Talk of the pines

Sculpture in the Wild's 2018 University of Montana Emerging Artist Anne Yoncha began work on "Tree Talk," a piece intended make the internal physiology of trees, and the networks between them audible, on Monday, Sept. 10.

BPSW's first sound-based interactive installation, "Tree Talk" is described as temporary, performative art,and highlights the living presence of the Ponderosa pines within the Sculpture in the Wild.

"Tree Talk "is designed to collect data from several trees using specially designed sensors and solar-powered microphones encased in weatherproof boxes installed atop steel rods. The data collected will include changes in temperature, light and wind, and will be synthesized then amplified by bowl-shaped speakers suspended from boughs, so that the sounds descend from the tree canopy. This "tree talk" will become part of park visitors' interactive experience.

Complementing the piece are informative workshops, presented by Yoncha in collaboration with U of M doctoral candidate Gerard Sapes, who specializes in Ponderosa pine.

Doubling as the first of the educational workshops, Yoncha's artist talk took place Thursday, Sept. 16. She and Sapes guided about twenty visitors on a walk through the Sulpture in the Wild while Sapes explained why the Ponderosa flourishes in this environment, and the processes creating change in the park's trees and plant life as autumn advances. The talk culminated at the installation site, where Yoncha demonstrated the devices capturing and amplifying the "voices" of the Ponderosas.

"Essentially, this project is part of a series of art/science collaborations that we've done together over the past two years," said Yoncha, who said she was working with fabric at the time she and Sapes met. "We thought it could be interesting to see what would happen if we tried to combine our ideas and processes."

Yoncha and Sapes will continue their educational and interactive endeavors with a talk at Lincoln Schools on Sept. 25, and Yoncha will be on-site throughout the remainder of her residence, demonstrating and monitoring the data collected. Yoncha plans to generate a recording of mixed tree sounds, each track labeled with the time the sound was collected and the geographic coordinates of the tree, creating a sound map.

Yoncha earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Delaware in 2010 and is currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts Degree at U of M, where she creates installations based on plant physiology. Her art-science research collaboration has won graduate research award two years in a row, and her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. She is also co-director of a non-profit gallery, leads monthly panel discussions pairing artists working with similar content across different media, and has helped found several projects and organizations dedicated to supporting artists, showcasing their work and furthering their careers.

Yoncha hopes "Tree Talk" will encourage visitors to think about the patterns and processes that exist within the plants indigenous to the sculpture park. Her proposal was chosen because it captured the imagination of the Emerging Artist jurors, BPSW Artistic director Kevin O'Dwyer told the BVD, adding that the combination of art, nature, science, sound and technology adds an additional dimension to park installations.

The data and sound collected in "Tree Talk" will be available on the BPSW website in the future, and O'Dwyer said BPSW will be looking to host more temporary works of art as it matures, as well as performance and installation artists.