Conversations #18

The forest has become my safe haven. While walking in the woods, this repetitive, mechanical action cleanses my mind and creates more lucid thoughts than musing at my desk. It’s the meditative quality of these walks, that has translated itself into an extension of my workspace, in which ideas come together and blockages dissipate. In this motion, my projects take form—to the point where wandering has become a precondition for doing work. I enjoy mixing the sounds of the forest with ambient music on my earbuds. Preferably without field recordings to avoid artifice and overlap. Sometimes a tune captures a moment perfectly and the universe seems to align; it raises the experience to create this weird state of overwhelmed consciousness as if opening a window to a higher, dream-like plane of existence.

One of the describing moments, and which is the emotional foundation for Conversations, is when my eyes are drawn to the sky peeking through the distant canopy right above the forest floor. This view, combined with the music, creates a mystic, uncanny feeling—a type of future nostalgia, a longing for something indefinable yet familiar. It seems as far off as the foliaged horizon, always visible and forever out of reach. Though part of me recognizes the source of this feeling, I try not to surpass it. I’m progressing towards acceptance, yet I wonder if this feeling has put down roots too deep to ever fully remove.

​​Trees are social beings. Interconnected by scents and underground fungal webs, they share resources, support their kin, and act in cooperation to keep forest ecosystems in balance. It exposes forests for what they are: superorganisms whereby each tree retains its unique identity, formed over the years through growth and adaptation. The deeper into these systems, the more obvious disorder yields place to complex structures and patterns. Pure randomness thus apparently turns into a place for endless discovery. Unfolding structures move from one to another and start chains of revelation that deepen our understanding of the natural world. It’s from the soil up to the canopy that these interactions take the form of a continuous conversation, maintaining and balancing the ecosystem, and thus obscuring the underlying principles that control the appearance of a single species.

The concept of emerging, symbiotic interactions applies not only in a forest ecosystem; it does so in human expression—free jazz, for instance, where the limits of musical expression get stretched out into soundscapes that are as unpredictable and complex as natural phenomena. With improvisation inextricably linked to the moment of its formation, the musicians get involved in very intense dialogues. Thereby, the chance for limitless artistic freedom creates a parallel with children's art, in which young creators, boundless by convention, give birth to works reflecting their distinct vision and experience. What evolves from simple scribbles to detailed depictions are works communicating not only what they see but what they know and feel about their subjects. Free jazz and children's art share the beauty of unbridled expression that discloses the capacity for complexity and innovation when creative processes are allowed to develop in an uninhibited and unrestrained way.

Every texture we encounter—tactile, visual, or auditory—carries stories of history, correlation, and interaction. It could be the life story of a tree, getting lost in a free jazz performance, or being amazed by your child's drawing—the world is run through an eternal process of communication and interaction. It’s these conversations, continuing on and around us in complex, sometimes invisible systems, that show us there's much more going on than we initially realize.

The very word "conversation" once referred to the manner of conducting oneself in the world, to the general tenor of a person's actions and habits; the etymology comes from the Latin "conversari," meaning "to live with" or "keep company with." Engaging with complex systems presupposes that one develops an ability for interpreting and joining these conversations. That helps us find our way within those systems and opportunities for meaningful intervention. Increased awareness not only deepens the sense of our own existence but also has the potential to improve the conditions for all living beings on this planet.

pxlshrd

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