Suara AlaM's
Whispers of God
Sound Artist
On Killing a Tree
On Killing a Tree
“It takes much time to kill a tree,
Not a simple jab of the knife
Will do it. It has grown
Slowly consuming the earth,
Rising out of it, feeding
Upon its crust, absorbing
Years of sunlight, air, water,
And out of its leperous hide
Sprouting leaves.
So hack and chop
But this alone wont do it.
Not so much pain will do it.
The bleeding bark will heal
And from close to the ground
Will rise curled green twigs,
Miniature boughs
Which if unchecked will expand again
To former size.
No,
The root is to be pulled out -
Out of the anchoring earth;
It is to be roped, tied,
And pulled out - snapped out
Or pulled out entirely,
Out from the earth-cave,
And the strength of the tree exposed,
The source, white and wet,
The most sensitive, hidden
For years inside the earth.
Then the matter
Of scorching and choking
In sun and air,
Browning, hardening,
Twisting, withering,
And then it is done.”
- Nissim Ezekiel -
In the period 2012-2020, the combustion of wood pellets for energy generation in Europe has doubled from 15 to 30 million tons per year. The extraction of wood for hot pellets takes place through industrial clear-cutting of forests.
In practice, natural forests are cut down and converted into wood fields. Entire trees go into the shredder on site and enter the port of Rotterdam as wood pellets. Entire forests are burned with billions in subsidies. No sawdust or residual waste is burned; but whole trees that are so necessary for biodiversity and air purification. These can be 100 years old, from habitats of protected animals or from rich peat soils. The trees are burned as biomass, a controversial but heavily subsidized alternative to coal. Ecocide as a result of biomass combustion.
This takes place in the southeastern United States, European Baltic states such as Estonia and Latvia, and Northern countries like Finland. Those countries earn billions from the sale of their timber. Customers include the Netherlands and England, where entire forests with billions of euros in subsidies end up as "sustainable energy source" in coal-fired and biomass plants. Wood is the new gold.
1 biomass plant has a capacity of 90 megawatts and will burn 175,000 tons of wood pellets annually. That comes down to the annual clear-cutting of a forest of 4 by 4 km; as big as the Municipality of Amsterdam. Every year 20,000 football fields are subsidized; 29,000 trees per day, 21 trees per minute; 2.5 billion kg per year; which is transported by polluting ships from abroad.
With Point of View, I created two painted pieces and three different pictures, that I combined in a lenticular print. Depending on going left or right, the picture changes* (see video down below). So the point of view matters in what you see and there is a choice to make about our future.
In the middle picture, you see the environment how it is today in a specific spot. I chose this spot, because it has a road in the middle that splits up two different kinds of environments. On the left side of the road in this picture, there are still trees standing, forming a beautiful forest. On the right side of the road, the forest is taken down, leaving only dead tree stumps and a sandy plain. The weather is in a natural state: no rain, half sunny, half blue sky with partly white clouds. I placed a plexiglass circle in the middle of the road. I chose plexiglass, so that you can still see through what it looks like today and a circular form that looks like seeing through a hole or eye. It represents a portal to the future where two different things can happen: a positive outcome, or a negative outcome.
Positive outcome - going to the left side (towards the trees still standing)
Inspired by the song of Michael Jackson to spread love for our beautiful planet and ask awareness for our ecological footprint and the caused climate change, I painted a circle of trees on the plexiglass. The circle contains the main colors of Planet Earth. Painted in a fish eye style perspective with circular movement, the Earth is looking up to the sky which resembles a spiral portal of the future. It manifests a green peaceful living environment without war and with large trees of wisdom that clear the air and give oxygen, nourishes the soil and protects from land drying out.
The person in purple clothing holds this plexiglass in the same spot as the plexiglass in the current situation. The weather is beautiful: clear blue skies with sun.
Negative outcome - going to the right side (towards the dead tree stumps on sandy plain)
Again painted in a fish eye perspective to give it a portal atmosphere, I painted a future where all the trees are gone and industry has taken over, but in such a way that it is very close to a realistic outcome. It resembles parts of our world that already look a bit like this scenery. I did not want to paint something that looks fake or unimaginable. It needed to look like something that can happen any day now as a wake up call that we are five minutes to midnight concerning the state of the Earth.
The air is heavily polluted by the emission of combustion gasses and only let small amounts of sunlight through. Therefore I only used grays, yellows and black colors. I changed the fish eye perspective a little lower, so that the ground also partly is visible. I wanted to show cracked land, because there are no trees left to hold the ground together and nourish the land and therefore it is dried out.
The person is now in death black clothing, again holding the plexiglass in the same spot as in the other pictures. But now the weather is gray and cloudy with no blue skies.
So, what choice are you going to make? In which direction will you go?
Keywords: Destruction, Ecocide, Environment, Wood Industry, Biomass, Sustainable Energy
Dimensions:
70 cm x 50 cm
Technique and used material
acrylic painting; photography; lenticular printing
*Point of View Lenticular Video Impression
*Point of View Lenticular Video Impression
In the video shown on the left, there is a recording of the lenticular print while moving in different directions; starting in the middle and moving to the left- and right sides.