“Pondering” (2025-) is an ongoing, 4-channel video documentation of a field research site in the Deschutes National Forest by video artist Julia Oldham. To create “Pondering,” she visits the site every 2 to 4 weeks and takes numerous slow-motion drone shots, filming from the ground to the canopy. She stitch together 4 of these shots from (approximately) each month to create a ongoing, vertically moving portrait of seasonal changes. Nestled among the ponderosa pines that she is filming is a research tower, Ameriflux US-Me4, that is equipped with remote sensing tools utilized by scientists at Oregon State University. Scientists routinely climb this tower to install and adjust devices and to gather data.
Julia’s introduction to this site was in June, 2024, as she was beginning work in collaboration with Dr. Christopher Still at Oregon State University. Inspired by scientists’ (and her own) frequent ascents up the 180-foot research tower, and their long-term observational experiments focused on this patch of forest, she developed this project as a way of chronicling changes over long stretches of time while moving ever-upward through the forest. Occasionally in my footage, my drone rises above the top of the canopy and films scientists climbing the Ameriflux tower.
