How do forests respond to the loss of their most important "foundation" species?
AARON ELLISON: "Eastern hemlock is slowly vanishing from North American forests as it is weakened and killed by a small insect, the hemlock wooly adelgid. I tell the story of multiple consequences of hemlock loss through Hemlock Hospice, a collaborative, outdoor site-specific sculpture installation co-developed with artist and designer David Buckley Borden, currently being exhibited at Harvard University's Harvard Forest. Hemlock Hospice uniquely blends science, art, and design to [1] respect eastern hemlock and its ecological role as a foundation forest species; [2] promote an understanding of the adelgid; and [3] encourage empathetic conversations among all the sustainers of and caregivers for our forests - ecologists and artists, foresters and journalists, naturalists and citizens - while fostering social cohesion around ecological issues. More expansively, Hemlock Hospice contextualizes hemlock decline in the broader context of climate change, local effects of our global economy on the natural world, and environmental impacts of our consumer culture. As a scientist, I study how our forests may respond to the loss of this foundation tree species, but as a human being, I cry, I mourn, and I look to the future for hope. Hemlock Hospice tells the story of eastern hemlock in a new way, communicating why so many scientists and poets care about it, and what its plight tells us about the future of our environment."
How do cities get their form, and how does that emergent process relate to how complex biological systems evolve?
EMILY GARFIELD: "I study both cities and natural objects and use that to structure my drawing explorations. Through drawing I refine and iterate upon my mental conception of how this growth happens. In practice, I create abstract drawings in pen and watercolor that follow procedural rules with hand-drawn execution, resulting in images that can be interpreted as maps or networks, but also veins, cells or biological forms."
How can artistic thinking and procedures shift the visual outcomes of scientific photomicrography for aesthetic purposes?
ANASTASIA TYURINA: "My research involves aesthetic approaches to scientific photomicrography. Specifically, this project investigates the reinterpretation of photomicrographic images of micro-scale drops of water made by a scanning electron microscope (SEM), a tool that has expanded the boundaries of observation and representation of the micro world since it was introduced to scientific research in the mid-1960s. The primary purpose of my visual art project is to depict the inherent features of water that are invisible to the eye through using the SEM. To do so, I used the process of evaporation as an alternative and unusual artistic method of visually presenting the composition of water. My approach is unique in the specific way in which I use water to create images using the SEM. During experiments for my project, it became evident that the structure of water impurities is visually transformed after evaporation and reveals a unique connection between evaporation and solidification. This process of revealing the nature of water (water chemistry) allowed me to play with the process like an artist. As well as offering a visual engagement, the work offers an embodied engagement: an important connection to the material significance of water in our lives."
How can we capture the fleeting thoughts that continually race through our minds,
at the edge of consciousness?
at the edge of consciousness?
IAN GIBBINS: "Having been a neuroscientist for 35 years and a professor of anatomy for 20 of them, I am now a widely-published poet, electronic musician, and video artist. My deep knowledge of the brain and the body informs the written, visual, and audio language I use in writing and performing poetry across diverse formats. As a neuroscientist, much of my research was done at the microscopic level, examining how nerve cells communicate with other. I used everything from electron microscopes to recordings of the activity of single nerve cells. As a teacher of anatomy, I came to know the structure of the human body literally from inside out. Along the way, I acquired the language to describe what most people have never seen beneath our skins, as well as the understanding that what we consciously experience is a mental construct, reliable enough much of the time, hopelessly wrong at others. Over the years, my poems have explored these issues to varying degrees, often explicitly drawing on my scientific work and language. In my current practice, video poetry allows me to fuse text, audio, and moving image to present glimpses of the barely-conscious in unique ways. Using combinations of real-world imagery and animations, electronic and environmental sounds, original and found text as appropriate, I can generate microcosms of experience that people generally recognize and connect with, even though the details of any particular piece of work may seem obscure. My videos have been published in various online literary magazines, and have been shown in galleries, public art works, and in international festivals."
