Attention as Place: Surveying One Square Meter

If you follow the Walker Art Center via blogs, Facebook, or Twitter, you've caught word of ROLU-in-Residence. When I heard that a component of ROLU's residency bears the title "Attention as Place," I was intrigued. Notions of "attention" and "place" are at the core of Open Phenology.

"Attention as Place" is a showcase of interactive and intellectually compelling projects culled from ROLU's Web-based network and temporarily localized in the Walker's Cargill Lounge. While most works in this showcase have a physical aspect, they are more fundamentally about the intangible, the indeterminate, the speculative, or the experiential. And for that reason, viewers can have an intimate, give-and-take experience with any of the 22 projects that compose "Attention as Place."

Take, for instance, Amy Franceschini's SURVEYING ONE METER, an action-based project with the following prompt:

Look for the roped-off One Square Meter at the base of Open Field's hill, near the parking ramp entrance.

Catalog in writing everything you see in a one meter square in Open Field. This could be a text, a poem, or a list. Get as detailed as possible.

The parameters of Franceschini's project calls to my mind The Forest Unseen (book trailer, left) by David G. Haskell. And though the Walker's Open Field is no old growth wilderness, Franceschini's project urges us to see it as it is, how it is, and where it is. Like Open Phenology, Franceschini's project is based on the ethos that our immediate environment has great potential as the stage for re-enchantment and discovery.

Since Tuesday, I've completed two surveys of the square meter, each time depositing my written observations in a designated box in Cargill Lounge. You are welcome to participate in Franceschini's SURVEYING ONE METER. Visit the Walker's Cargill Lounge where a staff person will give you a clipboard with paper and pencil. Venture out to the square meter and tell us what you see.

Suggested Reading: Microattention by a Contemplative Scientist

http://ttbook.org/book/david-george-haskell-forest-unseen

An inspiring interview with author David George Haskell discussing his book The Forest Unseen: A Year's Watch in Nature.

No Lake is an Island

Biking to work yesterday, I happened upon a crew busying themselves at Spring Lake's shore. "What's this all about?" I asked a guy dressed in bib waders. Ted from BlueWing Environmental Solutions and Technologies, as he turned out to be, explained that he's part of a project to improve Spring Lake's water quality. Ted was working with people from Midwest Floating Island and members of the American Society of Landscape Architects to install seven "floating treatment wetlands." Once in place, these islands made of recycled plastics and foam are colonized by microbes and plants which do the work of extracting excess nutrients from the impaired wetland.

Today at 1 pm there's a public event to launch the islands.

Read more about who's involved in this management initiative and how the islands work at Josephine Marcotty's True North Star Tribune blog: http://www.startribune.com/local/blogs/127522343.html.

Constant Vigilance!

I was chatting with my colleague Christina when I hit upon this truism: constant vigilance is the foundation of good phenological practice. Christina, catching the reference I unwittingly made, explained that Harry Potter's Professor Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody employs this same motto of "Constant Vigilance!" to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts. But now back to my familiar domain, that of Muggles, Citizen Science, and natural phenomena in the Walker's vicinity. In my June 23 post, I anticipated seeing changes, these being among them:



What: Nasturtium flowering, leaf at ~5" diameter
Where: Arlene Grossman Memorial Arbor
Observers: Abbie (July 1)
Date/Time: May 27 (left) and about 10:20 am on July 1 (right)
Conditions: Sweltering heat (July 1)

What: American Robin juvenile. While these pictures document different individuals, the emphasis is on change over time (June 10 to July 1)—most noticeably, the development of functional flight feathers.The robin on the right, though about the same size as an adult, can be recognized as juvenile by the plumage. See the speckled breast?
Where: Sculpture Garden, by Scott Burton's Seat-Leg Table (July 1)
Observers: Abbie (July 1)
Date/Time: June 10 (left) and about 10:30 am on July 1 (right)
Conditions: Sweltering heat (July 1) (eighty-some degrees)

So, besides Alastor Moody and myself, who else might call for "constant vigilance?" A gardener, naturally. Not to battle the Dark Arts so much as to keep horticultural entropy at bay. On today's survey, I noticed a team of three gardeners tending to the arbor.

What: Iris leaves, tied in a knot and trimmed, to keep the garden looking orderly. And, in practical terms, this fastidious management allows light to reach the iris' neighbors
Where: Arlene Grossman Memorial Arbor
Observers: Abbie
Date/Time: July 1, about 10:15 am
Conditions: Sunny, hot (eighty-some degrees), and humid

What: Clematis—about 5' tall and flowering—trained with twine to climb the arbor
Where: Arlene Grossman Memorial Arbor 
Observers: Abbie
Date/Time: July 1, about 10:15 am
Conditions: Sunny, hot (eighty-some degrees), and humid







Constant vigilance is hyperbole, of course, but it's something to strive for. Anticipation has a positive influence on awareness.Take for example the Como Park Zoo and Conservatory's corpse flower. Again, props to my colleague Christina who watched the flower webcam with steadfast attention and even made a timely pilgrimage to witness the rare bloom. My vigilance, on the other hand, faltered, and I'm kicking myself for missing it.

If you'd like to prepare for July in hopes of not missing out, here's a tool to help you anticipate: Jim Gilbert's phenology report for July 2010 (PDF, 416 kb).

Going West in Search of Wild

Open Phenology collaborator Jim shares his field guide and expertise.

As Open Phenology attracts participants, the project's collaborative nature is taking shape. For example, this week's survey benefited from Jim's knowledge of botany and his intrepid impulse to explore the western fringe of the Walker's vicinity. So we left the manicured landscape of lawn and garden to investigate the wilder environs of wetland and forest.

Well, that begs the question: "What is wild?" What do terms like 'wilderness' or 'nature' denote, and what do we mean to exclude by using these words? It's an enigma to ponder because 'nature' seems to encompass everything, and yet most of us harbor the notion that nature has boundaries.

Once outside the urban yard's monoculture and the garden's cultivated display, does the land revert to its natural state? To the casual glance, perhaps it appears so. But upon examination, the answer is emphatically no. At every turn, introduced species were flourishing. And so we challenged ourselves to piece together, through observation and speculation, a semblance of this ecosystem's 'natural state.' And we wondered about the near future of this piece of land. Would our city or this neighborhood support and sustain the maintenance work necessary to keep invasives at bay?

What: Select observations described below
Where: Less than 1/2 mile west of FlatPak House, map above
Observers: Abbie, Jim, Martha, Renner
Date/Time: June 24, 10 to 11:30 am
Conditions: Sunny and warm

• Cottony wisps (likely cottonwood and aspen seeds) are aloft and litter the ground (Related resource: 'Plant profile' video about the cottonwood)
• Motherwort, flowering
• Cow parsnip, stalks are tall (some about 6') and seeds are forming (Related vocabulary: Umbel)
• Garlic mustard, second year plants have seed pods (Related resource: Why this plant is an ecological threat and what to do about it)
• Garlic mustard, first year plants are only basal rosettes, with no tall flowering stalk (Related hypothesis: We encountered a plot of exclusively first year plants and speculated that it might be the leading edge of the invasion)
• Elderberry plant, flowering
• Elderberry plant, berries ripening
• Deadly nightshade, flowering
• Jack-in-the-pulpit, berries ripening but still very green
• Mulberry, fruits ripening, but many are still pale
• Fleabane, flowering, a small bee (~3 or 4mm) observed
• Burdock, stalks are about 3' and still no flowers, aphids are observed on some individual plants
• Buckthorn, fruits ripening, but still green (Related resource: Why is buckthorn such a problem and what you can do about it)
• Spittle bug, shrouded in its spittle foam
• Wild ginger, flowers appear to be fading
• Wild sarsaparilla, leafstalks getting tall but no flowers observed