Claudia Tolusso

Swiss artists-in-labs Program 2009
Institute/Lab: Eidg. Forschungsanstalt für Wald, Schnee und Landschaft WSL, Bellinzona
Artistic background: Scenography, Photography
Claudia Tolusso on LinkedIn

Project Proposal

”Observation for an Artwork” concerns the landscape and land use – memory and storytelling – nature and architecture. My aim was to research the daily rituals undertaken by scientists in the environment, to document this, and to respond to the experience by creating an interactive installation for the Ticino public.

Focus

The Swiss Federal Institute for Forest Snow and Landscape Research WSL focuses on the use and protection of landscapes and habitats with the goal to find the best ways of making use of landscape and forest resources in a responsible way. Furthermore it develops an integrated approach to handling the natural hazards that commonly occur in mountainous countries. Being a part of the ETH domain, the particular function of the research institute is to act as a bridge between pure theoretical science and the practical implementation of scientific findings. A particular strength of WSL consists in providing an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research team that is problem oriented and keeps a view to practical solutions.

The Insubric ecosystems group of the WSL is an interdisciplinary research group dealing with different aspects of wildfire history, ecology and management in Switzerland. Main skills of the group are forestry, vegetation science, bio-indication, eco- and palaeo history, community ecology, etc. and scientific approaches such as experimental field studies; process modelling and risk assessment. The main trigger for hosting an artist of the Swiss artists-in-labs program is our awareness about the multitude of possible approaches that exist in viewing, commenting and disseminating science and research results. This is particularly true if science concerns itself with concrete aspects of the daily live such as landscape, natural hazards or nature in urban space.

Dr. Marco Conedera, Head of the Insubric Ecosystem Research Group

There was a general interest in having an artist in our group because in the different research approaches and methodologies we use observations, controlled experiments, case studies, and we thought it might be interesting to see another way for data to be collected rather than systematic samplings, field surveys, analysis of existing maps or aerial photographs, etc. Our researchers are interested in biodiversity assessment, the modelling of natural processes, visualization of data through thematic maps and reconstructing past land use.

Claudia Tolusso, artist-in-lab

We interacted with Claudia for nine months, and this included teaching, discussing and implementing project activities. At the beginning (first three months) she systematically participated in our internal and external activities in order to have an overview about the daily life here and was surprised about the amount of office work we do in our research group. A basic point of discussion was the scientific terminology and the definition of terms such as model, statistical significance, control and hypothesis in the scientific community. During this phase we gained a lot from the interactions in terms of discussion about our research approach, the way we set up the research strategy and we detect specific field of activity and research topics. In a second phase, she worked more independently in order to develop her own ideas on possible artistic performances in connection with our work. Unfortunately, most of the excellent ideas she invented were not finalized, but they do survive in written form in her personal diary! In the last two month we collaborated to finalizing a proposal and application for funding for three installation/performance ideas and submitted to the Cultural project a cloud onto a set of umbrellas. During the day this object will project an image of the real clouds as they pass over the quadrangular and roofless courtyard; at night the projection would display the process of cartography and the single data sets that make the process readable. The project demonstrates the transient nature of data.

Conclusion

I am particularly excited about the realization of the Bellinzona event, and am looking forward to an interesting and challenging collaboration with the local public, as well as the unpredictable moments. I experienced a field of science to which the general public has very little access, and whose discoveries are only known to a chosen few. I was surprised how much manpower scientific research requires, and it gave me great satisfaction to carry out research on my own time within such an environment. As a result of this experience, my artistic horizons have expanded, and my interest to collaborate with other institutions had grown and I have become aware of the value of my art work.

Thanks

To the WSL employees their openness and warm welcome from the beginning. Special thanks to: Daniela Furrer, Cinzia Pradella Janet Maringer, Begona Fijeco, Damiano Torriani, Boris Pezzatti, Eric Gehring, Patrik Krebs, Marco Conedera and Marco Moretti.

INSUBRIC ECOSYSTEMS RE SEARCH GROUP IN BELLINZONA

How do our agricultural and economical needs shape our use of land and its biodiversity? What does it mean to speak about ‘salvaging nature’ in Switzerland? How can we plan our interaction with our environmental resources in the future and how can this be formalized through Land Management?

The place

In my first month I shadowed the scientists’ experiments and attempted to look through their eyes at the issues and changes taking place in the southern Swiss Alps. I spent nine months in a beautiful three- storey house (the research lab), located on the eastern hill behind Bellinzona. Through the window I had a spectacular view of Locarno and the Ticino river as it cut through the Magadino plain, traced by the forested hills on both sides until it poured into the Lago Maggiore. The researchers at WSL, are spatially and literarily embedded into their topics. These are: Changes in land use – social economic developments in the chestnut forests, Ecological disturbances, such as Forest fires Biologically invasive Ever-green neophytes in the forest and Urbanization – Biodiversity in urban areas in one of the most populated areas in Europe.

The First months

From the first day Dr. Marco Conedera, head of the Research Unit Ecosystem Boundaries at WSL, took me along to his lectures, these alternated between field excursions and the ETH Zurich. At the ETHZ, he lectured on fire management as well as it’s ecological repercussions. I also accompanied him and his team to a EU-meeting with an International group of forest fire experts about the need to increase the level of attention addressing forest fires. There, I discovered that the problems wrought by Climate Change are increasing the need for solid fire management. It was mentioned that some increase in the frequency of forest fires can indeed be attributable to climate change. Other issues targeted the direct (regional) neighbours of Switzerland, as outlined in the Dissemination Plan in Milan. Through my visits to various conferences I became interested in questions like: How can costs be secured to allow the continuation of this research; or how subjective (objective) can a scientist be when he or she is involved in such important topics; or how vital is it to disseminate highly specialized research or be subject to public opinion? Often , this last question is a political issue, as the capacity for scientific research to effect any feedback at a social level could colour their findings and, eventually, affect the level of funding for such projects in the future. It seemed to me that anything I was going to propose should somehow raise the awareness about the importance of this funding.

Methods for Scientists and Artists

I made a small studio for my work in the library and started the process of developing my own strategies and creative ideas that could communicate these topics. I also delved more deeply into the methods of scientific observation, taking a special interest in the methodology that was used by the scientists present. I became very fascinated by a procedure called dendrochronology, used to calculate the age of the forest and how the weather patterns have changed over time, as well as other information. I was also introduced to palynology: a way to track carbon particles in lake sediments, which clearly indicate the evolution of ecosystems and fire regimes. As an outsider ,I started to understand that the natural ecosystem is extraordinarily complex. The scientists’ use of technology permits a look into the past in order to understand the future, its development and perhaps even shape it. But what did it mean for the experts to see the past through such views of the present? What problems are now on the hot list and how complex it is to try to solve them? I began to see that my artistic tendencies could address some of these questions and engage an audience at different levels. During my involvement in the project, I read the book: Into the Next Dimension, by Clemens Kuby, in which the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal is discussed. (“Dass der Betrachter durch das Betrachten das Betrachtete beeinflusst”) (He stated that the viewers presence can also influence the object of his obsevation. Then I came across another phrase, “Absence of evidence does not constitute evidence of absence.” These quotes led me to make a sketch of an idea for a marble work on the flat rooftop of the WSL Institute itself.

Over the next few months, I decided to record and observe how the scientists work by using a camera and a sketchbook, a process which furthered the relationship to my immediate environment. These photos captured many impressions about the scientific research and I continued to read numerous papers and publications. Slowly, the scientific terms and their meanings became easier to understand. For example, one of the words Marco Conedera often used was the verb “to model” and the use of it in the phrase- “the modeling approach”, by which he meant -one has to collect and analyze data in order to demonstrate or even prove ones thesis. I learnt that data sets lead to discussions about their exchange within the Institute, as well as with others beyond the borders of Switzerland. With another scientist form the EU fire projects, Gianni Boris Pezzatti , I had rather philosophical conversations about the processes within their research projects and how nature has its own taxonomy. In May, 2009, the Research Unit Ecosystem Boundaries met to exchange their results in Bellinzona. At this meeting I had the opportunity to present my ideas to a broader group of scientists, who came from other WSL institutes (Davos and Lausanne). This was an entirely new experience for me, and the reactions from the audience were surprising. I showed them sets of photos that I had taken of them in their working environment, as well as some sketches and models that they used, and took a rather metaphorical approach to their research topics. Along with my images I used the following quotes:

• Nature manifests itself when it rains, culture manifests itself when one has an umbrella. Franz Josef Wetz
• The map is not the land. Gregor Batenson
• Only we are accountable to the laws that we invent to describe nature, not nature itself. Prof. M. Sieber, Lehrwald (ETH Zurich)

Their comments indicated that my work was a poetical eye-opener for their topics. Patrik Krebs, from WSL in Bellinzona, remarked, “You are free to play in a visual and philosophical way but our output has to prove our thesis!” Dominik Kulakowski , Assistant Professor (Clark University, Worcester), commented that my earlier photos from the forest in Melbourne manifested an unfamiliar viewpoint about the realities of nature. In fact, we have maintained contact and still discuss the correlations between science and art. By contrast, the scientists’ presentations were focused and defined by a certain question, and the data sets were collected and analyzed to answer that question.

It was fascinating to be able to follow their exchanges, and it seemed that their presentations and gatherings were a very effective way to keep up to date. We also had encounters with the other Artists-in-Labs-residents; this is where I came across Jose Louise Borges book “The Map”. These exchanges were important, as they allowed us to share doubts and/or questions about the different processes. Beyond that, I shared a flat nine months long with Alina Mnatskanian, a resident of the AI lab in Lugano, and we became good friends. I am very happy that I received feedback from the artists about my images and about the problems of interpreting rather than illustrating scientific research. For me, photography is a ‘wordless discovery’ about the life of a scientist. I worked to communicate this content and make an artistic and interpretative response. The working title for my final project was “Observations for the realization of an artwork”. In it I proposed three installations to the city government of Bellinzona for the “vivere i sensi” art event in 2011. In January, 2010, Marco Conedera and I went to discuss further details with the curator Flavia Marone, responsible for culture of the city of Bellinzona. All three installations should take place during April 2011, the date of the twentieth anniversary of the WSL institute in Bellinzona. They will be part of a series from the Federal WSL Research Group.

The first Installation (“Seed Explosion”) targets the problem of biologically invasive evergreen neophytes in Ticino. It will be located in the Courtyard of the Castello Grande. A two-meter weather balloon will be released on a twenty meter teather and explode, showering rice paper seeds onto the ground. This work addresses the questions: what is an invasion? And what is the process of phythogrowth? For me, this place and the balloon creates a metaphor showing how uncontrollable an invasive species really can be. The Castello Grand was originally built to protect and defend Bellinzona from invaders!

In the second installation (“Autostrada Verde”), the subject of Biodiversity in urban areas will be addressed. This will take place at the Piazza del Sole in Bellinzona. On the 2500 square meter piazza, I intend to install a grass (not concrete!) relief in the shape and form of the South Cross Highway (scale of 1: 300). This piazza is one of the most frequented non-vehicular crossing points, and also a place of encounter for skaters, bicyclers and daydreamers. However, “Autostrada Verde” inverts the speed of a normal Highway, because it allows the audience to slowly contemplate the spatial and visual segregation of their landscape and creates a social space where diversity can flourish. The movement and use in this space will be documented.

The final installation “Data Cloud” is based on the idea of how research data could be visualised. It will take place at the Bellinzona City Hall, in the courtyard of a three-storey building, constructed in 1680. I will Department of the city of Bellinzona. These were about seed explosions, green highways and data clouds to be held in three different locations in the city. Called ‘vivere I sensi’ (or ‘catch the emotions’) they were accepted for further development for 2010. Having an artist did not deeply affect our community but sometimes the perspectives of the artists were brought into the discussion and this caused unexpected and basic questions about our terminology or methodological approaches. These had to be answered before the discussion could be continued. What artists and scientists seem to have in common is that initial trigger of a good performance, which in both cases is constituted by a basic level of intuition. In the development phase science has to meet with international established methodological standards whereas the approach to making art seems to be less coded and may therefore develop more freely.