OneTrees: The Propagation
Phase
By Natalie Jeremijenko in collaboration with Pond
Opening Reception: Fri May 16th, 7-10 pm
w/ Remarks by Natalie Jeremijenko: 8 pm
& Release of OneTrees Request for Proposals
Youth Arts Collaborative Reception
OneTrees-Related artwork created by youth
from the Boys & Girls Clubs of San Francisco
and the San Francisco Art Institute
Fri May 16th, 5:30 7 pm
Funded by the San Francisco Foundation
Location: Pond: a place for art, activism, and ideas
324 14th St b/w Mission and Valencia St, San Francisco
Tell: 415.437.9151 | fax: 800.867.2839
pondpeople@mucketymuck.org | www.mucketymuck.org
Exhibition Open Hours: Sat/Sun 3-8 pm
Many thanks to Yerba Buena Center for the Arts for their continual support
of Pond & OneTrees.
Become
a Pond member or OneTree(s) sponsor
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Q: What is OneTrees?
A: OneTrees, an ongoing collaboration between artist-experimenter Natalie
Jeremijenko and Pond, involves the planting of pairs of genetically identical
trees (clones) throughout the Bay Area's diverse microclimates and social
contexts. Over time, the trees varied growth responses will render visible
the differences in their environment.
In Spring of 2003, 20 pairs of OneTrees were planted in publicly accessible
sites, including the San Francisco Art Institute (North Beach), Warm Water
Cove (Mission Bay), AOV (Mission), and various residencies and educational
institutions. Future sites include Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (2003),
the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (2003), and Tilden Nature
Preserve (2004) and others throughout the Bay Area. Plantings will continue
through 2004.
Q: What will be in the gallery?
A: In the OneTrees gallery exhibition (May 16 June 22), Jeremijenko's
signature integration of minimalist aesthetic strategies with hi and low-tech
media (photography, video, surveillance devices, etc.) interrogate issues
relevant to the public component of OneTrees. Formally engaging and art-historically
allusive, the exhibition's various components contain a strong political
message: in highlighting the differences between genetically identical
organisms, Jeremijenko's work dismantles the fallacy of genetic determinism
(the belief that genes determine form) and affirms the significance of
environmental influence.
Q: What happens next?
A: By 2005, 5 or more experimental projects at various OneTrees sites
will be realized. A Request for Proposals will be posted online (at www.mucketymuck.org)
and released at the Opening Reception (May 16th, 2003). Activists, public
planners, architects, designers, artists, environmentalists, and others
are invited to apply.
Q: Who is Natalie Jeremijenko?
A: Natalie Jeremijenko, 1999 Rockefeller fellow, is a design engineer,
activist, and techno-artist. She was recently named one of the top one
hundred young innovators by the MIT Technology Review. Her work includes
digital, electromechanical, and interactive systems in addition to biotechnological
work that have recently been included in the Rotterdam Film Festival (2000),
the Guggenheim Museum, New York (1999), the Museum Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt,
the LUX Gallery, London (1999), the Whitney Biennial '97, Documenta '97,
Ars Electronic prix '96, presented at the Museum of Modern Art in New
York and at the Media Lab of the Massachusetts Institute Technology.
Jeremijenko studied engineering at Stanford University towards her Ph.D.
in design engineering, and was most recently the director of the Engineering
Design Studio at Yale University developing and implementing new courses
in technological innovation. She has recently taken a research position
at the Media Research Lab/Center for Advanced Technology in the Computer
Science Dept., NYU.
Other research positions include several years at Xerox PARC in the computer
science lab, and the Advanced Computer Graphics Lab, RMIT. She has also
been on faculty in digital media and computer art at the School Of Visual
Art, New York and the San Francisco Art Institute. She occasionally contributes
her efforts at the Bureau of Inverse Technology.
In Tree Logic, a recent commission for the opening of MASSMoCA, Jeremijenko
suspended 6 live trees upside down in the museum s courtyard to express
a fundamental tenet of botany: plants grow towards the sun. As trees are
dynamic natural systems, and Tree Logic reveals this dynamism.
For more information about OneTrees or to download a copy of the OneTrees
Frequently Asked Questions, visit http://www.mucketymuck.org