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Field Notes explores “The Heavens” in sub-Arctic Lapland (2/3)

Published 24 September 2019 by

Field Notes was an art&science field laboratory organised from September 15-22 by the Bioart Society at the Kilpisjärvi Biological Station in Lapland/Finland. Five groups worked for one week on questions located “above the ground”. Here are Wednesday’s and Thursday’s logs from the Second Order group.

“Field Notes – The Heavens” by Bioart Society turns its attention and experiments to the sky and looks at the role the unique sub-Arctic setting of the Kilpisjärvi Biological Station and its surroundings – at the Finland-Sweden-Norway border – can play in helping the 40 participants to learn more about what is above ground: life in high altitudes, the ongoing material exchange between earth and space, the atmosphere as a hyperobject, the politics of air and space, Sámi stories and life related to the sky and more. A week with the Second Order group hosted by Ewen Chardronnet from Makery.

Wednesday, September 18

“The truth-value of environmental sensor outputs”, by Adriana Knouf

Traversing paths and roads and rocks along the lake immediately adjacent to the Kilpisjärvi station, Nearea Calvillo’s morning walk attuned us to two different but related things: the truth-value of environmental sensor outputs, specifically DIY versions (what does a “red” light mean vis a vis supposedly high measurement of potentially dangerous particles), and the built installations and environments of high atmosphere antenna analysis arrays. Both use technologies to analyze different parts of the air and atmosphere, and an introductory conversation asked us to consider possible distinctions between the two words. But the air quality sensors, which have become cheaper and easier to work with in recent years, often provide information that is challenging to interpret in any sort of “correct” way, raising questions about veracity and truth-value.

Going to an abandoned receiving antenna array, we were able to walk amongst the maps, asking questions about how things worked, why things are structured in particular ways, and so on. An interesting aspect of this week has been the qualities of not-knowing, where questions are raised, no-one knows the exact answer, and we work with our disparate experiences to attempt a form of explanation.

After a variety of trips to the field and processing of experiences, the afternoon of Strange Weather came to a different site: the laboratory, and the capability of microscopes to provide a different understanding of the biological world. Using her experiences as an artist and scientist, Špela Petrič took us on a visual and biological journey within the microworld of plant life. This involves not only the technical ability to manipulate the microscopes, nowadays outfitted with the capability to easily take photos and video of what’s being observed, but also the artistic curiosity to explore the samples in different fashions, to work with lighting and presentation, to consider the role of the observer in what can be known about the observed.

Post-growth imaginaries with the AIR group, by Anu Pasanen (photos: Adrien Rigobello)

In the afternoon a conference room at Kilpisjärvi Biological station is filled with AIR, a group that investigates the many ways air and atmosphere is being imagined and what kind of material consequences those narratives might have. Today one of the members, Nicolas Maigret, a researcher and a media artist is having a presentation about imaginaries and practices around Post-growth. Nicolas Maigret is one side of the disruptive thinking Disnovation.org project. They have been involved in collecting different concepts and principles to help grasp and challenge the issues we are facing with the nearing collapse.

Maigret is also introducing a cards game workshop for visualizing and sharing the knowledge. Like Tarot cards, these cards that consist of a headline, a symbol or an image and a short description, could be used in a ritualized way to interpret and solve diverse ecosocial problems. There is a delicious post-structuralist taste to this melting pot. One standing example that got everyone’s attention is particularly the 7th generation thinking originated from the Iroquois community.

After a discussion the group decides a loose framework of ”atmospheric commons” that rounds up their mutual concerns and previous work together. In the midst of making their individual cards one of the group members is facing another kind of problem: How to draw a nose? With a team effort even this issue has a pleasing end result.


With the High Altitude Bio-prospecting group in the snow, by Vishnu Vardhani Rajan (with Johanna Salmela and Ewen Chardronnet)

The morning hike to Saana started with HAB group gathering in the lab, their daily starting point. Just before the walk, HAB hosts, Melissa Grant & Oliver de Peyer, counted the number of people joining the walk.

HAB explains its interest in Kilpisjärvi area like this:
“The copiously branching tree of life reveals that life can exist almost anywhere on Earth. Eighty percent of the biosphere, including the deep oceans, the cryosphere at the planet’s poles and the high atmosphere where the focus of HAB locates, is permanently cold. Yet we know relatively little about cold defying organisms: where do they live? How do they survive? Can we find them? Research suggests that there are microbes above us seeding snowflakes and rain clouds and as such instrumental for life on the ground, forming a shell which is part is seemingly part of every ecosystem on this planet. They may be few and far between – will lengthy flights be needed to find them? Can contact be made? Can we sample the high atmosphere and discover unique extremophiles and psycrophiles that live and thrive?”

The walk up Saana mount can be demanding especially for people that do not have a habit of trekking. Two people reached up faster and waited for the rest of the group to catch up. They had watch-walkie-talkies to communicate within a range. Usage of technology to keep track of someone left behind was one aspect of pragmatic manner of care.

Up at the spot where the group left the helikite the previous day, the balloon had less amount of helium. No human, fox or reindeer foot steps from the night were seen. The spot where the helikite rested for the night was an old prison camp. Wartime remnants such as tins, piles of fire-wood can be seen.

First flight of the helikite seemed to have been a trail, helikite flew higher than the previous day. They flew it two more times. Results to come back at the lab.

Some members of the Second Order group blew a solar balloon, an Aerocene Backpack that needs to be filled by keeping its mouth open and run in a circle. The flight of the solar balloon was without much success since no Sun was present, but it was still interesting to see how infrared radiations and reflection of light on the snow would lift it a bit.

On Wednesday evening, Minna Långström screened her last film, “The Other Side of Mars”. The film creates a philosophical journey into the intriguing world of Mars science. Through the lenses of various experts we learn how NASAs’ images are made, used and manipulated for the sake of science, but also public information. Mars is the ideal place for an investigation into our paradoxical relationship to photography. Do images reflect reality or shape it?

“The Other Side of Mars”, Minna Långström (Liisa Karpo / napafilms, 2019):

Thursday, September 19

Strange Weather group visits Skibotn (No) and the Arctic Ocean, by Adriana Knouf & Johanna Salmela

A visit to a different fieldsite today, that of Skibotn and an encounter with the Arctic Ocean, dangerous jellyfish on land, and a merma’am. From the laboratory to the fjord, a significant component of Strange Weather’s approach has been the cycles between the earth and the heavens, illustrated before our journey through Marja’s invocation of the water cycle, and Sami beliefs regarding the continuity between the two.

Our journey to Skibotn was to collect footage for a possible short film about a sea Sami myth about a mermaid (as some of the group termed it: merma’am) who is cold and asks for a glove from passing sailors. If she receives the glove, she will assist them as needed. Besides the obvious challenges of shooting in the field was the extreme cold of the water, which necessitated a variety of care practices from everyone to ensure that hypothermia didn’t happen. Travel to this site was through incredible vistas that, while similar to those of Kilpisjärvi in some ways, offered a powerful contrast as well through deep fjords, sharp peaks, and a variety of different plant life, commented upon by some of the group. Throughout the journey was the continual integration of scientific, indigenous, and poetic understandings, most notably through the reference to the work of Nils-Aslak Valkeapää, suggesting how non-hierarchical knowledge practices could function in the field.

Thursday At the Biological Station, by Anu Pasanen (photos: Ewen Chardronnet)

After a morning of brainstorming for Saturday’s wrap up there was an opportunity for a lakeside stroll for some of the Second Order group members. The biological station is situated right next to the Kilpisjärvi lake and the idea was to find out if there were any paths along the shoreline. A group of four expeditioners were guided by Leena Valkeapää, a local artist and a long time residency host of Bioart Society. During the walk she shared her knowledge about the ecology, history and culture of the reindeer.

The wind was blowing from the direction of the Three state border of Finland, Sweden and Norway. Whitecapped waves were licking an unexpected rock formation on the shore. You could see its beauty best from right above; smaller pieces gathered to a circle by bigger rocks. Bright autumn sunlight revealed blueberries, lingonberries and lady’s mantle, ready to be foraged. A fallen piece of branch were hosting slime mold communities. It is ever so inspiring to notice how even on a short walk like this it is possible to make many discoveries that bring up questions like who made these – a human or a non-human?  The narrow line on the spongy forest floor could be made by people or by reindeer, or perhaps it is a result of expeditions by many coexisting parties.

In the evening the Strange Weather group proposed a meditation session near the lake and a reading night by Andrew Paterson in the Kota:

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Night hike and sky exploration with the Space-Earth-Space group, by Sophie Dulau and Adrien Rigobello

At 9:00 PM, we jumped into the van fully equipped for a night hike to the mountain with the Space Earth Space group. We were very excited for this evening of sky exploration! The SES group took us on a long hike through the dark night, as we walked in silence with head lamps to the base of the mountain next to a lake, where no urban light can disturb the view of the heavens. We arrived frozen at the “kota”, a wooden building specific to the Nordic countries and originally a traditional Sámi structure. The kota is shaped like a teepee with an open fireplace in the middle. Slowly warming up, we took some time looking at the fire burning and talked about astronomy, then we all went outside to observe the stars in the open sky. We even saw aurora borealis fading away above us, and the SES team took plenty of photos with specific camera lenses that can capture such phenomena across the entire sky. It became incredibly cold, with the waves of the lake getting bigger while the wind was rising. We all went back inside the kota to warm up around the fire, talking science and truth, while Flis Holland, a member of the SES group, performed an incredibly moving piece, reading one of her texts that she had prepared for the night.

The wind stopped blowing and eroding the mountainous landscape by the morning. The light is soft, and reindeers quietly grazing. Nothing prepares you better for a good day than a cold morning hike! And then, we actually realize that the magic of the moment comes from the obvious fact that we climbed at night yesterday, we did not see anything past a few meters. The Saana Fell mountain reveals itself in its hundreds of thousands of years old, humbly, it took care of us.

The hike leads little by little from the surreal view of the plateau to a rewarding perspective over the subarctic region of Enontekiö. Autumn is flourishing, we still haven’t drink any drop of coffee, but anyway we feed on the bright beauty of the birch leaves.

 

Read the Second Order first log and third log at “Field_Notes – The Heavens”.

Field_Notes is a program organised by Bioart Society as part of the Feral Labs Network series. 

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