Gardens of Artificial Delights: Residual Memories of the Digital in Contemporary Art

Tamiko Thiel’s Unexpected Growth (2018) and Clement Valla’s Surface Proxy (2015) utilize new media technologies such as augmented reality (AR) and image mapping/print processing to broadcast an image. Both are examples of new media that hone in on formal proximity and immersion at a digital medium-specificity. Incidentally, both also deal in cyber-botanical terrain: Thiel’s Unexpected Growth is an AR installation that presents an uncanny wilderness not exactly of this earth’s, but composed of its discarded waste products. Similarly, Clement Valla’s Surface Proxy reconstructs a third-dimensionality based on flat and two-dimensional renderings of natural objects like plants and stone, effectively making previously organic forms of life synthetic. Both artists utilize digital tools (embedded interfaces, transcription and digital rendering) to present a vitalist materiality that is uncannily nonorganic; instead of the complete, 1080p reproduction of the image, Thiel and Valla’s artworks employ visual queues that effectively splinter reality, emphasizing the loss intrinsic to digital conversion. Yet this materiality is both less than and more than human: these artworks think the relation between digital memory and its withdrawal through nonhuman botanical life. One does not find immediate remedies for the all too human problem of memory loss at the sites of Surface Proxy and Unexpected Growth. Instead, one finds half-rendered relics, overgrown weeds of memory and splintered representations of a future - not of ours, but of sedimentary and botanical life.&nbsp

Long-term Impacts of Stand Management on Ponderosa Pine Physiology and Bark Beetle Abundance in Northern Arizona: A Replicated Landscape Study

Ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Dougl. ex Laws.) forests in northern Arizona have degraded due to overgrazing, logging, and fire suppression that accompanied Euro-American settlement in the late 1800s. Overstocked stands of suppressed trees with low structural diversity dominate the landscape. These conditions create high risk of catastrophic fires and insect outbreaks. We investigated long-term effects (8–16 years post-treatment) of thinning and thinning + prescribed burning on ponderosa pine water stress, leaf carbon isotope discrimination and nitrogen concentration, oleoresin exudation flow, phloem thickness, radial growth, and bark beetle abundance relative to unmanaged control stands over 2 years of measurement in 12 stands replicated across the landscape. Predawn water potential in late June, phloem thickness, and basal area increment were lower in unmanaged than managed stands. Oleoresin exudation flow in July was greater in unmanaged and thinned + burned stands than thinned stands, and greater in a warm year than a cooler year. Leaf nitrogen concentration differed between years, but not among treatments. Tree competition and water stress were positively correlated, and tree competition was negatively correlated with radial growth and phloem thickness. Pheromone-baited trap catches of Dendroctonus spp. (D. brevicomis Leconte pooled with D. frontalis Zimmerman) were higher in unmanaged than managed stands, whereas catches of Ips spp. did not differ among treatments. We conclude that thinning with and without prescribed burning can have long-term effects on ponderosa pine water stress, growth, phloem thickness, resin flow, and bark beetle abundance. Low levels of tree mortality from bark beetles at our study sites suggest remarkable resistance of ponderosa pine in mid-elevation forests in northern Arizona, even at high tree densities

Long-Distance Dispersal of Non-Native Pine Bark Beetles From Host Resources

1. Dispersal and host detection are behaviours promoting the spread of invading populations in a landscape matrix. In fragmented landscapes, the spatial arrangement of habitat structure affects the dispersal success of organisms. 2. The aim of the present study was to determine the long distance dispersal capabilities of two non‐native pine bark beetles (Hylurgus ligniperda and Hylastes ater) in a modified and fragmented landscape with non‐native pine trees. The role of pine density in relation to the abundance of dispersing beetles was also investigated. 3. This study took place in the Southern Alps, New Zealand. A network of insect panel traps was installed in remote valleys at known distances from pine resources (plantations or windbreaks). Beetle abundance was compared with spatially weighted estimates of nearby pine plantations and pine windbreaks. 4. Both beetles were found ≥25 km from the nearest host patch, indicating strong dispersal and host detection capabilities. Small pine patches appear to serve as stepping stones, promoting spread through the landscape. Hylurgus ligniperda (F.) abundance had a strong inverse association with pine plantations and windbreaks, whereas H. aterabundance was not correlated with distance to pine plantations but positively correlated with distance to pine windbreaks, probably reflecting differences in biology and niche preferences. Host availability and dispersed beetle abundance are the proposed limiting factors impeding the spread of these beetles. 5. These mechanistic insights into the spread and persistence of H. ater and H. ligniperdain a fragmented landscape provide ecologists and land managers with a better understanding of factors leading to successful invasion events, particularly in relation to the importance of long‐distance dispersal ability and the distribution and size of host patches