The Coda for The Blued Trees Symphony has been a work in progress since October 1, 2016. It follows the third movement of the Symphony, which was about the legal framework of the project, and began the first of the year, January 1, 2016. an excerpt from that movement was recently performed at White Box Gallery.
The entire third movement unfolded as I was also coming to terms with a cancer diagnosis and the treatment, which I am still enduring. I experienced that as an internalization of the same degradation we are inflicting on our entire ecosystem, and most recently, on our culture and the very basis of civilization, in the form of the populist challenge Donald Trump and his followers represent.
Any symphonic coda is intended to resolve previous themes in the sonata form. In the case of Blued Trees, those themes include the need for the ecosystem that supports human life, and the manifold threats to that ecosystem, in these times, in the form of ruthless fossil fuel expansions. This coda will end on the American Election Day, Nov. 8, 2016, for the next President of the United Sates. As Trump's polls have fallen, he has encouraged his followers to stage a violent coup d'etat should he lose the election. The United States has never before face such a crisis.
In the next months, the project will travel to many venues, including George Mason University, Virginia Tech, the ASA conference, KRICT in Korea, and the 2017 College Art Association conference. At each venue, I will be presenting segments of the whole work, while I will be becoming to assemble the arts into a whole work for future venues. I will also be, with the rest of the world, watching this political debacle play itself out, and monitoring myself personally for a recurrence of cancer and tolerance for the meds I've been prescribed.
There are three weeks left to complete this coda, with stem semblance of coherence. Will the tempo be temp, like a series of jagged events and emotions? Or largo, as we all step back in a search for sanity and equilibrium? Will it be a waltz, as though death and life are dancing together? I shall see.
Sunday, October 16, 2016
Sunday, July 24, 2016
On Defiance, Uncertainty, and Empathy
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| Photograph by Joe Gaffney |
"Michael Royce, editorial director of the New York Foundation for the Arts, says there's a strong case to be made that Blued Trees"expands the boundaries of traditional sculpture installations and symphonic orchestration by allowing for a fluid interplay of music and physical experience...with the viewer as participant or observer."
The article makes clear, that in Peekskill, New York, the site of the 2015 overture launch of Blued Trees, the Spectra Corporation defied both good public policy, and legal constraints, to place their corporate profits above safety for millions of people. On the other hand, the article also made clear, that an idea cannot be killed.
As I negotiate the private process of surviving the medical protocols for cancer treatment, in the midst of creating the Coda movement which will culminate Blued Trees on the American Election Day, November 8, 2016, I am reminded of all the ways humans must publically negotiate uncertainty in the Anthropocene era.
A central thesis in my dissertation, "Trigger Point Theory as Aesthetic Activism," circled around the implications for the second law of thermodynamics, of James Clerk Maxwell's nineteenth century idea model, Maxwell's Demon, which posited that the work of sorting information, is a form of entropy. The implications I saw for environmental triage, were that the correct information can effect surprising change, in even the most apparently hopeless situations. In an era of unprecedented uncertainty and risk, the need for clean habitat for life on earth supersedes the disruptive impacts of greed.
In the case of the Blued Trees Symphony, which evolved out of Blued Trees, the surprising information is in the resilience and power of beauty, and empathy, in the face of destruction and greed. Effecting that surprise is the task of art. It is the mission of the Blued Trees Symphony. One tree, one note in our continental music. One person's struggle to defy despair, is all of our struggle to hold onto hope. That is how I would define empathy.
We now have the legal framework to resist the proliferation of fossil fuel infrastructure poisoning the earth, thanks to the work of the legal team of Gale Elston, and Michael Gentlesk. It will be made available to the Blued Trees painters.
Tuesday, June 14, 2016
The Blued Trees Symphony, an anniversary event
We are pleased to announce a new article about Blued Trees, by Nancy Averret, as we anticipate more painting the weekend of June 18, 2016, the anniversary of the Blued Trees overture.
You are invited to keep track with Facebook, on The Blued Trees Symphony public page. Join us!
http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Aviva-Rahmani-Shares--A-4-Day-Event-for-the-Blued-Trees-Symphony.html?soid=1102470517241&aid=QNZZwXliPHM
You are invited to keep track with Facebook, on The Blued Trees Symphony public page. Join us!
http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Aviva-Rahmani-Shares--A-4-Day-Event-for-the-Blued-Trees-Symphony.html?soid=1102470517241&aid=QNZZwXliPHM
Thursday, April 21, 2016
New Press on "Blued Trees Symphony"
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| Detail of a Blued Tree before destruction by Spectra Corporation to install natural gas pipelines in Peekskill, New York Photo by Erik R. McGregor |
There is some amazing new press on the Blued Trees Symphony:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/g-roger-denson/earth-day-ecoart-confront_b_9721354.html
Please consider donating to this project: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/blued-trees-new-legal-initiatives#/.
Sunday, February 28, 2016
Methane Is: shale gas methane emissions contribute substantial greenhouse gases, by Ruth Hardinger
I invited my friend and fellow activist artist, Ruth Hardinger to guest blog on methane emissions. The dangers of these emissions is one of the most serious motivators for the Blued Trees Symphony. I am happy to post this on the day after the arrest of eleven Resist AIM Pipeline defenders who chained themselves to an access gate to halt Hudson River drilling for the Algonquin Incremental Market (AIM)- the Spectra Corporation Pipeline. The site of their arrests was not far from where Spectra destroyed the Blued Trees overture Thanksgiving weekend 2015. On the same day, Governor Cuomo sent a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to halt construction on the AIM, and New York State Senators Liz Krueger and Felix Ortiz demanded pension fund fossil fuel divestments from Albany. It is a companion piece to the previous post, "After the Ph.D.," on environmental research work from artists. - Aviva Rahmani
Wyalusing area showing elevated methane (geological leakage) over a wide area in Susquehanna County, PA along the Susquehanna River This is data obtained with a Picarro CRDS machine which produces very accurate measurements of methane to 1/2 ppm. Chesapeake, the gas driller in the area, was fined $900,000.by Pennsylvania DEP for causing gas migration. The area picture is detailed in the May 16 PA DEP Consent Order (post damage arrangement) which has the maps that are made by the yellow and blue points in the image. At least one lawsuit was settled there for $1.6 million and there are many more filed.
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| Activists blocking Spectra work before arrests. Screenshot from FB of Photo by Erik R. McGregor |
“The short-lived climate pollutants [like methane] that we emit from human activities are basically controlling how fast the warming occurs, she said. This is because they are very powerful at absorbing radiation."[1]
Methane is CH4. It is a powerful greenhouse gas. It degrades over 8 to 12 years in the atmosphere, as it converts into carbon
dioxide (CO2). There are three different
sources of methane gas including thermogenic (from deep geology), anthropogenic
(from human activities) or biogenic
(from living organisms ) methane[2]. “Natural” gas is composed of 85 to 99%
methane, mostly thermogenic methane.
The global warming
potential of CH4 has been upgraded by IPCC to at least 86 times stronger than
CO2 during a 20 year time frame of this gas, and 105 times stronger over a 10
year time frame. Methane, grouped with
other near-term climate forcers such as black carbon, hydrofluorocarbon and
aerosols, is the most likely greenhouse gas escalating the planetary heat now,
because there is so much of it being released.
There have been few measurements of gas leakage from gas wells and
pipelines. The measurements that have
been made have found substantial concentrations of methane in the
atmosphere. Further, the EPA comparison
of methane to CO2 on the 100 year time frame claims methane is 25 times
stronger than CO2, hiding the real impact of CH4’s near-term presence. Simply, the 100 year time frame does not
acknowledge methane’s impact.
The current atmospheric
concentrations of CO2, methane and nitrous oxide have levels unprecedented in
the last 800,000 years.[3] There is great concern about the absence of
data collected of actual measurements of emissions. Fugitive methane emissions have been
measured in only a few cities: San Francisco CA, Manhattan, NY[4],
Washington DC, Boston MA, and several small towns. The urgency to address
climate change should be based on the actual impacts of this potent GHG. Bryce Payne, PHD and two other scientists
wrote to the White House and State Department that the GWP (global warming
potential) of methane needs be positioned even shorter than 20 years, it should
be a 10 year time frame. This will allow
us to understand what we are facing and to act appropriately to reduce the
changing of our planet’s climate.
Methane leakage impacts arise from man-made sources that include natural gas pipeline leakage, leakage and venting of upgrading pipelines, abandoned old wells, new wells, gas or oil storage fields (these are highly pressurized for example near Porter Ranch), migration underground that rises to the surface, and emissions from waste water disposal and earthquakes, venting methane in oil well fields, and more. This is happening in the US and in other countries. Evidence of leakage can be seen in the images attached here.[5] Damascus Citizens for Sustainability (DCS) has conducted methane emissions measurements in rural areas where methane escaped and has travelled beyond the target production zone underground, connected existing faults and fractures allowing gas to migrate to aquifers and the surface.
Methane leakage impacts arise from man-made sources that include natural gas pipeline leakage, leakage and venting of upgrading pipelines, abandoned old wells, new wells, gas or oil storage fields (these are highly pressurized for example near Porter Ranch), migration underground that rises to the surface, and emissions from waste water disposal and earthquakes, venting methane in oil well fields, and more. This is happening in the US and in other countries. Evidence of leakage can be seen in the images attached here.[5] Damascus Citizens for Sustainability (DCS) has conducted methane emissions measurements in rural areas where methane escaped and has travelled beyond the target production zone underground, connected existing faults and fractures allowing gas to migrate to aquifers and the surface.
 |
Figure 5. Image created by Bob Ackley, and Bryce Payne, Ph.D GasSafetyUSA
The 3-4 June 2013 Towenda-Wyalusing Ambient Air Methane Survey.
Relative methane levels indicated in red (highest peak in the image = 3.9ppm)
Blue and orange markers indicate the Paradise Road and Sugar Run methane migration
impact areas (4-mile) designated in 16 May 2011 Pa DEP Consent Order.
|
Wyalusing area showing elevated methane (geological leakage) over a wide area in Susquehanna County, PA along the Susquehanna River This is data obtained with a Picarro CRDS machine which produces very accurate measurements of methane to 1/2 ppm. Chesapeake, the gas driller in the area, was fined $900,000.by Pennsylvania DEP for causing gas migration. The area picture is detailed in the May 16 PA DEP Consent Order (post damage arrangement) which has the maps that are made by the yellow and blue points in the image. At least one lawsuit was settled there for $1.6 million and there are many more filed.
 |
| Image created by Bob Ackley, and Bryce Payne, Ph.D GasSafetyUSA |
Results of methane survey
of parts of Manhattan and rural areas to the East on 27-30 November and
December 2012.
DCS reported on fugitive
emissions of Manhattan in 2012 and in New York City Gas Safety Inc. in 2015
determined that at least 6.6% of the total delivered gas is leaking although
likely much more. [6]
Natural gas brings
substantial and devastating health impacts.
DCS has participated in a compendium of health impacts from fracking.[7]
Methane is an indicator gas for the mixture that is natural gas. The mixture includes radon, endocrine
disruptors, benzene toluene VETX , and more. Methane creates asthma from ozone
and burning the gas emits ultrafine particulate matter, under 2.5 microns–these
are like breathing someone else’s tobacco, an impact that it is overlooked.[8] Global health agencies have encouraged
awareness of air pollution-related diseases that causes over 6 million deaths
every year. [9]
A quote from Bryce Payne, PhD [10]
SITUATION IN BRIEF
"It is essential that all UNFCCC (Cop 21) Parties and the global citizenry be as clearly informed as possible with respect to potential climate change and what is being done to mitigate anthropogenic forcing of the climate compared to what is actually necessary if disruptive climate change is to be minimized. If climate change mitigation efforts are to be effective, the short-term impacts of potent, short-lived greenhouse gases, especially methane, must be considered. In the near term, methane emissions due to human activity have a stronger global warming impact than the much larger emissions of carbon dioxide. Current greenhouse gas inventory and reporting rules of the UNFCCC are causing the climate impacts of greenhouse gases such as methane to be effectively ignored."
"It is essential that all UNFCCC (Cop 21) Parties and the global citizenry be as clearly informed as possible with respect to potential climate change and what is being done to mitigate anthropogenic forcing of the climate compared to what is actually necessary if disruptive climate change is to be minimized. If climate change mitigation efforts are to be effective, the short-term impacts of potent, short-lived greenhouse gases, especially methane, must be considered. In the near term, methane emissions due to human activity have a stronger global warming impact than the much larger emissions of carbon dioxide. Current greenhouse gas inventory and reporting rules of the UNFCCC are causing the climate impacts of greenhouse gases such as methane to be effectively ignored."
*******************************************************************************
Ruth Hardinger is an
artist and a Board and Steering Committee member with Damascus Citizens for
Sustainability (DCS) since 2009. DCS is a
501-C3 organization that stands for clean water, air and land as basic human
rights. She initiated the fugitive
emissions measurements and studies in Manhattan for DCS with Rebecca Smith, and Barbara Arrindell (DCS Director). In recent art installation exhibitions,
Hardinger has used abstraction from the methane measurement work for The
Basement Rocks and The Basement Rocks – LOUDER.
The materials and sensitivity of constructions encourage awareness of
the underground. These exhibitions are
accompanied with “Grounding” a sound of the underground, by rock musician Andy
Chase, and letters for the visitors to take that convey her conversations with
scientist, Bryce Payne, PhD and professor Ron Bishop, PhD regarding damage that
is happening to the underground, the place of the most biomass in our
planet.
[5]
http://www.damascuscitizensforsustainability.org/2015/03/survey-ground-level-ambient-methane-levels-wyalusing-pa/
[6]http://www.damascuscitizensforsustainability.org/2013/03/manhattan-natural-gas-pipeline-emissions-press-release/
[8]http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:jExC_RQLhREJ:eujournal.org/index.php/esj/article/view/6517+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari
[9] http://www.unep.org/ccac/Portals/50162/docs/ccac/WG-APR2014-2-%20CCAC_Executive_Summary.pdf
[10]
http://www.damascuscitizensforsustainability.org/2015/12/letter-to-president-obama-on-methane-emissions/
Friday, February 26, 2016
After the Ph.D; working in the third movement of "Blued Trees"
Gaining a Ph.D late in any artists career is controversial. Those who think an artists task is to present the visual evidence and then step back, take exception to all those words, all those hours of research about content. I have always argued that an artist's research work at the Ph.D level becomes a more complicated process than routine studio research, and in the Anthropocene era, art should be more complicated.
Last weekend, I was in Zurich for a reunion of sorts, with the cohorts who had gained Ph.D's from the Zurich Node of the Planetary Collegium, initiated by Roy Ascott at Plymouth University, UK. The occasion was the presentation of Models of Diversity at the ETH, and the Zurich University of the Arts, where we had convened under the supervision of Dr. Angelika Scott, my first supervisor, and Dr. Jill Scott, my second supervisor, who started that program in 2005. It was the end of a unique integration of environmental sciences, technology and studio art.
The work of mine that was shown for the exhibition was from a 2007 group show, "Called to Action," curated by Lillian Ball. The view and details below, are from an installation visualization of trigger point theory, which became my dissertation topic (Trigger Point Theory as Aesthetic Activism). That theory inspired the www.gulftogulf.org website, and led to Blued Trees.
As part pf the conference that was part of the event, "Grounded Visions," I presented a PPT, that tracked how my theoretical work, which began before doing the Ph.D, culminated in Blued Trees, after completing my research.
I am now into the third movement of Blued Trees. It will continue until the summer solstice anniversary of the launch of the overture. In considering the copyright aspect of the project, I am focusing now on the the implications of the term, droit morale, which literally means, moral rights. Originating in the French Revolution, the term means the spiritual value of the artwork has inalienable rights. That concept is the basis for all copyright law. The difference between approaching
Trigger Point Theory before and after the Ph.D work, is that I can now frame my questions on multiple layers, with formal parameters that are far more sophisticated, leading towards more complex questions. The original idea, was that there are small geographical points, physically located, whose restoration might effect a larger systemic healing to degraded ecosystems.
I think the same skills that might have accomplished that physical identification of trigger points, has become a model to identify more complex points of intervention, such as the legal points in Blued Trees. I can now ask, "what has happened to the moral-spiritual value of artmaking?" and it's corollary, "what relationship might there be, in the Anthropocene era, between making art, and the moral basis of justice?" Could droit morale be a key to that answer?
Last weekend, I was in Zurich for a reunion of sorts, with the cohorts who had gained Ph.D's from the Zurich Node of the Planetary Collegium, initiated by Roy Ascott at Plymouth University, UK. The occasion was the presentation of Models of Diversity at the ETH, and the Zurich University of the Arts, where we had convened under the supervision of Dr. Angelika Scott, my first supervisor, and Dr. Jill Scott, my second supervisor, who started that program in 2005. It was the end of a unique integration of environmental sciences, technology and studio art.
The work of mine that was shown for the exhibition was from a 2007 group show, "Called to Action," curated by Lillian Ball. The view and details below, are from an installation visualization of trigger point theory, which became my dissertation topic (Trigger Point Theory as Aesthetic Activism). That theory inspired the www.gulftogulf.org website, and led to Blued Trees.
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| "Trigger Point/ Tipping Points," work in installation in "Models of Diversity", 2016 This was the first full installation of the complete work, Painting and drawing on paper with photography300 cm x 200 cm This work compared several sites in the Gulf of Maine to a site in Riverhead, NY, the location of the gallery, and the changes over ten years of time to the Ghost Nets site. |
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| Installation detail 1 These details just compare two sections of the Ghost Nets site, the wetlands is the process of restoration, and the uplands riparian zone in 1997, and then ten years later, with the schematic analysis of the project sphere of affect from the nucleation process of the trigger points. |
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| Detail 2 of "Trigger Points/ Tipping Points" installation. This is a detail shot of how one coastal city could effect an impact on a wider ecosystem on land and for marine life. |
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| Slide from conference presentation of Trigger Point Theory as Aesthetic Activism, to Blued Trees presented at ETH Feb. 19, 2016 for the "Models of Diversity," conference. In this slide, I explained the role of law in effecting trigger point theory to stop fossil fuel proliferation, and made the relationship between the rules of law, the incidence of chemical discharge in Newtown Creek, and corollaries to musical systems in Blued Trees. |
I am now into the third movement of Blued Trees. It will continue until the summer solstice anniversary of the launch of the overture. In considering the copyright aspect of the project, I am focusing now on the the implications of the term, droit morale, which literally means, moral rights. Originating in the French Revolution, the term means the spiritual value of the artwork has inalienable rights. That concept is the basis for all copyright law. The difference between approaching
Trigger Point Theory before and after the Ph.D work, is that I can now frame my questions on multiple layers, with formal parameters that are far more sophisticated, leading towards more complex questions. The original idea, was that there are small geographical points, physically located, whose restoration might effect a larger systemic healing to degraded ecosystems.
I think the same skills that might have accomplished that physical identification of trigger points, has become a model to identify more complex points of intervention, such as the legal points in Blued Trees. I can now ask, "what has happened to the moral-spiritual value of artmaking?" and it's corollary, "what relationship might there be, in the Anthropocene era, between making art, and the moral basis of justice?" Could droit morale be a key to that answer?
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
Pushing waves, making waves
The goal of Blued Trees has been to make waves in the legal system, by painting sine waves on the trees in forests, making music out of our relationships with those trees, making each site a trigger point for possible change.
I called this blog "Pushing Rocks," because that's what it often feels like to practice ecological art in the Anthropocene. Pushing waves, of course, is impossible. You either go with the flow of the waters or you resist them. I believe there may be ways to go with a flow.
What we want is sustainable change. Change that moves towards a resilient future. That may be far easier said than done. In this webcast with my colleagues, Jim White of UBS, and Gene Turner of LSU, we discuss how we might adjust to a very imminent future, in which the principles behind Blued Trees may have a role. As Jim White references in this webcast, perhaps it is not impossible to find a way to be part of the waves. What we want is to make waves that could erode hopelessness in the face of despair. We may need to first wade through a good deal of that despair.
https://vimeo.com/154916508?utm_source=email&utm_medium=vimeo-cliptranscode-201504&utm_campaign=28749
I called this blog "Pushing Rocks," because that's what it often feels like to practice ecological art in the Anthropocene. Pushing waves, of course, is impossible. You either go with the flow of the waters or you resist them. I believe there may be ways to go with a flow.
What we want is sustainable change. Change that moves towards a resilient future. That may be far easier said than done. In this webcast with my colleagues, Jim White of UBS, and Gene Turner of LSU, we discuss how we might adjust to a very imminent future, in which the principles behind Blued Trees may have a role. As Jim White references in this webcast, perhaps it is not impossible to find a way to be part of the waves. What we want is to make waves that could erode hopelessness in the face of despair. We may need to first wade through a good deal of that despair.
https://vimeo.com/154916508?utm_source=email&utm_medium=vimeo-cliptranscode-201504&utm_campaign=28749
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