The Extended Environmental Record is a recurring and collective listening practice. It understands the environmental as including the nonhuman and human, alongside their relationships and intersections. EER upholds and develops difference within working, artistic and scientific forms of knowledge and decenters them from market and institutional authority. The Record shares its content based on the situated needs and dialogical decision-making of its members.
EER ✗ Shimoichi, Nara Prefecture, Japan
09.2023
Mind Trail ✗ Tokyo Biennial
FEATURING
Taisuke Eida — Forester, Japan
Yoshifumi Mizuguchi — Local resident, Japan
Makiko Mori — Local resident, Japan
Toshihiko Mukai — Farmer, Japan
Mana Nakatsuji — Local resident, Japan
Yuri Nishiyama — Creative team, MIND TRAIL, Japan
Takashi Noguchi — Forester, Japan
Kaori Takano — Local resident, Japan
with Veronica Mockler — Artist, researcher, Canada
and Marcus Maeder — Artist, researcher, Switzerland
For its work in Japan, the Extended Environmental Record is collaborating with MIND TRAIL OKUYAMATO Museum In Your Mind and the 2023 Tokyo Biennial, in partnership with Vitality.Swiss, to establish a TreeNet measuring station in the Shimoichi-cho, the Nara Prefecture Forest. Over the course of one year, the measuring station will collect growth and health data from individual trees. While conducting ecophysiological measurements to assess how the forest copes with drought in the face of climate change, the Record will prioritize the inclusion of spoken experiences from residents, farmers, and forestry workers through a series of dialogue sessions in the forest. The Extended Environmental Record will culminate in a sound performance, blending data sonification, oral history sampling, analog synthesis, and acoustic field recording. This performance will be presented twice: as part of the MIND TRAIL with the Shimoichi-cho community on September 17th, and during the opening ceremony of Tokyo Biennial’s “Tokyo Art Farm” on September 23rd. Following the launch of EER in Nara in the fall of 2023, the Record will convene once again in the autumn of 2024 for a one-year assessment and engagement with the forest’s growth.
OFFICIAL PARTNERS
Marcus Maeder: artistic research via the Embassy of Switzerland in Japan, the Pro Helvetia Swiss Arts Council, the Sakae Stünzi Foundation, the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Landscape and Snow Research WSL, Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology ICST, Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK.
Veronica Mockler: artistic research on inclusion amid ecological crisis polarization through the arts via the support of Vivek Venkatesh, UNESCO Co-Chair on the Prevention of Radicalization and Violent Extremism Centre for the Study of Learning and Performance, Concordia University, Canada.
Seiichi Saito: Research support and producer of MIND TRAIL, Japan.
Masaki Matsubara: Local collaborator, Japan.
Vivek Venkatesh: UNESCO-PREV co-Chair, Concordia University.
TreeNet measuring devices: Decentlab AG; NATKON, Roman Zweifel.
Allsounder recording equipment: Elekon AG.
⸻
EER ✗ Roaringwater Bay, West Cork, Ireland
10.2023
Upcoming