green roads

This morning's jaunt along Mt. Pleasant Rd. was green! At first I thought this an illusion brought on by my tinted lenses but no... the recent rain has brought to life the moss that lives between the stones tarred into the road surface. A strange garden on the road. Is each a tiny ecosystem? I took it gingerly on the descents but didn't notice conditions being any more (or less) slippery than any other dry ride out this way.

A kangaroo bounced around in the trees beside the road. A flock of currawongs played in a ditch. A squawking flock of sulfur-crested cockatoos wheeled overhead. No wind. Still, cool air. A few hardy souls spinning up the brutal slopes. What a gorgeous ride!

green contractors

Monash University used to have a bunch of green-clad grounds staff. They were a friendly lot who could always be found around the university with their rakes, brooms and wheel-barrows. They cared for the trees, bushes, grasses and ponds. On a number of occasions they took the time to answer my enquiries about various native plants around the place. I knew them by face and a couple knew me also. We would exchange simple smiles of greeting as I encountered them at lunch or on my way to and from lectures and my office.

They are gone, having been replaced by a number of green contractors who blow dust and leaves around with leaf blowers. These contractors remove garden leaf litter to make the place "neater", thereby ensuring the lizards, spiders and other critters have nowhere to live. I don't know these people although they wear green uniforms with a company name emblazoned across the back. Their leaf blowers are noisy and make them unapproachable. They use petrol-powered line trimmers around the cafe whilst the academics are trying to chat about philosophy, chemistry, maths or important things.

A couple of years ago, a garden of native plants used by the aborigines was destroyed to make way for a new building. This had been tended by some senior academics, in particular an elderly woman who was most distraught about the loss of her contribution to Monash's gardens. Did anybody care besides her? I did! I bet the old grounds staff did too. My favourite quiet lunch spot, the botanical specimen garden by the pond, had occasional oddities — such as the foul-smelling Dead-horse lily and the glorious, Triffidesque sunflowers — has been partly demolished by building works.

I am getting old and grumpy. Some changes are clearly not for the better.

complexity increase in evolutionary software

Daniel W. McShea, Perspective: Metazoan Complexity and Evolution: Is There a Trend?, Evolution, Vol. 50, No. 2 (Apr., 1996), pp. 477-492.

[Image credit: Fig 1. Increasing complexity in evolution? McShea, 1996]

It would appear at a glance that evolution has driven increases in complexity from replicating molecules up to conscious humans. Is this justified? Or are humans simply so self-centered that we line everything up behind us, even in this modern day and age? A-Life has held the production of open-ended evolution in-silico as one of its aims for some time. Early models such as Ray's Tierra or Yaeger's PolyWorld are two of my favourite approaches to the problem. Each of these software ecosystems has spawned a complete lineage of programs addressing similar concerns. McShea's paper looks at data on real organisms and attempts to discern any trends in their evolution that would justify the belief that organisms evolve towards greater complexity. Consequently, it addresses an issue of real importance to A-Life that harks back to the formative years of Tierra and PolyWorld.

McShea's approach is firstly to clarify the kinds of complexity that can possibly be measured in real organisms. This has long been a sticking point... the real world is not always so easy to divvy up as information theoreticians might like. Useful, information-theoretic measures of organism complexity are difficult to specify. McShea simplifies matters a little by trying to count organism parts and internal processes that are specific to some groups of Metazoan. I won't go into detail here. His conclusions is interesting: we still don't know enough to say either way. He proposes an "emphatic agnosticism". This is a far cry from the usual assumption we make about complexity increase. There is room here for debate. Anyway, leaving that aside also since it still isn't the main point I want to raise in this post...

If, for some obscure reason, biological evolution turns out to be closed, could we modify the scenario in simulation to generate virtual ever-increasing complexity regardless? A-Life has always assumed that the real world offers an example of open-ended evolution and that somehow our simulations are missing some secret herbs and spices that will allow this to occur. It is pretty clear that our software evolutionary systems fall far short of biological evolution as complexity generators. We have probably missed an element or two. But could it be that we will correctly simulate real evolution and still not get open-ended evolution? Maybe the simulation will clarify our perspective on real evolution by showing us why it must be closed. What then? Could software evolutionary systems exceed nature's ability to evolve complexity?

I think that is an amazing possibility. For now I will just keep on playing "catch up" with nature.

suburban wetlands - ecosonics

I used to live about a ten minute walk from a creek and surrounds that, long ago, used to be a wetland. Then it was just a suburban drain in a strip of land between a freeway and some cricket pitches and monitored by massive power-pylon robot-monsters. Then it was remade into a wetland again, complete with a secluded bird-watch. I used to regularly scoot down to the waterside on a hot Summer's evening to enjoy the frogs' competition with the nearby freeway traffic noise. I have since moved house.

As Spring has now arrived I am very pleased to find that once again the frogs are near at hand. I was out at midday, at last enjoying some sunshine, and I found myself in a wetland a 20 minute walk away — quite manageable and well worth the steep return trip. The frogs were making a lovely din that completely drowned out any traffic. That is quite a feat in suburban Melbourne! Its a shame about the ever-present DIY renovation junkies and their circular saws and routers. Even the frogs were stretched by this competition. Why aren't people happy with their homes as they are? Anyway...

I heard at least three frogs. Thanks to the marvellous Frogs of Australia website's audio resources and a CD of Australian frog-calls, I can say with (shaky) confidence that I heard: the Eastern Common Froglet; the Eastern Banjo Frog (I prefer its other name, the Pobblebonk); and lastly, a frog that made a very short, percussive "click" sound. I suspect this was the Spotted Marsh Frog. If not, it may have been the Striped Marsh Frog (named like an Italian beer, Limnodynastes Peroni). The frogs were set off delicately (!?) by the screech of playing Lorikeets, the warbling of Magpies and the playful antics of the native Noisy Miners.

These local wetlands are absolutely brilliant. I wish all storm-water drains and creeks could be de-concreted and replanted. The urban sonic environment would benefit immensely.

spatial ecosystems - Motomichi Nakamura

The images of Motomichi Nakamura like that at left feel like "spatial ecosystems". The organisms' forms are constrained by their neighbours' and the space as a whole. Where there is a niche an organism has become especially suited to it.

The only spatial aspect I feel to be missing is hierarchy. I.e. the images would be more ecosystem-like if some organism's bodies were rendered inside the bodies of others. I don't think this is one of the artist's concerns though :-)

messing with organisms

Eduardo Kac is best known for his glowing bunny but he has produced a wide range of works over the years. A quick online summary is available. The issues Kac's bio-art raises are certainly similar to those addressed on this blog. His work usually makes me queasy and I find it hard to assess the reasons for this. One is, I suspect, the blatant sensationalism and commericalism of his venture. Shades of Damien Hirst. That's an easy trap for a critic to fall into though... I don't feel it is a good reason not to be interested in his art.
Other problems I have with Kac's work are probably more important. They are not conceptually very interesting and they are not aesthetic objects of the kind I value. Splicing this and that code into organisms to see what emerges seems to me really silly and uncreative. Feeble! The results (e.g. a rabbit or a plant growing on a chess board) are aesthetically lame.

I would be more interested if his work addressed the ways in which people have engaged with genetics over millenia, for instance, through traditional breeding as applied to crops and domestic animals or livestock. Whilst there is less showmanship in engineering an apple than a glowing bunny, drawing attention to the engineering we all depend upon for our survival is more subtle and disarming than attempting to shock people with a rabbit. Why make a big deal about modern genetics? We have been manipulating genes for at least 10,000 years.

Image credit: E. Kac, Clairvoyance, biotope, 19 X 23 ", 2006

A relatively recent work of Kac's, Specimen of Secrecy About Marvelous Discoveries which was first exhibited at the Singapore Biennale in 2006, is I think more interesting than genetically tagging rabbits. His website explains,

"Specimen of Secrecy about Marvelous Discoveries is a series of works comprised of what Kac calls "biotopes", that is, living pieces that change during the exhibition in response to internal metabolism and environmental conditions. Each of Kac's biotopes is literally a self-sustaining ecology comprised of thousands of very small living beings in a medium of earth, water, and other materials. The artist orchestrates the metabolism of these organisms in order to produce his constantly-evolving living works."

Judging only by the online still imagery, the works look quite beautiful in a traditional, painterly, textural kind of a way. From what little I know of Kac's work this is a first. I'd love to see the works first-hand and in time-lapse to make a more informed remark. For how long are they "self-sustaining"?

The beauty of these ecosystems lies also in their conceptual underpinnings, in the pathos of an ecosystem out of context. Severed from connections with other organisms*, these displaced ecosystems have such a hopelessness about them. Rendering ecosystems as trapped living displays on a gallery's stark walls furthers our separation from nature and renders it a passive system independent of ourselves and available for capture and manipulation. Of course I expect this to be part of Kac's intention.

Is it okay to present nature in this way in order to raise our consciousness of the perspective we (or at least our culture) adopts? Probably. It seems little different to growing a garden or keeping a pet, neither of which offends my sensibilities and neither of which attempts to raise environmental concerns. Maybe this is a work by Kac I can actually appreciate!

*In the absence of any explanation, I seriously doubt substantial micro-organism exchange between the environment and these works. Please comment if you know more than I do about this. Are visitors asked to inhale and exhale onto the works?

an immanent aesthetic: art -> architecture

Notes from, Andy Webster & Jon Bird, Better Living Through Electrochemistry? in Artful Ecologies, University College Falmouth, 2006, pp 121-128.

Image credit: Andy Webster, 51 Aqueous Dispersals, 2006, Viscous Solution & Air, 36”x24”.


Webster and Bird discuss G. Bateson's The Roots of Ecological Crisis. The basis of all threats to humanity’s survival are technological progress; population increase; and the prevailing values of western culture. In particular, again it is the Western notion of self as independent of environment that is called into question. Shades of Deep Ecology here.

How and what can art do to change people's values? Well, I am skeptical it can do anything apart from change the views of those who care about art. In Australia at least we are in the minority. And to make matters worse, this minority is quite likely already converted. Art might not have any impact here. I can't see art stopping the developing world from desiring to emulate the Western lifestyle either.

Webster and Bird call for immanent art that allows the materials to find their own form, rather than having form imposed by an artist in a transcendent art. Imminent art they say has, "the greatest potential to correct people’s view of their relationship with the environment".

To a large extent I feel that any artist is always "discovering" the form of a medium. Whether that be words, sound, the line, plate metal, mud-brick, computation or any other. What the authors seem to be getting at though is a desire to explore natural, physical, chemical or biological (and I add computational!) processes by letting them speak for themselves. Yet the artist must always set up the boundary conditions. I feel strongly that art is a biologically instigated intervention in the world. We can argue about the degree of control the artist maintains, but there must always be some, even if only at the initiation point.

Immanent art exhibits physical, chemical or biological dynamics that act independently of the artist. That is, the art's form is self-determined, possibly for an extended period. Art that clarifies or heightens one's experience of a natural process (like melting ice, flowing tides, cell reproduction) can really be enlightening and I hope to see much more of it, even though I am a reasonably environmentally-aware pessimist with his eyes glued to screens for much of my life :-)

If anything really has the potential to change our view of the self as extending into the realm of what we currently label "the environment" I feel it is most likely architecture. This operates more broadly than art since: all of us, whether we are intellectually interested in it or not, engage directly with it; it is absorbed subconsciously and mediates our experience of the climate and other organisms. A topic for another post.

Feminism, Deep Ecology and Environmental Ethics

Notes on, Zimmerman, Michael E., Feminism, Deep Ecology and Environmental Ethics. In The Deep Ecology Movement, An Introductory Anthology, Drengson and Inoue (eds), North Atlantic Books, 1995, pp 169-197.

In a nutshell, this is a paper responding to feminist claims that Deep Ecology is so heavily based in patriarchal thinking that it cannot possibly succeed. Main reasons (according to this male author) as I (a male) interpret them are:

1. That until males accept the domination of women as equivalent to male domination of nature any such philosophy is only giving lip-service to the ideas it professes;
2. That the specifically male trait of identifying self as independent of social relations is tied to the uniquely male trait of identifying self as independent of nature;
3. That women have such a different (and superior) world view (that they somehow inherit despite their obvious domination by and participation in this admittedly patriarchal society) that they are uniquely positioned to overcome the problems men have created;
4. Only men could be concerned with "rights" of humans and other organisms because only men see themselves as independent selves. For women this point is moot since they are social, natural beings.
   

Zimmerman responds to each of these points carefully. I have not read the sources he cites. I have read little feminist literature. This paper confirms my understanding which is a pity. I am always hoping to find a view that will burst the bubble that isolates me from the authors of this literature, especially if it is written by a male critic and can be interpreted by a male (me).

Clearly there are differences between males and females. Our physiology and life experiences are shaped by different chemical and societal conditions. I prefer philosophies that cherish these differences and at the same time seek our similarities. We are all part of the same system. We can't exist without one another. We are the combined result of 4.5 billion years of evolution. I acknowledge the mess males keep getting into and the messes they make of female's lives. I bet females would get into their own messes (and some of them would clearly make a mess of male lives) if this was a matriarchal society. Enough already. This is why we need to work together and stop squabbling about what is a male/female trait/notion/ideal. Action: acknowledge the problem and identify ways of life that can improve the situation.

beijing air quality

US cyclists arrive in China wearing face marks to filter out the air pollution and need to apologise. Of course the local cyclists do it too. Whose idea was it to hold a sporting contest in a place where the conditions are so unsuited to it? Ride a bicycle and breathe car fumes. This is as ironic as a Quit campaigner dying from passive smoking. I am becoming eco-pathological. (Marvellous top photo by Natalie Behring)

shallow and deep ecology

Remarks on, Naess, A., The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement: A Summary (1973).

The Shallow Ecology movement:

Fight against pollution and resource depletion. Central objective: the health and affluence of people in the developed countries.

The Deep Ecology movement:

1. Reject the idea of "human (or any thing) in environment". Humans (and other things too) are part of a wide range of inter-connected systems that define us and the systems of which we form a part. It is not helpful to draw boundaries that delineate us from everything else.
2. Biospherical egalitarianism. All living things (including all humans) have a fundamental right to "live and blossom".
3. Diversity and symbiosis are better guiding principles than a naive "survival of the fittest" approach.
4. Anti-class (human)... I am not sure I understand the reasoning given to support this point although the principle itself makes perfect sense to me.
5. Fight against pollution and resource depletion - but not without also considering the other principles. I.e. it is not acceptable to place burdens on developing nations to offset the pollution of the West.
6. Distinguish between Complexity and Complication. Appreciate the complexity of this planet and its ecosystems. Never over-estimate our level of understanding and ability to forecast the impact of our behaviour.
7. Favour local autonomy and de-centralisation. We can tread more softly in this way (the Earth's ecosystems are not homogeneous) and we can consider local concerns without crushing them under "one-size fits all" solutions.

Overall this is a comprehensive set of principles. The Idealist in me would love to see them widely held. There are some practical hurdles to be overcome though. For instance, billions currently scrape out a meagre living with de-centralised agricultural practice. How can people living on low grade land, with little natural resource (e.g. fertile soil, water) support themselves without importing food? Of course it is not acceptable to let them die (see Diamond J., Collapse for a number of telling tales). Why not allow for global trade powered by renewable and clean resources so that they can support themselves with food they cannot grow themselves? Or should all peoples somehow move in together into regions where they can farm happily? Do we destroy our existing large cities?

If we are to maintain this planet in the long term there are going to be some hard decisions to make. Who will make them? "Live and let live" is a great policy. How do we put it into practice whilst observing the other principles also? How do we overcome the current structures' momentum in time?

These are deep and vexing questions.

eco-pathology

eco-pathology has a certain ring to it. A Google search turns up: the study of biological, physical, human and economic causal elements of disease in livestock. However, in Ecology and the End of Postmodernity, George Myerson (in a very postmodern way), decides on his own interpretation of the term. He bases it on Freud's idea of psycho-pathology. Just as Freud read unsettling meaning into the minute details of everyday human behaviour, assuming them to be symptomatic of underlying trauma, Myerson feels that we (predominantly the media) now read danger signs for imminent ecological disaster in all natural events.

For instance, even the fact that more cafes are opening street seating indicates
an increase in global temperatures. On a larger scale, outbreaks of SARS, Mad-Cow disease, AIDS etc. are indicative of a rampaging nature run amok. Floods in the UK are a sign of climate change and rising sea levels.

This is all part of a new Grand Narrative (hence the title of the book... Myserson claims we are returning to Modernity) of Ecology. Science, Technology and Governments will see us through. To act against the mainstream is irresponsible. We must all bow to the experts with the ability to forecast the gloomy future.

Sadly the world and its ecosystems are in a declining mess. It is our fault. It doesn't take an expert to notice. It takes a moron to think otherwise. I don't know how to describe those who still insist that profit and shareholder dividends cannot be sacrificed in the name of environmentalism. "Shallow Ecology" anyone? :-(

revival field

Mel Chin's Revival Field (1990) is an example of a kind of ecosystemic artistic practice that is starting to interest me. How can a computer scientist and artist, fascinated by simulation and the power of abstract symbol manipulation, make a work that similarly engages with the biological world in a positive or neutral way? Is it possible to do this by changing peoples' awareness of the natural world? Perhaps this is more easily justified than physical manipulation. In the case of Revival Field the work re-establishes the living processes and self-organisation that had been decimated by human-concentrated pollutants.

Every time I turn on my computer I am consuming non-renewable energy. I could make ecosystemic art using computers only if the machines I used: (i) were produced using green energy and using processes and materials that were not destructive to the enviornment (is that even possible in this case!?); (ii) completely recycled at the end of their lifetime; (iii) operated on renewable resources. Solar, wind and human powered electronic media art works could be quite fun. The computer itself is piece of equipment with a high ecological cost.

ecosystem marketing

Sometimes I think the metaphor of ecosystems is taken a little too far. Marketing itself has everything to do with the complete lack of ecosystemic thinking that permeates our entire culture. One look at the figure should raise alarm bells : the arrows depict flows in strange and non-cyclic ways. What happens at the points where the fire and water arrows collide? Save the planet from marketing! We are doomed.

The Mobile Marketing Ecosystem is comprised of 4 interconnecting strategic spheres–Product & Services (brands, content owners and marketing agencies), Applications (discrete application providers and mobile ASPs), Connection (aggregators and wireless operators), and Media and Retail (media properties, “brick ‘n’ mortar” and virtual retail stores). Various enablers provide the foundation for each particular sphere. Players within these spheres work in concert to deliver a rich experience to consumers. The Mobile Channel Value Chain is the path by which the actual mobile communication and interactivity takes place between the Product & Services Sphere and mobile subscribers (consumers), however, consumer demand must first be established. To create this demand, products, services, events, and content programs are promoted through the Media and Retail Sphere’s various traditional channels.