Journey through the shared rhythms of ecosystem disturbance and renewal revealed in color data
The PhenoCam network is an ecological observatory with hundreds of automated RGB cameras installed on research towers around the world, many of which have been operating for over a decade. The millions of images collected at 30-min intervals are available in an open source format and used by scientists across the globe to study phenology: recurring plant life cycle events like leaf-out, flowering, and senescence.
Scientists learn about the dynamic state of a landscape over time by analyzing color data in Phenocam images, especially “canopy greenness”. By linking color signals with other measurements, such as carbon uptake and evapotranspiration fluxes, they gain insights into ecosystem processes and patterns of health and resilience.
Informed by this color-driven scientific process and engaging with long-term observational research of ecologist Dr. Christopher Still at Oregon State University, video artist Julia Oldham creates sensory journeys of ecosystem change. Several audiovisual artworks emerged from Oldham’s exploration of scientific imagery abstracting landscapes into color fields and sound.
September: Orange is an immersive installation that draws on 24 PhenoCam streams in the Northwest US and Canada, pausing on moments of color unity, when landscapes all turn the same shade. The soundtrack combines field recordings with sonification of canopy greenness data onto a hand-punched music box card, resulting in a rising and falling melody.
Oldham has a particular interest in the orange that appears cyclically during wildfire season. Orange appears again and again, with increasing intensity, and floods the screens with evidence of smoke and heat. Significantly, the Ameriflux tower US-Me2, a primary source of data in Dr Chris Still’s lab, burned in a wildfire during summer of 2020.