Imagination and empathy

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Imagination and Empathy - Artists with Trees Conference Paper ¡ January 2013

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Imagination and Empathy. Artists with Trees Timothy Martin Collins, Reiko Goto Collins Collins & Goto Studio Art, Design, Research and Planning 12 1/1 Vinicombe St, Glasgow, G12 8BG tim@collinsandgoto.com Abstract: This paper considers trees as the subject of a collaborative, interdisciplinary approach to art research and inquiry.We will explain how the work moved from ideas about emancipatory intent to empathy as a method for theory-informed artistic experiments with human/non-human interrelationships. The paper will focus upon an iterative approach to the framework, tools and technologies we have developed to enable exploration of empathic exchange with trees. The framework is constructed around a philosophical approach to empathy. We conclude with an assessment of the project as a means to leverage the evolution of our own subjectivity where theory is tested and new knowledge is gained through sustained experience and practice with trees.

Key words: Art, Design, Ecology, Ethics, Empathy, Environment, Philosophy, Planning, Trees.

1. Introduction Tim Collins and Reiko Goto Collins are environmental artists, researchers and authors working together since 1985. Over the last fifteen years they have sustained a research-based approach to art that has focused on the aesthetic conditions of the post-industrial public realm with specific attention to environmental systems such as rivers, forests, and landscapes. The primary themes that inform the research began with the ethical and aesthetic entanglements found in ecological restoration, which brought us to ideas about the emancipation of natural systems from the constraints of industrial culture. This has led to new ideas about empathy between human and non-human entities. The former themes were always pursued in situ, attending to landscape and ecosystem conditions as well as the culture, policies and activities that shaped it. The empathic approach embraces individual living things in nature; working through ideas of subjectivity and subject – object relationships. The most recent work engages the invisible impact of clouds of carbon dioxide on trees.

As full time research fellows Collins and Goto Collins led two projects within the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry in the research centre at Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania. They worked at two scales, first a 6 square mile watershed, a project that unfolded over three years, then at the level of Allegheny County on a project that took five years, covering 745 square miles with three major rivers and fifty-two sub-watersheds. They sought to contribute strategic knowledge, data and experience to public discussions about specific woodlands and ecosystems. An iterative approach to community based art and design research contributed to the protection of remnant forest, the ecological restoration of an urban stream valley and the development of a new public space through strategic development of a public imaginary that informed a community plan, which was finalized during ‘The Final Dialogue” (1999) an exhibition that culminated the work on the Nine Mile Run (19972000). Research on 3 Rivers 2nd Nature, (2000-2005) contributed to changes to zoning policies that would protect steep slope wooded land, and riparian woodlands along the three rivers in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. The work would enable the assignment of new public parks and strategic land purchases by the Allegheny Land Trust. Reports and white papers on policy issues were pro-

duced. Biological information was spatially located with GPS and GIS technologies. Soil studies and forest cover analysis would inform riverside landscape design and planning. (Comparable work on water quality was largely ignored.) Residencies with artists and landscape architects would test ideas ‘on the ground’ in dialogue with communities where convivial public space and aesthetics had faded with the industrial economy. Artworks from the residencies featured in the exhibition ‘Groundworks’ curated by Grant Kester (2005). Some of the artists sustained interests and would have a long-term impact on specific communities.

During the work in the Studio for Creative Inquiry, Collins focused on theory and practice; while Goto’s focus was on the pedagogical application of ideas about post-industrial landscape recovery for a Pennsylvania State Grade School curriculum plan that integrated art and the environment1. They also collaborated on a chapter describing the ecological context (Collins and Goto, 2005) and mapping the methods of art and environment practice (Goto and Collins, 2005) for university based coursework. Writing about the Nine Mile Run Collins collaborated with an art historian to consider artist-led qualitative community-based brownfield assessment in an article for ‘Public Works Management and Policy’ (Collins and Savage, 1998). He explored the artist’s role in creative dialogue about urban stream restoration in a journal on restoration ecology (Collins, 2001). He considered the project in terms of postindustrial public space and ecology for publications on interdisciplinary land restoration (Collins, 2002 and 2003). Writing about 3 River 2nd Nature, Collins considered the application of aesthetic frameworks in post-industrial landscapes (2007 and 2008). Most recently Collins analyzed the theory, practice and outcome of 3 Rivers 2nd Nature, considering the impact and effect of the work for an Art Journal (2010) Moving to the UK in late 2005 Collins and Goto began to think about climate change and trees as a sink for carbon dioxide. They recognized that what they ‘knew about trees’ didn’t always mesh with their experience. During a visit to a Free Air Carbon Exchange (FACE) experiment in North Carolina, the artists experienced an epiphany of sorts, when they realized that in the ‘signs’ presented by the sensor readouts at that site, one could start to ‘see’ the invisible breath and sap flow of a tree. The breath (photosynthe-

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sis and respiration) was reactive and dynamic, shaped by available sunlight and localized atmospheric CO2 (which is in constant flux) and humidity. This experience led to the development of ‘Eden3’ a project that embraced an experimental framework to develop a series of sculptural interfaces, tools and technologies that enable the exploration of empathic exchange with plants and trees. The first sculpture is titled Plein Air; it provides a platform for a structured approach to empathy; the work evolved through Goto’s PhD research. The project is organized around the intent to reveal and examine the invisible and initiate a critical social imaginary about ethical obligations to other living things as a subset of the process.

‘The research has been developed within the tradition of environmental art2 practices that engage the world at a planning, policy or a landscape scale. Specific points of reference were established in Goto’s case studies for her Doctoral research (2012); including Alan Sonfist’s Time Landscape in New York (1978); Joseph Beuys, 7000 Oaks in Kassel Germany (1982-1986); and Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison’s Serpentine Lattice focused upon the Redwood Rainforest of the Pacific Northwest of North America (1993). References to similar science/technology informed artwork informing work on Plein Air include David Dunn’s research on the sound of invasive bark beetles (2006) and Lise Autogena’s computer model of Most Blue Skies (2006). Contemporary colleagues with similar topical interests in the UK research community would include Shelley Sacks’ artwork on the University of the Trees (2011) and Jones’ and Clokes’ writing about the agency of trees in ‘Tree Cultures’ (2002).

ancient times, they have had both utilitarian and intrinsic value. The first artwork in the Eden3 series entitled Plein Air consists of a leaf chamber connected to high quality sensor technology embedded in a traditional painting easel with laptop computer processing equations that measure and sonify photosynthesis and respiration.

What is being measured is leaf reaction and the reduction of carbon dioxide (in relation to other parameters) and the increase of humidity. What is ‘heard’ is the metaphorical representation, a data sourced sound of the tree leaf as it responds to changes in the local atmosphere.

With this artwork the artist-authors sought to elucidate empathy and an inter-relationship between cross species (tree - human) by revealing reactions to environmental conditions (light, temperature, humidity and atmospheric carbon dioxide) that are shared. Trees are alive, yet perceived as non-reactive entities operating within a time scale at the edge of human perception. Humanity affects our shared environment through anthropogenic production of carbon dioxide as a by-product of industry, transport and development, as well as by breathing. Yet people have little sensitivity to the local impact, the small-scale cause and effect on atmospheric conditions in places we frequent. A tree can actively react to small changes (in parts per million) to the amount of carbon dioxide in the air.

Plein Air is an experimental approach to a relationship with another species that shares our everyday context. The research, in both its technical and artistic forms is focused upon elucidating the reactions of trees and creating conditions where attention is guided by aesthetic experience so that empathic exchange might emerge over time.

2. The move towards empathic research 3. Experiments in art-based empathic research In previous research the intent was to produce a transformation of values through shifts in ideas and perceptions in specific places.

Strategic data was produced and experiential methods were refined through a theory informed process of iterative practice and reflection. Direct knowledge was accrued locally. Indirect knowledge or ideas about theory in relation to the practice of environmental art were communicated within the field through exhibitions and follow-on critical publications.

Having moved from thinking about nature as an agglomeration of subjects that needed release or abeyance from the constraints of industrial culture, Collins and Goto are now paying attention (one tree at a time) to singular subjects while considering ethical responsibility for anthropogenic impact on other living things.They decided that based on prior experience and current reading the best way to arrive at that level of attention is through a practice that assumes sentience in all living things and embraces empathy. During her PhD Research Goto worked through the historic definition and progression of ideas about empathy; she developed a critical framework to analyze her case studies and to inform her work and critical reflection on the development of Eden3: Plein Air (2012).

2.1 Research focus and method Eden3 is an art-based climate initiative that develops critical methods, technologies and a series of artworks that support an interrelationship and a potential for empathic exchange between people and trees. Why trees? Trees are the largest most ubiquitous living ‘things’ in the world. They have a huge aesthetic impact on day-today life and have always been an essential material resource. Since

It is obvious to most of us that trees do not have feelings, emotions or mobility and agency like humans do; there is general agreement that they respond to light, temperature and humidity as well as the chemistries of soil and air. Furthermore most can agree that humans and trees share and shape the environment; although in different ways. For the most part we do not perceive a tree in its subtle quick response to changes in the environment; this is part of what makes them foreign to us, a perceived temporal dissonance. Yet… we have an ability to read the physical state of plants and trees; we can all recognize life and death over time and seasonal changes.

Most people sense/see vitality or ill health in plants, many can see more complex shadings of wellbeing linked to available moisture, soil, light, nutrients or predation. When we limit ourselves in the concepts that inform our perception we may or may not respond sympathetically, when we reach beyond our available concepts and commit ourselves to intimate and consistent attention we aspire to empathy. The artist-authors posit that it is possible to experience plants and trees empathetically, through careful observation, experience and memory, through the process of metaphorical projection; and that this can be leveraged through physiological monitoring of photosynthesis and respiration. Below I will focus on the three developmental tracks of this research; theories of empathy, work with sensors and sound output and the form and practice of working toward empathic exchange with trees.

Beginning with the original German term ‘einfühlung’ or ‘feeling into’, Goto’s literature review revealed the evolution of the sense of ‘inner imitation’ through work in psychology, and philosophy by

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authors such as Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) and Max Scheler (1897-1920). Goto would eventually settle on the work of Edith Stein (1891-1942) (who studied under Husserl). Stein’s study begins with the idea (shared with Husserl) that empathy is “…a kind of act of perceiving, sui generis” (Stein, 2002, p.11). A perception that is unique, of its own kind. While Stein was open to the application of empathy beyond human-to-human relationships (as is Goto); it is important to note that the idea of living things as sentient subjects remains controversial. Until recently mainstream science has been unwilling to consider ideas like sensory perception, communication, memory, agency and knowledge in plants. But there are some cracks in that armour. Prof Anthonty Trewavas has written a series of rigorous articles that explore ‘plant Intelligence’ (2003), arguing that plants are territorial and competitive; forever changing their ‘architecture, physiology and phenotype’ in the intelligent pursuit of resources for growth and reproduction. (Trewavas, 2005, p. 413).

More recently Prof Daniel Chamovitz (2012) argues for awareness (rather than intelligence). Making a case at the bio-chemical level for specific sensory perceptions that enable responses to changes in the environment. It is important to note that this work has vociferous critics: Richard Firn’s response to Trewavas’ 2003 paper, makes a point-by-point rebuttal before demanding limitation on anthropocentric description (2004). The artist authors would argue that this moral constraint against anthropocentrism must be reconfigured as a caution; to intend no harm or overt obfuscation, rather than a line separating humanity from everything else in the world.

3.1 Theories of empathy “Empathy…is the experience of foreign consciousness in general, irrespective of the kind of the experiencing subject, or of the subject whose consciousness is experienced.”

(Edith Stein, 2002, p.11).

Empathy is a practice that is both developed and refined through intimate attention to people and things over time. Following Stein empathy is an act of perceiving in which we reach out to the other to grasp his/her/its state or condition. It consists of one’s emotional and physical experiences. Empathetic experience is focused towards something foreign rather than something familiar.

Unlike empathy, sympathy reflects one’s own experience and extant understanding rather than reaching beyond it. Sympathy is assuming feeling in another is based on what we already know about our self and our interests. After an empathic experience intellectual understanding can emerge and be expressed as a new idea. Empathy requires an ability to move the sense of self from the foreground to the background and back again; it requires an ability to reach beyond self-interest. Empathy is a relationship between subjects.

It helps us to enrich and extend our self-image through relationship with ‘another’. It motivates something within us that enables different expression than that which we know on our own. It adds something to the world that would not otherwise exist.

In Stein’s theory of empathy a symbolic relationship has precedence when focused on the countenance of the other – such expression is a symbol of body and mind relationship. It is not a sign (like language) that indicates specific meaning through intellectual knowledge and reflective understanding.With empathy we not only understand but we feel the other’s health, well-being or emotional state. Empathic projection helps us to imagine ourselves as if the other is looking at us and judging our behaviour. Lakoff and John-

son define it as an “…imaginative experience of the other” (Lakoff and Johnson, 1999, p.566). This specific imagination is cued by the empathic relationship between what is perceived and the perceiver.

Imagination works through metaphor to enable our understanding of the ‘other’ and the environment. This is key to an empathic approach to non-human living things.

3.2 Sensors and output Our intention from the beginning was to embrace key elements of our experience in North Carolina; and develop a portable sculptural interface that would support extended aesthetic experience and the potential for an empathic relationship with trees over time.

A significant part of that experience is recognition of the speed of reaction as a tree leaf responds to changes to carbon dioxide and sunlight. Another significant point was the move from sign/screen output to sound/symbol output so focus would remain on the tree and environment. This mediated experience with sensors is an interruption in the perception of trees as lumbering things out of sync with human temporal experience.

The sound of Plein Air represents the trees’ response to atmospheric changes particularly in relation to carbon dioxide caused by human respiration, transportation, home heating and industrial exhausts. The plant physiology sensor system compares atmospheric conditions to the conditions relative to a leaf.The sensors monitor: CO2, humidity, temperature, airflow and light intensity. Mathematical equations based on these parameters give us photosynthesis and transpiration; sound is produced in relation to these numbers.

Collins and Goto have maintained from the beginning the whole sculptural interface needed to work in real time to sustain attention to the trees over hours. The development of the sculptural interface began with purchase of off the shelf components3 for plant gas analysis. The sensor system developed in a series of steps beginning with initial array of dual-use components, followed by separate leaf/atmosphere sensors, then refinement of the use, calibration and maintenance of the increasingly complicated system.

High-resolution ‘real time’ sensor data was possible but live data into the sound system was not. A musician colleague developed a sound playback programme4 that would ‘process and play’ saved text files after running the system with trees. This configuration was the first prototype of Plein Air; an unwieldy array of sensors, pumps and monitors with eleven separate power supplies. The sensor system and the post processing of sound was tested and refined during a practice-intensive residency at the Headlands Art Center in California.

On-going experiments to secure ‘real time’ sound with data output from the proprietary sensor system required increasingly invasive ‘hardware hacking’ procedures that resulted in equipment failures.

During a subsequent research residency at the Crop Technology Unit5 at the University of Wolverhampton the team had access to climate-controlled chambers and a greenhouse. Mat Dalgleish, an electronic musician, was a key team member, he found a young engineer able to go into the circuit board to isolate the data flow and split the output, bringing it into a set of Arduino microcontrollers.The data was then delivered back to the computer through USB cables where it was to be processed and the sound synthesized through a programme developed by Dalgleish with Max/MSP software. At that time the sound system and sensor systems were working separately but in relationship to one another. The power supply had been simplified and integrated into a single unit.

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As technical issues were resolved the goal was to find the right sound; to insure the symbolic experience had perceptible cause and effect relationship with the sensing equipment. This is an important element of the work as an instrument of empathic exchange between people and trees. Original discussions revolved around scale, volume and timbre; trying to sonify each parameter with a separate ‘voice’.This led to the need to simplify things until it was decided to focus on photosynthesis, respiration and sunlight. In the first iteration of the prototype, digital musicians crafted ‘experimental instruments’ but they also linked the data-to-sound programme to the GS Wavetable Synthesizer that is internal to all Microsoft operating systems. This provided the artist-authors with a choice of 128 musical timbres and sound effects. Goto ran hundreds of experiments with the first and the second prototype sound programmes before concentrating on electronic instruments with the timbre of woodwind instruments. She also worked with a programmer to produce sheet music and experimented with live interpretation of the data readout with a recorder and a then an accordion, a performative process that reinforced empathic awareness.

For a 2010 exhibition the whole sculptural interface was ‘tunedup and rebuilt’ by a technology consultant6 and in a series of follow on sound/data experiments preparing for exhibition7 both the woodwind and two other computer ‘voices’ were considered in discussions about best legible scale/data relationship a piano voice was decided upon for its potential for empathic experience.

However, during the exhibition it became increasingly clear that the piano voice was an overwhelming presence within the contemplative space of the gallery installation. The mise-en-scène had been carefully developed for empathic relationship with a tree was compromised by the sound-image of a piano. This observation would lead to another round of work with musicians Clare Cullen and Michael Baldock who crafted a sophisticated Max/MSP programme that explored pitch, rhythm and dynamics integrating a programmed harmonic synthesizer with an innovative multirhythmic voice processed through a granular synthesis object8.

This was a significant improvement, the timbre and tones used carried few images, and where it did so, the images were suggestive without being descriptive. After four months of recent work with this sound programme both Collins and Goto felt that there was another refinement that would deliver a tighter relationship to the cause and effect embedded in the sensor/data flow; to refine the potential for empathic attention and exchange was/is needed. Current work is underway to finalize the sound of Plein Air. 3.3 Form and Practice Work on Eden3 was complicated by the fact that trees are in leaf only five out of twelve months per year in the UK, and when in leaf, there are complications of weather to worry about. What was initially conceived as a simple group of sensors had grown into a very complicated array of electronics with too many cords and connectors. What was planned as a lightweight tool to be used outside with trees in the landscape evolved into a studio/lab tool with a massive battery pack. Our practice moved from planned use in the landscape to sustained everyday experience in our home/studio environment. Initiating deep consideration about what it meant to use, to perform and to live with the system and trees over time.

Empathic projection defines the theoretical approach and method of this research. The challenge was to develop artwork that pro-

vides a reason for ‘being with’ trees. In the first year working in California with the system spread out across a work table. Collins developed various structures to contain the equipment before meeting a group of ‘open air’ landscape painters. Many had folding wooden easels that caught our eye. This was the original historic tool that enabled artists to move into the landscape; it was an important point of reference for the project. A painting easel was purchased, too light and too small for the entire system, but it became the organizational metaphor for the development of both the form and practice of Plein Air. There were only two options for the development of this research; to be with trees, or for trees to be with us. In the best of all worlds, Collins and Goto would work three to five days per week in-situ with native trees rooted in their native habitat. That would require a relationship with a nearby urban wood, a forest research facility, or significant personal property. As they are not settled in the UK they made a decision in 2009 to purchase potted trees that were 48 to 60 inches tall. Over the years they have worked with the trees first as a means of testing and developing the sensor and sound system, then as a means of developing a form and practice that could be tested and then presented in exhibition. Iterative development of the prototype has resulted in a robust heavy-duty sculptural interface that stands up to prolonged use within the studio as well as in public galleries, enclosed gardens and greenhouses.

It has become an interface that encourages ‘being with’ trees rather than a tool for short term performative actions, (small epiphanies) outdoors amongst trees. Final development involves a reconsideration of the sound software and a strategic reconstruction of the Plein Air easel reducing the visible complexity of the system so that the traditional form of the easel and the tree is foregrounded in the viewer’s perception.

The practice of working with trees has changed over the period of the project, moving from the initial effort to manage the equipment and see patterns in the research; to an attempt to recapture the epiphany of our initial experience in North Carolina, to a more long term project, of ‘being with’ trees, through the interface. Empathy is the method; the process can have no effect, or result in a critical social imaginary about ethical obligations to other living things.This can only emerge through an assignation of an inter-relational value and/or through recognition of a life force in common. The practice starts with the epiphanic moment when users realize that trees react instantaneously to changes in sunlight and carbon dioxide. This ‘aha factor’ is easily replicated and has been used in lectures with a tree by Collins at the University of Edinburgh and in a performance with a tree at Nottingham Trent University by Goto. The performance however has larger implications as this involves expression informed by close attention to the data; an imaginative interpretation of the other. Here the sensor system and the sound system are pulled apart; the tree/sensor relationship becomes the focal point for embodied perception and expression. After the epiphany there is a period of potential confirmation of one’s perceptions, where empathic exchange can open up. Having worked with the system over years Collins and Goto feel this is best developed by engaging others.9 The first opportunity was through preparations for an exhibition that began with refinement of systems and practice in our home studio/greenhouse then tested first in a series of ‘field experiments’ in public parks and wooded groves. This was followed by a

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six-week exhibition of the system, documentation of the fieldwork and a provocative video installation dealing with ethical obligations to living things. More than half of the fieldwork sites were urban, all in public spaces. The form and function of the sculptural interface engendered curiosity in this context but little sustained interest.

As Collins and Goto were present, most wanted an explanation; to ‘know’ rather than to listen to and experience what was going on. These are indications of sympathetic engagement where there is sensitivity to the experience but it is processed through what is known, rather than resulting in a relational, imaginative projection.

Installing the sculptural interface in the gallery, within a greenhouse10 with trees was more effective. Without someone present to explain things, viewers would sit in a chair provided for that purpose.

Here there was more potential to engage the tree and the imagination through the sculptural interface, although as discussed previously the voice chosen for the exhibition was not satisfactory. The primary insight from that exhibition was that human beings could find it challenging to ‘read others’ but whether human, pet, wildlife or tree the potential for empathic exchange emerges (for most of us) when we can sustain an intimate interrelationship over time.

Exhibiting the system revealed issues which are being worked through in the final design and reconstruction. The artist authors want the complexity of the system to more or less disappear from the viewer’s perception. Arguing that the painting easel emerged as a metaphor unto itself, it is an important compositional element of the artwork. It provided a classic sculptural body that counter-balanced the scientific system. The easel embodies a history of visual attention to, and human expression of the landscape and nature.

But this is connected to empathic projection; the ability to embrace and express (to embody) the condition of the other.

ment. Collins refined a set of philosophical positions on ethical obligation that would become the script for a time-lapse video A Tree is a Living Thing (The Schelling-Piper Experiments) which can be viewed online.11 Goto is refining ideas about the aesthetic perception of forests within the context of the iconic Scottish Caledonian Forest through the ‘Principles of Association’ found in David Hume (1969); an on-going creative inquiry that has not as yet yielded an outcome.

We are increasingly aware that access to and control of the system can be important pathways to empathy. To consider the context, to choose the leaf and to attend to the output is a powerful experience. As a result we are now in the development stages of Spirit in the Air, the second artwork in this series, and a highly efficient battery powered hand-held system has begun. Developed with newly available sensor technology it will result in a production run of multiple units for use in cultural and educational context.

The systems will interrelate by producing harmonic sonic experience that reveals source and flow of carbon dioxide.The leaf chamber will be redesigned so that the performer’s hand and the tree’s leaf are intertwined; a series of gestures will be developed to concentrate attention on the human/tree relationship. It will shift the relationship between expert user and viewer in important ways. Finally, this technology also reveals potential for a robust system that could be set up in an urban grove or protected forest as a semipermanent installation; a Symphony of the Trees. The project moves from an expert moderated system, to a performative/interactive user based system, to an installation where a grove of trees is engaged over the length of a season. From a structured relationship to an improvisational relationship then to an open relationship, each setting has its own unique potential to explore the empathic relationships that may lead to the ethical-obligation for living things.

Conclusion: Previous work in Pennsylvania dealt with the restoration of postindustrial ecosystems, working with scientists we initiated new knowledge and refined key points for public presentation and discourse. Out of this came ideas of strategic knowledge, concepts which had potential to reshape human perception, experience and values – the structure upon which decisions and policies are made.

Strategic knowledge was the how, the why was to relieve some of the pressure on nature, to let the aesthetic potential of urban trees on steep hillsides and remnant forests along river banks realize their full potential.

Our current research is theory informed, developed and tested in a series of iterations; our results to date are soft cultural outcomes rather than impacts on public perception and policy. The artist authors submit that the confirmation of empathic exchange with a tree is difficult to document. The best answer is embedded in indicators such as a sustained relationship with trees, an inquiry that develops over time.

It has become increasingly clear that the ‘work’ is focused on human subjectivity and the potential to open up the ethical-aesthetic conditions for appreciation and the potential ethical obligation for other living things through empathy. This has led us to read into ideas of subjectivity and integration of subject, object and environ-

Notes: Goto, R., Lucas,V. and Pantazidou, M. (1999) Urban Watersheds and Brownfields [online]. 3 Rivers 2nd Nature, [cited 15 November, 2011]. http://3r2n. collinsandgoto.com/revalued/urban-watersheds-brownfields/index.htm Goto, R. and Albert, J. (2004) Urban Watersheds: Water Quality in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania [online]. 3 Rivers 2nd Nature, [cited 15 November, 2011]. <http://3r2n.collinsandgoto.com/revalued/water-quality-alleghenycounty/index.htm 2 For an overview of this specific ‘planning/policy’ aspect of the field see Kester, G. (Ed.) (2005) Groundworks: Environmental Collaboration in Contemporary Art. The exhibition/publication was one of the outputs that emerged from 3 Rivers 2nd Nature.

3 http://qubitsystems.com/ 4 Carola Boehm, University of Manchester.

5 Supported by Prof Trevor Hocking a plant physiologist and his technician.

6 Solutions for Research Ltd. http://www.solutionsforresearch.co.uk/ 7 Plein air:The Ethical Aesthetic Impulse, Peacock Visual Arts. http://eden3.net/ exhibitions/peacock/index.html 8 See Michael Edwards’ mdeGranular~ http://www.michael-edwards.org/ software/mdegranular/mdegranular.html 9 Collins is currently speaking to a colleague about social science methods to assess empathic awareness in others.

10 With a high density discharge metal halide lighting system in place.

11 http://eden3.net/exhibitions/peacock/video/index.html 1

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Collins, T. (2001) The Rust–Belt Dialogues: An Artists Concept Model for Public Dialogue about Urban Stream Restoration. Ecological Restoration, 19 (3).

Collins,T. and Savage, K. (1998) Learning to See Assets as Well as Liabilities, opportunities as Well as Constraints. Public Work, Management and Policy, 2 (3), pp. 210-219.

Collins, T. (2003) Postindustrielle Landschaft-Nine Mile Run: Interventions in the Rust Belt The Art and Ecology of Post-Industrial Public Space. In Genske, G.D. and Hauser, S. (Ed.) Die Brache als Chance: Eing Transdisziplinarer Dialog Uber Verbrauchte Flachen. Berlin, Germany, Springer-Verlag.

Collins, T. (2002) 3 Rivers – 2nd Nature the River Dialogues. In Bennet S. and Butler, J. (Ed.) Localities and Regeneration and Diverse(c)ities.

Exeter, University of Plymouth, Bristol, Intellect Publishing.

Pinkham, R. and Collins, T. (2002) Post-Industrial Watersheds: Retrofits and restorative redevelopment (Pittsburgh Pennsylvania). In France, R.L. (Ed.) The Handbook of Water Sensitive Planning and Design. London, New York, Washington D.C., Lewis Publishers.

Collins,T. (2010) 3 Rivers 2nd Nature 2000-2005,Water, Land & Dialogue. In Carney, L.S., And Pageot, E-A, In a special issue on Landscape, Cultural Spaces, Ecology. RACAR, Revue d’art Canadienne / Canadian Art Review,Vol 35 Issue 3. Arnprior, ON, Canada Universities Art Association of Canada.

Goto, R. and Collins, T. (2005) Mapping Social and Ecological Practices. In Miles, M. (Ed.) New Practices/New Pedagogies: Emerging Contexts, Practices and Pedagogies in Europe and North America. Lisse, Netherlands, Swets and Zeitlinger.

Hume, D. (1969) A Treatise of Human Nature. London, Penguin Books. pp. 49-75.

Chamovitz, D. (2012) What a Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses.

Australia, Scribe Publications Pty LtD. Firn, R. (2004) Plant Intelligence: an Alternative Point of View. in Annals of Botany 92: 1-2-, 2003. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Goto Collins, R. (2012) Ecology and Environmental Art in Public Place,Talking Tree: Won’t you take a minute and listen to the plight of nature?

Aberdeen Scotland, Robert Gordon University. pp 78-107.

Jones, O. Cloke, P. (2002) Tree Cultures. Oxford UK, Berg.

Kester, G. (Ed.) (2005) Groundworks: Environmental Collaboration in Contemporary Art. Pittsburgh PA, Regina Gouger Miller Gallery, Carnegie Mellon University.

Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M. (1980) Metaphors We Live By. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. p. 566

Collins, T. (2008) Art Nature and Aesthetics in the Post Industrial Public Realm. In France, R. (Ed.) Healing Nature, Repairing Relationships: Restoring Ecological Spaces and Consciousness. Chicago, ILL, Green Frigate Books.

Stein, E. (2002) On the Problem of Empathy. (W. Stein, trans.). Washington D.C., ICS Publications. (Original work published 1917). p. 1.

Collins, T. (2007) Catalytic Aesthetics. In the publication from the conference, Artful Ecologies, Falmouth, University College Falmouth.

Trevawas, A. (2005) Green Plants as Intelligent Organisms. In TRENDS in Plant Science Vol.10 No.9 September 2005. Oxford, Elsevier. p. 413.

Trevawas, A. (2003) Aspects of Plant Intelligence. In Annals of Botany 92: 1-2-, 2003. Oxford, Oxford University Press. p. 1-20.

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