James McGrath: Nature as Data, Digitalisation as Sustainability

We recently interviewed artist James McGrath about his project, ‘The Children’s Tree’, which signals a shift in his work from the traditional to the digital. McGrath explains his interest in data sets, and the way they create intersections between the creative and the scientific.

Nature as Data 

It all started with a deep dive into the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN), a vast open-source data infrastructure.“I drilled down into the data,” James McGrath recounts, “and I found this one data set of Rushworth Forest. I looked up who the scientist was and read his papers, and then I contacted him.” 

The scientist in question was Dr Kim Calders of Belgium’s Ghent University, whose research is based on developing new techniques of measuring above-ground biomass and vegetation structure in a way that doesn’t require trees to be cut down.

STILL FROM JAMES MCGRATH, 'GHOST TREES'. IN COLLABORATION WITH GARY SINCLAIR, TACTILE MUSIC

W. HTTPS://JAMES-MCGRATH.COM/

I. @JAMESMMCGRATH & @TACTILEMUSIC

Data as Sentience 

McGrath saw the power and potential of expansive data sets, but realised there was a problem - no one was looking at them. “Climate change is like noise. Scientists have all this data that shows what is happening but they can’t get people to really see the relationship between data, climate change and the physical nature of all this.” The artist pauses, “but, it’s not their job to market their data. It’s our job to connect with it.” 

He wonders if the lack of major policy change in response to climate change is because the general public does not have an emotional or visual connection to this data. 

In McGrath’s first foray into laser imaging, detection and ranging (LIDAR) technology, he used Calder’s data set of the Rushworth Forest and animated it into a 3D visualisation.

STILL FROM JAMES MCGRATH, 'GHOST TREES'.

CO-CREATED BY GARY SINCLAIR, TACTILE MUSIC

Sentience as Digitalisation 

LIDAR uses a laser to target an object and measure the time for the reflected light to return to the receiver. It generates a complex data set of points which can be translated into a 3D render. 

Dr Kim Calders recently returned to Sydney and caught up with James McGrath - “He asked what I wanted to do with his LIDAR equipment. He said: you can scan anything you like.”

McGrath decided to scan a single tree to map the ways that human interactions can leave physical traces. Upon finding that there were no trees in Sydney with national importance, he approached the Botanical Garden and asked them to choose a tree. The result was an ancient and grand fig tree, nicknamed ‘The Children’s Tree’ after the children who played on and climbed the tree.

THE CHILDREN’S TREE, ROYAL BOTANICAL GARDENS, SYDNEY

Digitalisation as Sustainability

“You can play with data, and merge the macro with the micro, because data doesn’t have that visual kind of context,” McGrath explains, “and when I say play, I mean put the data through a pipeline and visualise it, so we can move through the tree and see through its branches and trunk.” 

From the LIDAR scan’s cloud point data set, McGrath was able to digitally reconstruct a perfect model, capturing as data the entire surface of the Childrens’ Tree.

JAMES MCGRATH AND KIM CALDERS, THE CHILDREN’S TREE, ROYAL BOTANICAL GARDENS SYDNEY

The artist, the scientist and their LIDAR equipment.

w.https://www.ugent.be/bw/environment/en/research/cavelab/contact/kimcalders.htm t.@kimcalders

“The sad thing is, however, that we’ve had no local connection or interest,” McGrath laments, “we even applied for Vivid. This data will last forever, far beyond the tree’s death. The most popular use for LIDAR today is for commercial bodies to scan landscapes and develop it and gain control of it, which is the opposite of what we are doing.” 

“I want to create that emotive connection. I want to get people to connect with this science and climate data, I want to make them look.”

- James McGrath

Sugar Glider Digital joined James and Kim on site to see the process of scanning The Children’s Tree in Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens.

We look forward to seeing the results of the scans through James’ artwork and the strong message he is communicating about taking notice of our climate data.