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Inkiling
Magazine (continued)
The creative output from this Canopy Confluence alone is immense when considering
how many eyes and ears will fall on it. Local Olympia, Washington artist Chuck
Willyard will paint numerous tree portraits. Jodi Lomask will fold the science
she learnt into Capacitor’s show “Symbiosis,” which opens
this February in San Francisco. John Calderazzo put pen to paper and wrote
countless poems. Canadian writer Ann Eriksson’s study of tree canopy
science will be funneled into her upcoming novel in which the protagonist
is a forest ecologist. Dana Lyons may have just written his next hit.
Ever the scientist, Nalini hopes to play with different variables in follow
up experiments expanding on the basic premise of the Canopy Confluence. “If
that hypothesis is true, then how can we set up the confluences in the future
to maximize the probability that that will happen,” is how she puts
it. Would it work with all kinds of science? With equal numbers of scientists
and artists? With kids? With camp cooks? She hopes to get funding to find
out.
On the last day of the Canopy Confluence, I asked Nadkarni how she thought
her experiment had gone so far. Her eyes followed Zack Bernstein a dancer
from the Capacitor performance group, shimmy up a red and white climbing rope,
ready to collect branch growth data for her lab, as she collected her thoughts.
“Certainly I could go along in my research collecting data and writing
papers without the help of a dancer or a juggler or an artist or poet but
I think that there’s something of value here,” she said. “Really,
I have no idea where it might go but I really feel that we’re onto something
with this.” Bernstein had long since disappeared up into the canopy,
his presence 70 meters above us only betrayed by a slight sway in the rope,
like the wake of a freighter from miles away. (Anne Casselman)
