tim wright: digital writer

Blog Post 17/02/14 – 02/03/14: Bees In A Tin & The Compote Tree

This year is the first time I’ve missed The Story conference since it began. It sounds like a missed a good'un. Instead I was lucky enough to take part in another get-together of smart, funny eclectics at an event called Bees In A Tin, organised by the talented collective called  Many & Varied.

The overarching theme of the event was ‘interfaces’, but not your usual interfaces – we had discussions about stonemaking, thronemaking, deejaying, playing, remote-control typewriting, automated bell-ringing, pendulums, programming, dance and movement, walking, foolmaking and more and more and more... It was great. I think I enjoyed the talk about stones the most.

For a full round up of the day and audio recordings of all the main talks I urge you to go here: http://manyandvaried.org.uk/tag/bees_in_a_tin_2014/

My contribution was to manage a workshop about my Compote Tree (see previous blog posts) or rather about the #transmediacompote (or ‘jam’) that comes from my tree.

For the last couple of years I have noodled away at this subject in a series of blog posts and fatuous tweets.  This was a chance to step up a bit, and try to make sense of my noodlings in front of - and in collaboration with - a sympathetic smart audience.

The compote tree from moongolfer

I started off thinking about the different ways my tree might communicate via old-fashioned ideas of decoding shapes/symbols or  automatic writing – in much the way as Victorians might try to make contact with the dead.

Automatic writing reveals...Tim's Damson tree knows my name #beesinatin pic.twitter.com/sDc1x23jpg

— Verity McIntosh (@veritymcintosh) February 21, 2014

I also wanted to consider how environmmental and physical data gathered about and around the tree might be a form of communication. Could changes in light, heat, humidity etc change the way a tree might talk about itself?

I came across some intriguing articles on the web that suggest the trees are certainly much smarter than we might think about how they communicate not just with animals (including us) but how they communicate with each other and self-organise. Get this from a *very* interesting New Yorker article:

" No-one I spoke to in the loose, interdisciplinary group of scientists working on plant intelligence claims that plants have telekinetic powers or feel emotions. Nor does anyone believe that we will locate a walnut-shaped organ somewhere in plants which processes sensory data and directs plant behavior. More likely, in the scientists’ view, intelligence in plants resembles that exhibited in insect colonies, where it is thought to be an emergent property of a great many mindless individuals organized in a network. Much of the research on plant intelligence has been inspired by the new science of networks, distributed computing, and swarm behavior, which has demonstrated some of the ways in which remarkably brainy behavior can emerge in the absence of actual brains."

Ultimately, though, I wanted to see how the jam I made from the tree could also be seen as a means of communication. By making ink out of the jam, would we be inspired or even ‘directed’ to draw or write certain messages?

By making fool out of the jam and eating it, might we be ingesting a chemical code that makes us feel different, think differently, behave differently? We already know a little about the effects of dopamine ands seratonin on human emotions and behaviour, so why not consider deeper, more complex  interactions between the nervous system, hormonal pathways, the immune system - and jam...?

Could it be that there’s a combination of forces here – a combination of data, writing and jam that might induce active communication between the tree and the human (me) - something perhaps akin to a host being manipulated by a parasite...?

I’m pretty sure we came to no firm conclusuion about any of this at the workshop. The good news, though, was that people quite liked the jam (and the fool), and a lot of discussion was had about the future of talking plants and bringing the vegetable world onto the web. I also recruited a few more compotenauts!

All in all - a fantastic day out.

Blog Post 20/01/14 - 26/01/14: jam, scopic regimes and the Circle

& @moongolfer is looking for imagineers, hackers, coders, mathematicians etc to work on #transmediacompote Is it you? http://t.co/0T9dSUKag7

— Many&Varied (@ManyVaried) January 25, 2014

1. Good news

I’m going to be running a drop-in workshop at Bees In a Tin. The list of participants is fantastic, and the tickets are ridiculously cheap. You should come along.

My general plan is to offer 3 or 4 different ways of playing with outputs from my damson tree. These outputs come in the form of data – weather, soil, growth, general activity etc – and also in the form of jam or ‘compote’. I’ll also bring along a number of photographs of the tree so that we might use its shape or silhouette as something else to play with.

The aim will be to ‘decode’ the tree in some way – or perhaps give it some kind of ‘voice’ or presence – either online or in the real world. This is a workshop that might suit people who want to think about data-driven applications and storytelling, but may also suit people who simply like drawing or lettering. There’ll also be an opportunity to make things out of jam – ink definitely, possibly thermosensitive, and probably some kind of confectionary - or fool.

The common theme of all these activities is to use the tree (and the jam) to generate narratives in interesting new ways – including narratives that work biochemically *inside* us... ?

3. Scopic regimes

I’ve been doing some picture research for a script about how the web works at a technical level and have been boning up on how we search, find and retrieve  particular images. This has involved me re-learning TCP/IP and discovering that the web itself offers several different conflicting reports on how packet switching actually works.

As part of the project (and to delay the moment when I have to write anything) I’ve been searching for images of famous locations – the Grand Canyon, the Christ statue in Rio, the Sydney Opera House, the Taj Mahal.

It’s always amused me to find that we all end up taking pretty much the same pictures of these places. Spookily we often don’t just take the same photo, we also adopt the same poses in the same positions. So in the end there are simply LOADS of people standing in front of he Taj Mahal looking pretty much the same:

On one of my BlakeWalks years ago, I recell Paul Driver telling me about 'scopic regimes'; that is, the organisation of a building or architectural landscape or an enclosed space in order to encourage a particular way of seeing, or support certain points of view or behaviours or positional hierarchies.

His example was the classroom with furniture arranged so that students sit in rows looking forward and up at the ‘teacher’. This kind of regimentation goes on a lot more in our lives than we think – we’re behaving in ways that have been planned for us – especially when it comes to the taking of and posing for photos. I'm wondering whether we might as well amalagamate all our photos taken from a certain spot and simply have everyone in one single photo. Here's three I've started with (and don't worry, they all have Creative Commons remix licenses):

3. Interactivity & performance

This seems to be an area I'm getting drawn into more and more. Whilst continuing research for a play about digital immortality I came across Nathan Penlington. His project Choose Your Own Documentary looks right up my street with its combination of performance, branched narrative and audience participation.

4. Artangel

ArtAngel Open is taking submissions again.   I was lucky enough to be make it into the top 100 last time and I’m still very keen to seek out the site of the original Cluny’s Cage and get a number of people to use it as a place to discuss independence, rebellion, freedom-fighting and the general history of hiding from authority in secret lairs.

I've also got a bit of a thing about Grime's Graves. It would make a great site for an installation, I think - possibly involving 'singing' flints.

5. GolfontheMoon

Yes, I'm still going on about this. It was reported in the news last week that there is more land used for golf courses in the UK than for housing. This is a scandal.

After years of banging on about moongolf, I say we should ONLY have golf courses on the moon and remove them from Earth. Perhaps this is the way forward for all environmentally  impactful sports – we move all golf to the Moon, cricket to Mars and football to the various moons of Saturn.

6. The Circle

I finished reading The Circle by Dave Eggers this week. It’s a not-so-subtle critique of  social media & digital culture in general and Google in particular. In terms of plot, character and language I didn't find the book particularly compelling (hark at me), but it certainly draws some stark battle lines between people who value experiences where you are alone, unconnected and free of any recording devices and those people who'd rather be on Facebook . In Eggers's world you can't be both apparently.

 7. Old School. 

I’ve been really enjoying Dan Hon’s new newsletter 'Things That Have Caught My Attention'. It's basically someone who knows what they're talking about, telling you what he thinks about stuff that's happening in the online world (mainly in the USA). I *think* this is what some journalists used to do <curmudgeon>before they stopped bothering to know what they were talking about, mainly because it didn't seem to matter to the readers very much anyway. </curmudgeon>

If you like this slightly retro approach to staying informed I'd also recommend the Storythings newsletter.  I’ve also gone back to listening to podcasts – I think for the same reason as I'm enjoying the newsletters : distinctive, intelligent voices guiding you past the white noise and the general chatter to stuff that seems worth knowing about. This week I particularly enjoyed Pete Paphides & Jimmy Webb on Mixcloud and a discussion about three different types of Black Box on RadioLab.

Pinterest links associated with this post are HERE.

 

 

Blog Post 13/01/14 - 19/01/14: funny women, clever blokes and 'chocnology'

1. Funny women

I have been looking for funny women (for a project). First port of call was http://www.funnywomen.com (obvs).

There’s still, I think, a lot of prejudice about women as comedians. I guess a lot of it comes from the perceived macho/blokey culture of the standup circuit. But now we have the web, offering more ways to be funny in public than the standard method of standing up in front of drunken mob on a Friday night, does it follow that more women are getting a better chance of showing off their comedy chops?

Well, yes and no. As we all know by now there is a *lot* of sexism and mysogyny on the web, with many women being hounded and bullied into silence whenever they have the effrontery to have something interesting to say. On the other hand, there are a lot of very funny women on YouTube and Twitter. Check out this Huffington Post list of funny women on Twitter, for example.

Using this list and some other searches, I've been alerted to some very talented people - although I'd say it's easier to find funny writers this way rather then funny performers.  I'm still looking for  someone who’s really good at slapstick and who continues to think that people falling over on their bums is pretty much the funniest thing ever (as I do).  If this is you, get in touch.

2. More about death & digital afterlives

Following last week's thoughts about writing a play about someone living on digitally after death, Matt Locke  sent me a link to Bill Drummond’s project 'My Death':

"...the website where you are encouraged to think of your funeral as the last and possibly greatest gift you will ever give to your bereaved. It is here that you can plan, in as much detail as you care, returning to your page time and time again to update and refine. There is no fee and no hidden cost."

I'd like to have a lot of Johnny Cash played at my funeral, a lot of booze and a gravestone with the word 'ONWARD' engraved on it.

The other way to live on, of course, is not to die. (I’m still hoping that David Bowie can keep going forever so we have more time to work out how to get him to the moon for a round of golf...). I've been reminded of a talk by Aubrey de Grey:

3. More about compote

As well as thinking about different ways of giving trees a voice on the internet, I've also be toying with the idea of  ‘edible media’.  What with 3D printed sweets making the news lately, and much talk of 'chocnology', I'm beginning to think there are lot more ways I could be 'encoding' my jam and distributing it in different 'formats'.

I've already found a great jam & gin cocktail recipe and I'm also planning to make some ink out of my jam - so that I can soon be getting drunk on jam and writing with it (at the same time).

Instructables is a great site generally, btw, if you don't already know it. 

4. Blokey stuff

So as well as funny women, I've been admiring new things from blokes too. Roo Reynolds and Nick O'Leary have started a podcast about being  dads. Their conversation about ventouse, preeclampsia and birthing pool nets takes me back. I'm impressed by how they both sound so calm and laid-back - or perhaps they're just tired.  And I'm looking forward to the beardymums counter-podcast.

At a time when  a lot of small digital businesses seem to be going to the wall, it's heartening to see three smart blokes get together and create a new enterprise: http://www.ksandm.co/:

"At KS&M we offer expert consultancy and advice on how to design games and use game design for specific outcomes, be they behaviour change, social good or increased revenues."

I've met both Charles and Mark, and can attest to the fact that they are very smart people with a huge amount of experience and knowledge. (They have also said they will buy me a drink when I see them next, so I like them VERY much).

 One last blokey query:  I've been searching online for a new unvented indirect 250l hot water cylinder . Can anyone tell me why the prices vary so drastically for what is essentially a metal cannister with a heating element and few valves  stuck on it? And which one should I buy?

Pinterest links associated with this post are HERE.

Blog Post 06/01/14 - 12/01/14

So that New Year Resolution thing about blogging more. Yeah, it's happened AGAIN. Every week I’m going to log my web activity. Old school. A web-log. A blog. This week I have been mostly:

1. Searching for second hand cars for my kids and discovering that funding a child through art college is definitely a LOT cheaper in Holland than in the UK.

Conclusions? A ten year old Mini hatchback with relatively low mileage and a decent service record is hard to find in London for under £3000. Also, I may be trying to persuade both of my kids to go and study in Holland and forget about the rather staid, slow and expensive UCAS/student loan system we have in this country.

2. Contemplating what to do about my #CompoteTree.

I think it’s about time that I moved beyond a few sporadic blog posts, and actually tried to make sense of what I’ve been doing with my compote tree. To that end I’ve applied to be part of a really interesting event going on in Birmingham called Bees in a Tin.

It's described as:  "a gathering happening on the 21st of February 2014 for interesting and exciting people who make unique interfaces for the world around them."  I'm not sure I'm one of those people, but I do need to do something to challenge myself a bit more about making things instead of just talking about them. Here’s part of my Expression of Interest:  

"My project is about monitoring closely as many aspects of a tree’s life as I can using a range of sensors, probes and measuring devices(many of which have been developed for the wine growing industry). On a practical level, I now have a year’s worth of tree-related data and media that I’d like to structure in some way that would allow the tree to generate its own stories.

Perhaps there’d be rambling sequences of text, or noises like a small baby or toddler. Or maybe the tree is outputting streams of movie or search terms or code based on my datasets. Even better, it may be that the jam I make is itself a *chemical* code, and, with each bag of jam that gets consumed, a secret story can be distributed not by an audience but *in* an audience.

I’d like to use the event to talk about how we might give trees digital lives generally. And I’d like to offer up my datasets for anyone to ‘hack’ my tree. I’d also like to bring along my jam in order to think about the ‘biochemical web’, the possibilities for ‘edible media’ and to see what stories we might generate using my ‘transmediacompote’.

My key questions for people attending the event might be: ‘could my jam taste better if it had a story encoded within it?’ and ‘how might we encode jam?’

3. Dead Digital Dan. DDD on the WWW.

_{Tracking the dog's movements with a geotagging collar in the park is providing me with insights...}

The second speculative project I’ve been thinking about this week is a play or performance piece about a family coping with the digital remains of a dead dad - a geek who's left voices under the floorboards, memories in the furniture, secrets only the dog can tell.

I want to explore what happens when someone you love refuses to shut up and die. I’ve been putting together a mood board of technologies you might use to make your presence felt after you’ve gone.

I’m really interested in exploring how we’re all going to haunt our families after we’re dead. Already you can leave videos and sound files online after dying. But with a little bit of computing nouse, you can leave messages in particular locations for specific people, you can download your personality into household objects, you could have secret compartments unlock on a date far in the future, you could record your body movements in a mattress.

I’d like to develop a story of one family coping with a dead dad who has left a LOT of himself behind.

I’d like to use current technology to show how a dead person might deploy a whole range of systems, devices, toys and media to make his presence felt long after he’s gone. I’d like this to be funny, scary and little bit sad. I’d like the audience to wonder what it would be like to set up something like this for themselves.

At the moment I'm thinking of developing a series of  short scenes to combine with feedback and contributions from the audience. Re: the short scenes - I’m thinking about an estate agent showing us round a house that has a digital ‘ghost’ in it; about a woman who is haunted by her husband whenever she takes the dog for a walk; about a boy who has a special and secret relationship with dead great-grandpa.

4. Lambeth in 20 years time

Local councillor and good friend Rachel Heywood invited me to join a discussion group about what Lambeth might look and feel like in 20 years time.

The author Tim Maughan gave a useful introductory talk. Tim's done some work on the NESTA Future Londoners project  - offering "a series of imaginary characters created to explore the possibilities of urban life in the future."

The discussion that ensued was very interesting and quite wide-ranging , although the most common theme that emerged was a general anxiety about the ‘gentrification’ of Brixton.

It was salutary to note, too, that opinion was mixed as to whether technology (as provided by the likes of Google, Apple and/or the Government) was going to have a positive or negative impact - or even no impact at all - on communities living and working in Lambeth in the future.

We only had an hour to chat, so there's probably quite a long way to go before anything meaningful can emerge from a small group getting together like this. Personally, it was great to meet people who are actively engaged and concerned about where we all live.

Conclusion? Discussions about the future are quite often driven overwhelmingly by peoples' concerns about what's happening right now. Will our kids be tackling  'gentrification' as the burning issue of the day  in 20 years time? I really hope not. 

Follow Tim Wright's board 06/01/14 - 12/01/14 on Pinterest.

On the love of a Compote Tree

It is Tree Love Week. To be honest, I’m not sure I love my tree that much right now.

As some of you may know, I made some effort to open and extend the lines of communication between me and the tree over several months last year,  and all I got in return was stony silence and barely half a dozen litres of poor quality compote.

Yes, many would blame the weather, but I’m minded to blame the tree. (I acknowledge that there is always the possibility of blaming myself, but we’ll get to that later.) Wherever the blame lies, this doesn’t feel much like love.

If you do have a tree you have a crush on and want to tell the world, this is week to do it  - and maybe add some kind of contribution to the Tree Love Facebook page.

Bridget Mckenzie – one of the instigators of Tree Love Week - has several suggestions about how exactly to love a tree. Most of them are fairly conventional - nurture it, keep it company, write a poem for it, decorate it with ribbons and pendants, plant posies at the foot of its trunk, or be kind to its friends & family (i.e. other trees). I suppose one might simply give it a hug.

I have been left to ponder what went wrong between me and my tree. Could it possibly be that it was me, that I did something wrong?

Did I say something whilst very drunk that the tree was offended by – but which remains damagingly undiscussed? (I’ve done this before.) Did I over-commit at the beginning of our friendship with baroque, overambitious and frankly uncalled-for ideas of a life together that freaked the tree out? (I’ve done this before too.)

Did I mistake obsessive staring, making crap jokes and being more than a bit creepy as ‘talking’ my way into the tree’s heart? (oh... I’ve done this before too!) Did I mistake the tree’s casual interest in me as someone it could work with as something more? (yes, you’ve guessed it, I’ve done this too.)

It could be all or none of these things. The truth is that I HAVE NO IDEA what my tree is thinking. The very basic communication I have tried so far has really been nothing more than me playing out some story/fantasy of my own using the tree as the object of my obsession, without letting the tree be a tree.

With this in mind, I have decided to show what love there is left for the tree not by buying flowers or chocolates, or writing a poem or tying a yellow ribbon, but instead by investing in equipment that really will allow the tree to speak for itself.

For a start, I have contributed to an interesting Kickstarter project called Harvest Geek which offers an open-source, wireless, Internet of Things Greenhouse monitoring and automation system.

What this should allow the tree to do is generate data about itself and its environmental conditions, and even automate things around it based on the data that is generated. It kind of means it can get on with being itself without me getting in the way, I think. We shall see.

And for good measure I’ve also bought an outdoor Koubachi, which claims it will: "advise about everything your plant needs: water, fertilizer, humidity, temperature and light! Koubachi not only tells you WHEN to care for your plants, but also gives you specific instructions HOW".

Again I’m hoping these devices, programs and apps will show the tree that I only have its best interests at heart; that I’m only interested in it being itself rather than a version of itself that I’ve imagined/invented.

The tree should now be able to grow and fruit and pass through the seasons unmolested by my imagination, but still with all the signs of a life passing between us. Could this be thought of as a kind of loving?

p.s. I need to thank Kim for drawing both HarvestGeek and Koubachi to my attention – and also for her always wise lunchtime conversations (not necessarily about love).

Bark-Coding & The Compote Tree

The unseasonal weather, combined with my own lack of industry (by which I should have hoped to have raised funds by now for tree sensors and related monitoring equipment so vital to my research), has kept me much indoors and left me pondering how fickle the seasons can be in nurturing one type of species, only to thwart and diminish another.

The peas, the strawberries and I are mildewed and made mouldy by the incessant rain. The Compote Tree, on the other hand, has  swelled - en-greened and en-purpled itself in such as way that it is hard to recall the harsh bare stumpy creature it was at the beginning of the year.

It thrives alongside the blackcurrants and the gooseberries and the sage – all of whom seem to have enjoyed the autumnal atmosphere that has hung over May, June and now July.

Even the most basic of measurements show how the trunk of the tree has thickened, how the stems have strengthened, how the fruit has grown and swollen. This is all the data I have managed to gather. It is a poor effort on my part:

And yet my research continue indoors and online. I was much encouraged, for example, by my Twitter correspondence with Tim Hopkins regarding QR codes . It started with me jokingly pointing out that joints of pork from the supermarket now come with a QR code. Surely it will not be long before all living things are 'scannable' in some way, I thought. Soon everyone's Sunday dinner will be 'readable'.

Tim ended our brief exchange by sending me a QR code of his own, which, if you scan, it will quite obviously make his point for him:

I assume that if you are *really* practiced at reading QR codes you may not need to scan Tim's message at all. Rather, you will simply 'read' the image. In much the same way, I am hoping to attain a state of natural expertise that will allow me to read the tree.

For example, rather than displaying the paltry data I am gathering from the tree in a spreadsheet (as above), there is nothing stopping me from converting it into a QR code. Thus:

But what - I don't hear you ask -  if I perform this operation in reverse?

What if I take a unique image of the tree and then try to see how that unique image may yield some kind of data – or indeed a message. For example, simply take an image of the bark of the tree, magnify it, reduce it to its most basic constituent parts as a bitmap image, and then search this simplified image for something that resembles a code. Voila!

Perhaps we might call it a BARK-CODE:

The Arboreal Network & The Compote Tree

So intensely have I been watching the Compote Tree and thinking about how to communicate with it, I’ve failed to take into account the presence of other plants in the garden.  Spring has put paid to that wilful blindness. Even the lowliest weed is making its presence felt.

The tree itself is under some pressure. The weeds encroach upon it. Comfreys of enormous size suck up to it, thistles latch themselves to its trunk, dandelions and sticky-willy gather conspiratorially to whisper of its downfall.

Even its own kin, small twiggy sucker-plants look to steal its water and its light.

It has made me wonder about the attitude of the more mature plants that live in the garden – notably the other trees – the birch, the beech, the rowan, the maple, the apple and the olive. Do they too have thoughts and feelings I have yet to plumb?

Something akin to an arboreal network has been established here, I think. You don’t believe in information travelling between the trees? Think again. Check out this paper on W-Waves: 

“We hypothesized that if insect damage caused trees to communicate, maybe damage with an axe or nail would cause the tree to send an immediate message to the surrounding trees. The evidence given here seems to indicate that this is the case.”

Exactly what travels around and back and forth between these trees is unclear to me. There is undoubtedly a discernible hierarchy, though. By which I mean, none of the other trees look at me in the same aggressive way as the Compote Tree.

The apple is authoritative and individual, I’d say – easily the compote’s equal - but I sense deference in the others (apart perhaps from the diffident, distant birch that stands alone by the pond).

Only the other day, whilst out in the garden taking photographs again, I noticed for the first time that the main gang of trees are actually arranged in a line, with the compote tree standing at the centre.

The olive is a cheat, I know. It sits in a pot, so, to some extent, it is I who placed it in line with the others – but who am I to say whether I did this voluntarily or was in some way pressured to do this? The compote tree is nothing if not a bully, that is clear to me. “A natural leader” some others might call it.

In particular, I notice that the maple – I think it is a French maple – is leaning quite strongly towards the compote tree – reaching out to it or perhaps lowering its head in its boss’s direction as an act of submission.

==

Yes, yes, I *know* this is all supposition and in part a reflection of my own feelings of inadequacy and insecurity about what is happening in my life at the moment, and how other beings beyond this garden may be thinking of me. But there is more to it than this.

The Compote Tree has done something dark in the past that all the other trees know about. Or they have conspired once long ago, in the way weeds conspire to muddle my plans and smother my babies. A dark secret is locked up within the Arboreal Network, and I am committed to revealing it.

Charting the weather for my Compote Tree

Some of you are probably thinking I’ve already given up on my compote tree (in the same way as I give up on so many of my projects after an initial flurry of interest).

Far from it. 

Like the tree itself, I may look as if I’m standing still, but things are always moving, creeping out into the light.

For example, I have been watching the weather. Thanks to the very marvellous London Grid For Learning Weather Monitoring System, I have been grabbing all the relevant data from the Streatham weather station. Here, for example, is a spreadsheet with all the weather data for my area for the last 30 days or so:  Download Streathamweatheraprmay2012

This weather station is only 5 mins walk from my house so the conditions it is describing are  - I would assume - relevant to my tree.

As an experiment, I have tried various ways of cross referencing this data and re-charting it to see if I can find patterns or ‘meaning’.

In order to protect myself from imposing something on the data that my mind might be deliberately looking for, I have been careful not to put much thought or strategy (or indeed *knowledge*) into making these charts, but have simply let the machine generate something for me. That way some interesting patterns might emerge.

I was right! As with the patterns made by the tree branches (as mentioned in a previous post) it’s clear there are messages here.

Any thoughts you might have about how to interpret these charts – or indeed about how to visualise the weather data in general - please let me know.

My next task in this area will surely be to take the weather station feed and create my own web-based monitoring system. I have much to learn and do.

And then there is the knotty issue of monitoring the tree itself. I have already created a spreadsheet for that too ( Download Compotetreedata), and I intend to start taking measurements with rudimentary instrumention at the beginning of the month. Watch this space!

The underground sound of the Compote Tree

When I told my wife that I was worried about the damson tree, that it may be harbouring thoughts and messages, not all of them kind, she was very understanding.

More than that, she came at the problem of how to communicate with the tree (or at least listen to it) from an angle that my over-complex data-centric sensor-based perspective had prevented me from seeing.

How noisy the subterranean world of the tree must be, she said. And it's true. The world of plants must be *horrendously* noisy. Just think of this sound - of growing rhubarb - and times it by a million:

Think of the compote tree constantly being bombarded with rumbles and vibrations, tumults and quakes. Think of water trickling and gurgling underground. And the beetles and worms, the slugs and the nematodes and the ants all busy scratching and scraping, boring and writhing. And the creaks and the cracklings of other roots, other plants swelling and popping, quite literally ‘rooting’ around for moisture and nutrients.

All this the tree can sense, and all the time it’s sending out its own root signals, its sighs, its secret messages, its cries for help.

Some quick research about the actual ‘sound’ of plants has led me to some very interesting places. For example, this:

"When South African botanist Lyall Watson claimed in his 1973 bestseller Supernature that plants had emotions and that these could register on a lie detector, scientists scoffed and branded it hippie nonsense. But new research has revealed that plants appear to react to sounds and may even make clicking noises to communicate with each other. Scientists in Australia, Britain and Italy have collaborated to show that the roots of young plants emit and react to particular sounds."

http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20120406103841958

Amusingly, artist Luke Jerram has even gone as far as to co-ordinate this apparent cacophony of plant noise into a plant orchestra, and someone in Japan has been doing experiments on how to make plants ‘sing’.

Even more wonderfully, there is infobreath:

"In InfoBreath, the participant is presented with a cybernetic flower arcing from a frosted pane of glass. Rigged with a breath sensor and connected to Carnivore, an internet packet sniffer, the flower is cued in to the wireless network flowing in the space immediately surrounding it. Breathing on the plant triggers a flurry of text that makes visible the wireless internet traffic passing through the air around the viewer. The plant absorbs this information, analyzing the bytes of data for those aspects that seem more ‘alive,’ or human-generated, and releases those packets in a form comprehensible to humans."

So now we know that plants do make noise, can be taught to sing (or scream?) by touching them and almost certainly talk to each other. Oh, and from this research into sound, we can also pretty firmly assert that plants also have *feelings* and can even distinguish between plants of their own kind and complete strangers. See http://www.viewzone.com/plants.html

So thank you to my wife for setting me on this path. And thank you to my friend Alison who subsequently told me it was common knowledge that acacias in Africa talk to each other to warn about incoming giraffes and can even change their chemisty as a result of these warnings in order to taste more disgusting!

At least the trees haven’t learned yet to run away. Although, that may become a reality sooner than you might think. Enter the Robotic Action Plant!:

Jurema Action Plant Firenze 2011 from Ivan Henriques on Vimeo.

There is so much to ponder here.

The Compote Tree is following me

So this is odd. I have yet to install any sensors on the compote tree, but already it has started talking to me.

Cold day than Wednesday. Young. 12mm

— Compote Tree (@CompoteBot) April 5, 2012

To be more specific, something or someone has set up @CompoteBot and started tweeting. It is already surprisingly articulate.

My assumption was that, at the start, the tree would simply spew data and it would be up to me (us?) to translate the data spew into meaningful strings of words. Through conversation and interaction, perhaps, the tree could ‘learn’ like a big baby how to speak and then how to converse. I was assuming this task would take a number of months, if not years.

Yes, yes, I understand that this Twitter account is more than likely someone I know goofing around. This in itself is interesting.

I thought this story – if that’s what it is – would be something only for me and the tree to tell. But already someone else, a stranger who chooses to keep his or her identity hidden, has decided to intrude. Part of me feels delighted. Part of me feels disturbed.

My main worry is that it puts pressure on the *real* tree to speak – and to speak interestingly, entertainingly.

Poor tree. Before it has even become sentient there are people out there putting words in its mouth, people with high expectations of what the tree might become. We do have to entertain the possibility that the tree is quite dumb, with very little memory (recoverable memory) and not a lot to say.

The good news is that there are bees on the tree. Pollination has begun!