Treeline 2012 - Day 2 River School Maleny

We started out Day Two at River School in Maleny admiring our cyanotype work from the previous week. The little swatches of cotton fabric had become a rich and luxurious shade of blue with subtle shading around the natural objects we had used to create them.
During the week Renata had photographed all the swatches. Judy had played with these images, creating patterns that had been printed  on paper for the day's activities. 

We started out with the idea of making shapes out of the cyanotypes- with stencils, or cutting out - and adding drawing and text to make a message that said something about the environment.

It was amazing to see how much thought the children put into this, and there were some great results that will be included in the books that will be exhibited in Caloundra at the Treeline exhibition in May.

The children at the River School spend their days in a very special environment of a beautiful natural landscape and a school culture that embraces caring and conservation values, so they needed very little help to think of ideas and themes that fitted with the Treeline objectives. There was also a bit of humour and fun.

Renata made an exceptional contribution by spending all the hot day in a small space scanning the work as it was produced. Thanks Renata!
After lunch the children were asked to take a few minutes to write something about their involvment in the project. This was a task they took seriously and excerpts from their stories will be included in the books in the exhibition. Part of the process of participating in an art project like this is contemplation of what's been learnt and what might be the implications for the future, so it was rewarding to see  the children take the time to think a little on what we'd done.

 There was also some productive fun to be had with the box of toys Judy had brought. We used the cyanotypes as backdrops in some scenarios, and some of the little tableaux had a serious message.

A very big thanks to The River School, to the students in Year 7, and especially to the two remarkable teachers Josh and Tracy who participated in Treeline along with the students.

Treeline 2012 Kicks Off at River School Maleny

Treeline 2012 is focused on education and working with young people. Artists  will be be working within selected schools on the Sunshine Coast.
Yesterday the first part of the 2012 Treeline programme got underway when  Renata Buziak and I spent a day at the River School in Maleny.

Renata and I are working with the Year Seven students from the River School on a collaborative project that incorporates cyanotypes (which we did yesterday) and a digital component which we'll do next Monday. John Waldron from Sunshine Coast Council did us the honour of coming to officially start the project and tell the children at River School about the objectives of the Treeline project.

To make the cyanotypes Renata had the children collect natural materials from the bushland and gardens surrounding the school. These were arranged on cloth treated with light sensitive chemicals. When exposed to the sun it turned blue in the parts exposed to the UV light.

The children were encouraged to think about their arrangements and to make work that reflected their feelings about the school's wonderful natural setting.

Then the arrangements on the cloth were laid out in the sun and we waited 10 minutes or so for them to develop. It was a really hot, sunny day and it was only the excitement of the process that kept us from wanting to be indoors or swimming in the creek.

Then it was time to take the cloth inside and wash it under running water for quite a long time. A great activity on a hot day. You have to be quite quick about keeping the sun off the cloth after you remove the objects, so we carried it inside in a black bag.

After a long time washing it was time to hang up our masterpieces. What an amazing thing to see how they turned out.

Cyantotype is quite a simple process and was one of the forerunners of modern photography.
Next week we are going to take our creativity one step further and see what we can do with digital manipulation of images of the cyanotypes. Watch this space to see how it turns out.

Interactive Digital Trees

This was a very cool installation at the Rocks moonlight markets in Sydney. It wasn't quite dark enough when I took these images, but it gives you the idea. Be a tree and make it dance. It could possibly have been done a bit better, but it was an interesting installation that got people involved in the idea of being a tree. Not sure if it was a Kinect hack or ......

Bev Hand - Maroochy Botanic Gardens

Last week Treeline artists were invited to take a walk in Maroochy Bushland Botanic Gardens with indigneous leader and very knowledgeable person Beverly Hand. What a treat it was! Beverly is an expert and entertaining story teller with a wealth of interesting knowledge about plants and the culture, customs and folklore of her indigenous background.She also seemed to know more about the history of western civilisation than we did, as well as knowing the Latin names of all the plants and being able to give us useful information that can inform our Treeline projects. I came away wishing and hoping that I could somehow bring Beverly into contact with students from Caloundra City School who will be the focus of my Treeline project in 2012 - if just to enthuse them about the bushland plants we so often overlook, as well as a little understanding of the first inhabitants of this land. I also came away with (even more) images from the gardens that will be put to use making textures for virtual world installations.

Catching Up with Some Old Friends

The Inworldz Dreamz and Visionz festival has been a good place to catch up with some of the artists involved in Treeline's 2010's latest work, as well as seeing some new faces. Soror Nishi, who played such a large part in making Virtual Treeline 2010 a great success, continues to go from strength to strength creating new plant species to inhabit new spaces in the virtual universe. For Dreamz she gave us a new and colourful species of bean. Soror's work has become more and more polished and professional and I'll do a blog soon devoted to her amazing island Inworldz.

Another old Treeline friend, RAG Randt, has moved from an emphasis on 2D into 3D without losing any of his zany sense of humour and ability to make a statement with this work. His build for Dreamz was a giant tree, inhabited, of course, by monkeys doing all manner of crazy stuff in a crazy restuarant with a refridgerator full of bananas (what else?). It's great to see RAG move into full 3D, and I enjoyed a glass of red with his monkeys.

Last, but never least, another 2010 Treeline regular and great supporter, Alizarin Goldflake, has been honing her building skills with her first full sim build in Inworldz. Alizarin goes from strength to strength always amazing me with the attention to detail and beautiful textures in her work. Scripting has also become an integral part of her repertoire.

Alizarin's underwater build for the Dreamz Festival was up to her very high standard, with incredible underwater plants and the most appealing seahorses I have ever encountered.

It's been ggreat to catch up with these old friends at Dreamz.

InWorldz Dreamz and Visions and Treeline 2012

Treeline will be on again next year, and once again I'll be working on a virtual component of the real world event. I'm told the Treeline website will be updated soon with details. In 2012 Treeline will have an education focus. More about my involvmenet later, but it's now time to ramp up this blog again and start noticing what's been happening with trees, botanicals and organic things in virtual worlds.

The Dreamz and Visions festival in Inworldz (sponsored by Jeri Rajah) seems like the perfect place to start. I've had a quick look and there's plenty there for inspiration. Some of the artists involved in Treeline in 2010 have builds at the festival, so I'll be blogging about their pieces as well as exciting new work.

This morning I got no further than a very interesting build by La Toymaker. The work is a massivley complex installation for a small 30X30 metre plot (which is what each artist gets at the festival) and has intriguing storylines and a fairytale coach floating in the sky pulled by horses you can ride.

What caught my attention were the whimsical wooden figures, as if tree roots and twigs had come to life - the spirits of the trees perhaps. I particularly like the root figures escaping from a painting (below) and the very expressive man (above) who seems to have something to say about what's happening on the keyboard.

Congratulations to La Toymaker for a great piece. I look forward to visiting it again.

Virtual Vegetation

Over at Nordan Art in Second Life Claudia22Jewell continues to make her own brand of vegetation, now becoming as instantly recognizable as other great virtual plant pioneers like Soror Nishi. The annex at Nordan has become a hothouse of fecund plant life both threatening and friendly at the same time. The build works exceptionally well in the confined spaces and many levels and it’s a sensual experience making your way in and up and out again. I’m not a great fan of faces in the plant life, or is it the animal turning vegetable, but it somehow works.

Another new plant build is Soror Nishi’s small installation at the new location for Arte Libera in Second Life. I think it opens tomorrow, but Soror invited me over for a sneak preview and as usual it wasn’t disappointing. I think one of the most startling things upon landing at the installation is the realization that here is an artist who has gone from creating plants to becoming an expert in creating atmosphere. Although the visitor can play around with light settings, they are not necessary to the ‘feeling’ of the installation. I get a little tired of being asked to set my atmosphere to some convulted algorithm so the artist’s work can be viewed. Soror’s installation works on any setting.