, Isolation, Vanity, Slave, Repetition, Fragile, Brittle, Regular, Decontextualised, Domesticated, Prisoner, Immigrant, OCD, Traumatised, Stockholm Syndrome, Constructed Reality, Hypnotic Factory.
This word list, combined with Oliver’s visual explorations from the previous workshop, the libretto, and the music already written gave us the ground work for a conversation over what this piece should include. Key decisions over the style of the piece were:
- - There should be no polyphony. The plantation has many voices talking but they are all saying the same thing, disconnected from each other.
- - The music should make use of homophony, canon and synthesis.
- - There should be elements of distortion – the plants are constantly mirroring back on themselves leading to a distortion/echo chamber, and the also cannot hear the other plants around them clearly due to their roots being cut –> distortion.
- - There will be a beat, it will be in 4/4. In this way it will emulate a nightclub/factory feel.
- - There is no narrative but we will look to develop the sensation of running out of water – a kind of winding down before being fed/watered again.
- - The piece will not have a beginning/end but be a cyclical process. It will loop back on itself.
We also discovered through online research that the edge of land, between rainforest and plantation, is an area of research. It is a particularly tough habitat and the prevalence of these edges (segmenting of rainforest) has a strong impact on potential biodiversity. This is already in keeping with the ideas generated about the edge of the rainforest from the first workshop. These were that the edge would be impenetrable to the rainforest. They would not hear or understand the sounds coming from there and it would be more like a white noise. We listened to some different pieces of music and sound design from Oliver’s catalogue, our own piece and other artist’s. We focused on the idea that the opening to this scene would include this white noise. Almost like being on the outside of a nightclub which would then suddenly turn into a very clear song, as soon as the audience’s perspective enters the plantation.
After listening to what Oliver had already written for the plantation, we decided that the best parts to keep were the vocal lines, but that they did not need to be developed so far or have so much variation. To retain this sense of repetition we cut some of the final verse vocal lines and decided to replace them with a repetition of previous lines.
AP 2.1.c First Narrative
The first narrative for this piece involved 7 scenes but the story was different during scenes 5, 6 and 7. Below is the narrative originally described for these scenes in the first treatment I sent to my supervisors and collaborators in January 2021.
Scene 5: Palm Tree Exits the Cave
The palm tree root will be plugged into the network and see the whole way of life of the collective. It will see seeds grow to old trees, seeds be planted where they fall. Trees relying on other trees for help and guidance, a knowledge of the soil, how deep roots can grow, and death from natural cause (not being chopped down).
Having seen all this the palm tree cannot just go back.
Scene 6: Recruiting
The palm tree root returns to its plantation and seeks to recruit other plants to go with it to the main network. It encounters the same problems that the network did, however it manages to persuade at least one through the knowledge it has gained.
Scene 7: Revolution
The two palm tree roots begin their own network as well as plugging into the rainforest’s network. They make a deal with the rain forest to support it when it needs help (such as right now) by passing nutrients from the soil fertilised by humans. In return when a palm seed falls in the forest the rainforest network will nurture it until it is full adult. In this way palm trees will become a flourishing part of the rainforest network as well.
Palm trees pledge to set up initiative to connect as many of the plantation roots as possible to the network to strengthen both groups. Revolution has begun.
As discussed in section 3.4.e this narrative was altered after discussing it with the key scientists.
AP 2.1.d Second Workshop for Scene 2: 21/01/2021
During November/December 2020 Oliver and I had already workshopped Scene 2 and created an initial idea and structure for the composition and sound of the scene. However neither of us were fully satisfied with what we had achieved and so we decided to schedule this next workshop to rethink the compositional aspect of the scene, as well as to create some imagery which would both help us to define the form of the composition and as an idea for digital imagery which could accompany it.
I started by drawing some pictures of how I imagined the plantation to look both from without and from within. We did this whilst listening to our initial composition. I felt there were some elements which clearly represented images related to soil, and the passage of water and fertiliser through the soil, while other elements represented the voice of the plants in the plantation. It became more and more obvious as we continued to draw that there was a distinction between two spaces in the plantation. These were:
- The plantation as a whole – in this case what I really mean is the tilled soil and manmade structures e.g. sprinklers, around the trees.
- The experience of the individual trees themselves.
After making these drawings I also wrote down a list of descriptive words which helped to describe the different sensations that I wanted to be represented in the scene. These were: distortion, squeezing, singular, regular, background, trickle, naive, erotic, consumable, mindless, empty, tilled, clone.
We then split these words up into different sections which could be used to section different parts of the music. These were:
|
Regularity |
Human |
Production |
Solitary |
Brainless |
|
Singular, clones, regular, DNA |
Tilled, trickle |
Erotic, squeezing, consumable |
Distortion, naive, echo, singular |
Mindless/full, empty, consumable |
Having discussed these different sections we then decided that we would have a structure in which we would be coming in and out of the “human” sound world (a bit like leaving the matrix) and the tree roots sound worlds (regular, producer, solo, brainless).
Having done this, I began working on developing some animations and graphics based on the imagery we created in our drawings. Whilst I did this Oliver did some more composing and formatting of the score. Once Oliver had created some more rhythms and progressions, we did some improvising together on the synthesiser and electric guitar, to find a sound world for the sections which represented the world outside of, and in between, the trees in the plantation. After we found a good idea of the sound for this Oliver used it to compose further.
Across the following 4 days we worked together on putting together a new version of the music and graphics based on the ideas created from this workshop. We were aiming to get a final video completed for the Inside//Out Festival on 27th January. We achieved this and you can see this video below.
AP 2.1.e Workshopping movement for scene 1 – March 2021
Due to COVID this piece is being worked on digitally as a first round, in preparation for the eventual live performance. The materials created to digitally represent the piece will be potential source material for scenery and movement in the live performance. This is an initial round of the process in creating the piece.
On 1st March I went to the LAB and recorded myself doing some movement to help find a way of representing the signals in the roots through physical movement. I wanted to find a way to physically express the roots and signals so that I can move the piece closer to a sense of theatricality through the use of the human body. The plan was to then take these films and adapt them with After Effects to generate footage that could be an abstract representation of the roots. In order to achieve an environment where the footage would be clear enough for me to manipulate I ordered a white morph suit so that my body could be seen as a series of clean lines. This would make it easier to work with in After Effects. This process would also require an exploration of After Effects and some time in learning how to use it. When in the lab I recorded 3 key types of movement as an initial test. These were: 1. fluid movement across the floor, 2. wobbly upright movement, 3. forceful pushing across the space.
In performing movement 1 I was concerned with making my body move as an amoeba, or a morphing electrical ball. To achieve this I thought about the changing shape of the probabilistic path of an electron. For movement 2 I was focusing on the reflection of the effect of lightning on the roots that myself and Oliver discussed in the first workshop on scene 1. This was a jellifying feeling. For movement 3 I was imagining pushing large amounts of resources, similar to an ant rolling some food back to the nest. I also imagined pushing through a dense fluid, reflecting the movement of electricity and resources through packed passages.
The first test below using movement 1, involved using the find edges/posterize/echo effects on After Effects. The outcome of this video generates the sensation of a multilimbed creature struggling through a space: see top film below.
The next video used movement 3. To enhance the feeling of pushing through a dense space I added a light trail effect. This also replicates the idea of a trail being left behind by the signal, or a wave passing through the space. To achieve this I used the rotobrush/particle playground and other colour enhancing effects. See middle film below.
The final video made us of movement 2. In order to achieve this I used the rotobrush/turbulent noise and find edges/posterize. The noise is layered so the performer can move through the space. I choose this noise as it looks like molecules of water and sugars that would be present in the network. See bottom film below.
AP 2.1.f Interviews with Dr Leah Band, Dr Markus Eichhorn and Prof. Adrian Newton
Below are the transcribed notes and reflections from the interviews with these three key scientists. These interviews happened March-April 2021.
AP 2.1.f.i Dr Leah Band (Reflections and notes) (Dr L. Band, 2021, personal communication, 30 March)
Before meeting with Leah on Teams she had made me aware that her particular line of work was probably not exactly what I was looking to discuss in relation to the piece. However, I reassured here that there are definitely elements within the piece, for example its focus on roots, that would be in line with her work.
I started out by describing the project and then asking her if she knew anything about how mycorrhizal fungi attach themselves onto root tips of plants in forests. This was not something she knew about as her research was not related to these aspects of root development. Her work is particularly focused on hormone generation within plants and how this impacts root growth.
I also asked her about the impact of fertiliser on root growth, and whether a constant influx of nitrogen from distribution of fertiliser has a strong effect on root growth. Leah was able to tell me that even though fertilisers are placed on top of the soil, the nitrogen still always sinks too deep in the soil, so it is unlikely that there would be that much of a difference in how and where the roots grow in the soil.
Next, I asked Leah a bit more on her work. She described a bit about the generation and synthesis of hormones in the plants. I asked her what external factors could affect the generation of these important hormones. She said the most common affecting factors were light, salt, cycadean rhythms, water status and temperature. Interestingly plants can be equally affected by light pollution.
Leah then went on to describe to me some of the importance of the root tip, and how some processes in the root tip will cause it to always grow in the right direction. This is called the gravitropic response. She described how the cells in the root tip have a handful of small starch particles called statoliths. These statoliths are responsive to gravity and so will fall to a different side the cell when the root tip is horizontal rather than vertical. The position of these statoliths generates a signalling cascade which in turn affects the amount of the hormone auxin that can pass through the root membrane. The more auxin is present the slower the growth in that area. This will allow a faster growth on one side of the root, and a slower growth on the other, causing it to bend. This process shows a very nice mechanical explanation for how root tips are able to respond to gravity and position in the soil.
I then went on to ask Leah about how the soil is affected by the plant or vice versa. She told me a bit about the rhizosphere which is the region of soil around a root. Roots are able to release different chemicals into this soil to adjust its properties. Better understandings of these plant-soil interactions will be extremely valuable for agriculture. It is possible that we are not making best use of the interactions between microbes in the soil and the plant, or that some of what we do to the soil is permanently damaging or destroying important organisms that the plant would normally interact with.
We discussed how there are specific hormones for specific functions, just as in the human body. The hormone related to stress response in plants is called jasmonic acid. These could include abiotic stress factors, such as light, drought, CO2, or temperature.
Finally, we discussed the difficulty in studying roots and how scientists are finding ways around this through the use of scans and X-Ray imaging. In this link you can find graphics created of these X-Ray images to show roots in the soil. These images also show the structure of the soil. The plant used in most of these experiments is called Arabadopsis as it is quite simple and therefore easy to work with. These plants are grown in cylinders 50cm in diameter and 1m high. They are all grown in a large green house which is part of the Hounsfield Facility in Nottingham.
I had already seen the images created here which had inspired some of the previous work done on digital artifacts from the workshop for movement in scene 1.
AP 2.1.f.ii Dr Markus Eichhorn (reflections and part transcriptions) (Eichhorn, 2021)
Prior to the discussion with Markus he had asked me to send him some questions to consider before we had our discussion. These were:
- What impact does plantation spacing of trees have on the relationships between them in comparison to the natural forest systems?
- What sort of impact does the loss of land, due to plantation, have on the remaining regions of forest?
- How do you feel about plants being described as intelligent?
- In a more general sense what do you want our relationships with forests to look like going forward?
I started the discussion by explaining a bit more about the piece to Markus. This included the story and the influences from the scientific community, and the types of societies found in rainforests.
Beyond that I also went on to explain about the project and work I had done on looking at google earth photographs which showed that a lot of supposedly forested areas were in fact palm plantation. Markus agreed and went on to confirm that the Malaysian government are claiming a lot of land to be forest which is actually, oil palm, fruit tree or rubber tree plantation.
I went on to mention the work of Suzanne Simard and the Wood Wide Web. As soon as I mentioned this phrase Markus responded by saying that the idea of the Wood Wide Web was particularly annoying to scientists as it has created quite a strong misrepresentation. So I asked him what it is that he is most worried about by the use of this term.
Markus said that there are really 2 problems and misconceptions here.
- People really like being able to project a moral high ground onto nature, to feel like nature is better than we are. However when we project that onto forests we are really badly misunderstanding what goes on inside them. Firstly – trees are not friends – they are constantly in competition. They try to grow on top of each other to get to the light or colonize the soil to reach the nutrient rich areas. They are constantly squeezing each other and trying to win in a battle to reach the canopy. He then likened the ways forests grow to the luggage collection section of an airport. If everyone stayed behind the line when collecting luggage then you would be able to see yours clearly and step forward when you needed to. But everyone steps in front of the line anyway. The trees like this are always jostling with each other. Why would they have trunks otherwise? The trunks are only there to beat the other trees. Why do they need to be tall? Ultimately they are under a vicious competition.
- I asked about how some trees are helping to promote their own species. Markus described that it’s not the trees talking to each other or sharing things underground, it’s the fungi. And the fungi are doing it for their own reasons and own interest. They are doing it because they want to do it. It could be that certain species of fungi are more associated with certain species of tree so they are more likely to pass carbon into those species. There also isn’t really much reason for one species to favour its own members.
Markus went on to say that there is still a common interest in the forest. If you get gaps in the forest then everything is exposed making it at risk. However trees don’t see very far so they might not realise that. The trees don’t feel a community interest. They are not doing things for each other even if there is an aggregate support generated by what they are individually doing.
Markus apologised for shattering any preconceptions. He said trees are much more like ourselves than we want them to be. They do not have access to an ethical sense that we don’t. They are also life forms like us.
I then asked if the plantations have the same fungal networks. Markus said they do but there is far less diversity as there are far fewer species. The same interactions are at play. They are still jostling to get into the canopy. It doesn’t matter how many trees you plant, you still end up with the same numbers of trees. The ideal spacing of trees is focused on getting the ground covered quickly to avoid erosion, however it is assumed 2/3 of them will die. When you see tree planning schemes for lots of trees it is likely only 10% of them will ever get to adult height. The number of trees is irrelevant – it is the area that tells you how many trees you will really get. In forestry you deliberately thin stands – start with too many trees and then thin them out. In temperate forestry this helps them to go tall and straight. For example if I went to a park in Birmingham an oak tree would be spreading outwards and covering a large area, however in a forest e.g. in North America it would grow straighter. This would lead to better wood for future uses.
I asked after if the roots would grow differently due to that as well. Markus replied that the challenge with growing the same species is that the roots grow in the same way. In a diverse forest you get a much more even coverage with the roots but if all the same species then the plants are competing with each other a lot more and butting into each other. I asked if there was any possibility that the roots might interact and cut each other off. Markus replied that what happens underground with the roots is still very mysterious and hasn’t really been discovered yet. I went on to ask if the way the roots are treated in nurseries can have an impact on plantations. Markus said that most trees don’t have tap roots, and in fact they have quite a low density of root in general (especially compared to the size of the tree above the ground).
Markus reassured me that nothing he has said is a surprise to foresters or other people in forestry but it is always a surprise when he is communicating to the wider public about what he is doing. People always wish to find something more noble in trees. Trees look out for themselves and their own offspring. I asked if it’s possible for the trees to act as a group rather than individuals when it is being put under stress such as deforestation. He replied that they have no means to act as a group. A forest doesn’t know that it is being cut down. A tree 100m away from the edge doesn’t know what is happening. The trees on the edge will detect changes in environment. They will have to adjust to a different climate. When you do create an edge, particularly in a rain forest, it seals up. This is not deliberate but the open light environment generates a wall of green which fills the edge. In a couple of years that helps to restore the climate within the forest close to the edge by providing a protective wall of green material. It’s not that the community has decided this, it’s just that there is an opportunity. The side effect is that it does protect the forest’s interior as well.
I then asked if the trees on the edge might spread out into the plantation. Markus replied that yes they should spread out as this type of disturbance creates a lot of nutrients and opportunity for the trees there.
All the discussion above led me to explain how this has strong impacts on the story I am writing. I don’t wish to participate in a false representation of the science, or a perpetuation of misconception, so there is certainly more to consider about how the story is formed.
Markus went on to decide emergent properties. These are a combination of decisions that have been made by selfish individuals which can still lead to a net benefit for the community. This does not have to mean they are doing it for the community, but that the community still benefits. There is a system of regeneration – a set of processes that allow the community to restore itself. An aggregate effect of lots of little decisions that brings the ecosystem back to its former state. He likened this to the economy recovering after the 2008 crash. This was not because everyone said we must build the economy back up again, but just that people needed to start trading. We use many of the same models to understand economics and ecological systems. They even come from the same Greek word oikos meaning household. Oikos logos – study of households, oikos nomos – numbers of households. The way that ecosystems and economies sustain themselves are very similar. There are lots of individual actors leading to a stable whole.
So, I suggested there is no long-term picture to what they do. They just act.
Markus then said that I should not feel too disillusioned as what he has said to me so far is a very global north, technocratic scientist’s view of the forest. If I were to sit down with an indigenous person who lives in a rainforest, ask them about their understanding of how it works, they would give me an entirely different image of how it works. He suggested that from my perspective it might be worth decolonizing the view a little bit and maybe thinking about how indigenous people view the forest and interactions between the trees.
For example, Markus works with an indigenous group called the Chet Wong who live in a rainforest called Pahang in peninsula Malaysia. They believe that each of the tree species is occupied by a spirit. They know them by name, they are their ancestors, and they are connected to them. They are surrounded by a community of spirits which are represented by the trees. The Chet Wong don’t talk in the daytime because the spirits are asleep in the daytime. At sunset they sing songs to the spirits, and you can chat. As they go through their day they note what is happening to each tree – is it flowering, is it sick? At the end of the day the shaman goes through a ritual chant where he prays to the trees and mentions each of the species by name and says what they did today. There is a two-way interaction between the shaman seeing the forest and communicating with the spirits, that is a lifelong conversation between the people and the trees. They are at one with the trees and integrated with the greater whole that is the rainforest.
Overall, I should remember that natural selection is not the only valid perspective on viewing forests. Markus suggested that I look at Signey Howell’s books to find out more about the cosmology of the forest from the Chet Wong. Markus reassured me that I should not be disillusioned that science might be my only way into the project, and that there are plenty of belief systems which could marry with what I am hoping to do.
I moved on to say that I am really trying to mark the distinction between plantation and forest. Markus replied that that isn’t really the case and that there are many diverse plantations. People have been managing forests for various purposes for 10’s of thousands of years. something that has really transformed our understanding of rainforests over the last 20 years is the realisation that pretty much all the rainforests have been inhabited by people. For example, in South America the reason there are so many brazil nut trees hanging around is probably because people put them there. People moved the Brazil nut and the Palm species around the amazon basin. All of the rainforests that we as global north outsiders go into and think wow – this is a pristine state of nature – have been moderated for a long time. There are very few rainforests that haven’t been affected by humans. When you go to the scale of an oil palm plantation then that is an extremely managed single species system. It still has diversity in it but there is a spectrum, and the intensity of management gives you different outcomes depending on whether you want a single product system, or whether like the Chet Wong you like some tree species more than you like other tree species.
I asked why they like some more than others. Markus said that for the Cheq Wong it is mostly because they like to plant fruit trees. A lot of southeast Asia is described as a fruit desert so people deliberately plant fruit trees whenever possible. As for other species there are some, they like better than others but he didn’t know how old this preference is, if it is personal or generational. I commented that the Cheq Wong are treating the trees as individuals, giving them separate spirits etc. Markus replied that they do however understand that they function as a whole. I mentioned that indigenous societies often discuss forests as a whole/as a one. A bit like our societies now where we are trying to function but are always still acting as individuals. Perhaps it’s because we can see the forest from the outside that we can see the whole. Just as we cannot see the whole of humanity. Markus replied that trees can only see their neighbours, so they do not see the whole.
I went on to describe the opening trauma of an old and established tree dying from a lightning strike. I wanted to know: if a tree gets hit by lightning can that affect the roots and mycorrhizal, and do we know how it might damage trees or systems around it. Markus agreed that lightning strikes are a large cause of death for tropical trees. He said that once the tree dies it will reorganise everything underground. There will be no more input from stuff above so a lot of the connections to the tree will wither. The network will be readjusted. Then bits of it will fall which is a serious risk to the neighbourhood. When it falls many more trees will fall with it. But then it releases dead wood. This will change the composition of the fungi into decomposers which break up the wood tissue, and then other tree roots will grow into that. Old logs on the rainforest floor that you break up with your fingers are full of hyphae and other tree roots. Other trees are taking resources out of it as it breaks down. It spreads its resources and a patch of light that can be colonised.
I asked if it is a worry that climate change will contribute to more large tree death through lightning. Markus said that that has been suggested and there was some speculative evidence to show that a few years ago. People are working on that in Panama at the moment and it has been suggested that an increased frequency of lightning strikes might be a problem but it is too early to tell right now.
I asked Markus how he feels about plants being described as intelligence. He replied that he doesn’t think intelligence means the same thing in plants. I agreed. He said it annoyed him when people say trees are talking to each other. He said they don’t communicate in a way that animals do so it’s a bit of a meaningless use of the word. I asked him then about whether they are communicating in that case. He replied saying that if you ask a zoologist what communication is, they will say there are three elements: 1. a signal – an individual that wants to send a message. 2. The signal gets sent and detected by another individual. 3. The second individual acts upon it. In plants you get stages 2 and 3. For example when a plant gets damaged by an herbivore it releases volatile chemicals which are detected by other plants which up regulate their defences. The natural history books will say that plants are warning each other. But what we know is stages 2 and 3. We have no evidence for stage 1. It’s a bit like doing a fart and someone moving away from it. But that is not really communication. I commented that this seems to really be a question of consciousness. Markus agreed that we just don’t really know this yet. I asked if this would be an area of research that people will want to explore but Markus said that this does not really get much traction in the scientific community.
Finally, I asked the last question on my list. Markus said: “As a society we need a more holistic awareness of what trees and forests do for us and it’s not just about the splendour of rainforests or the fact that they create oxygen and rainfall, but also, we need timber, we need fruits, we need wood products and papers. And we need to not just learn to live with forests better but also do understand that all types of forests have a value, and all have a place.”
AP 2.1.f.iii Prof. Adrian Newton (notes and reflections) (Prof. Adrian Newton, 2021, personal communication, 12 April)
We started by discussing some other events and projects that Adrian has seen and participated in. He particularly wanted to tell us about the “Evolving the Forest” book which is a collection of essays and art from an event held in Dartington in 2019. From this he was particularly concerned that many of the artists seemed to not really be fully considering the environmental impact of their work. E.g. using non recycled materials which would be disposed of after the event, or painting on the surfaces of trees and destroying the microbiome which exist there. He mentioned the example of artist Aviva Rahmani who painted some trees blue. Adrian pointed out that he was focused on the environmental side in the artistic approach to the science. He wanted to see that the art was motivated by an ethical value and ecological stand point. Something which promotes the “Deep ecology” perspective.
Adrian saw 2 key issues with the plot and outline of the story presented so far.
Firstly he wanted to know how the title “Delusion of Separation”, really refers to the oil palm. He was concerned that it would imply too much connection and kinship between the rainforest and the plantation. In particular he wanted to make us aware that the plantation has led to the loss of an entire system, causing ecosystem collapse. This is a key point to be made in the opera and something that I now need to rethink in the whole story telling of the piece. For example replacing forest with plantation will take that area of land from a system of 1000’s of species to a system of just 1 or 2 in the plantation. In relation to this he also wanted to see more use of the word “system”. He also wanted to see a greater relationship to the terms “complexity” and “diversity” coming across in the text.
Secondly Adrian wanted to point out that the networks are really fungal networks which are connecting the trees. Some people could view this fungal network as something which is even enslaving the forest. He also wanted to point out that it is only the Dipterocarp trees which can really form mutualistic connections to the ectomycorrhizal networks specifically in Borneo. The Palm trees would not be able to connect to the network as they are too alien (from Africa). They have not been developed or adapted to the land. This made me thing that there is something to do with time scale here which is having a strong effect. We are bringing these foreign species across the world far faster than they would ever travel themselves. From this he then emphasised that mutualism is a key concept to focus on here. That there are many ecologists who view forests as purely competitive spaces but that it is possible to also see this as mutualism. We then continued to talk about how the forest and plantation might integrate. Adrian said new seedlings would only be allowed to recover if the plantation were abandoned and that planting oil palm is really destroying one system in favour of another. He said that “the only way to get the forest back would be to destroy the plantation”.
We then went on to discuss the Forest Garden system also known as Taungya. This is a system through which plantations are made within the rainforest and managed alongside the existing ecosystem. Adrian suggested I look up “Taungya agroforestry in Indonesia” for further resources. This way of farming provides complexity, resilience and diversity.
We went on to discuss some other artistic and musical applications of these networking networks across landscapes. For example Adrian mentioned and exhibition he had attended where the artist was doing live improvised crochet alongside the live modular synthesiser. We also discussed the growing field of acoustic ecology or bioacoustics. In particular Adrian pointed out how you can tell the diversity of a forest from its frequency bandwidth. The more diverse the fuller. This made me think of the forest as a series of radio stations. It is also an interesting way to think more on the orchestration of the forest, and how to implement another line into the music (perhaps something which completes the bandwidth). He went on to mention Bernard Krause and The Great Animal Orchestra Symphony. He also mentioned Omri Cohen and his work on modular synthesisers and mushrooms. He then went on to talk about his own work where he had placed contact mics onto trees and recorded the inner sound of the trees. This is an album called Heartwood. I have since found some other artists who are also making work through the use of contact mics and synthesisers. For example the Dutch group Talking Trees, who can be seen performing at the most recent Be-Coming Tree online event.