works in progress

DECOMP

Stephen Collis and Jordan Scott – a found collaboration.

IN HISTORY, AS IN NATURE, DECAY IS THE LABORATORY OF LIFE – Karl Marx.

“I left a book outside in the rain once… it got all wrinkled too… why didn’t I think to call it art? Silly me.” – Emma, bookart.com.

”What a horrible waste of classic books.” – Nathan, Craftsamerica.com.

Of Walking and Deposits – Method.

In the Spring of 2009, we traveled to five distinct BC ecosystems and communities: the coastal rainforest (on Vancouver Island’s west coast), the Gulf Islands (in the rainshadow of Vancouver Island), the Nicola Valley desert, the Columbia Mountains, and the sub-boreal North. In each ecosystem a copy of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species was placed in an outdoor location, to be left there for one year. Beneath characteristic boughs and brush. On slopes and in hollows. Weathering, as a verb, undergone alone. Death of author and text. Origin of another reading. A GPS reading was taken.

On Variation – Notes Bend.

Poetry and ecology: “nature” as found text (nature as what we make of the “out there”); reversing the normal flow of bringing nature into the poem —bringing the text into nature. Selected passages from distinct places.

Darwin: the material (matter) and its variation, alteration; the impact of culture on nature, of “man” on the environment; the book as material, a thing—but things (etymologically) are places of assembly; the book and body and decay; poetry as science, research, experiment (literally)—Lucretius and Erasmus Darwin. The poetry of (another) knowledge.

Poetry and place: but also (our move again), allowing place to make language: what happens to the books left in particular places? What have weather and other species “writ” there?

Decomposition: becomes a poetics and writing strategy—a mode of making new texts/works out of the decomposing bodies of other texts/works. We decompose, in order to compose our return to the material.

Location 1 - Long Beach. Coastal Western Hemlock Zone

Location One: Long Beach. Coastal Western Hemlock Zone.

Book located: N.49 03.106 / W.125 43.320

Occurs at low to middle elevations mostly west of the coastal mountains. In rain, then bioclimatic, the zone is cool, mesothermal, and regenerates freely. Acid raw humus or decaying wood stuff Helmock canopies. The shore is lodgepole in every direction; pine on bog sites; black cottonwood roots to floodplains. The zone rumbles blueberry in late seral sands. Extensive peatlands form a mosaic of blanket bog, bog woodland, scrub forest on subdued terrain. The dirt is Humo-Ferric Podzols, organic colloids, weathering iron and aluminum - all leaching and gleying into cumulous moss.

Location 2 - Gabriola Island. Coastal Douglas Fir Zone

Location Two: Gabriola Island. Coastal Douglas Fir Zone.

Book located: N.49 10.293 / W.123 47.466

Is limited to a small part of south-eastern Vancouver Island. Confined to elevations below one hundred and fifty meters. Climate and communities lie in rain shadow. The climate diagrams each weather station. Mineral soil is exposed; frost heaves; urban encroaches. Is regenerated after logging: Sitka spruce (rare) western hemlock (rare) bitter cherry (rare). Aspen trembles in the stand. Seaside: aquatic, rock, outcrop, meadow foam. Oak savannah or deltoid balsam root is melanised on horizon. More formations to come.

Location 3: Nicola Lake. Bunchgrass Zone

Location three: Nicola Lake. Bunchgrass Zone.

Book Located: N.50 09.897 / W.120 35.952

Comprises the grasslands that dominate the lower elevations of southern interior valleys. Occurs from valley bottoms, upwards. Sometimes grades directly into Douglas fir zones. The process reflects physiography, your physiology, in step. Lungs to grass and that of the rain shadow. In the most deeply incised valleys, drought restricts trees, grasslands swarm. Warm floral in cryptogam crust. Plants occur on sand dunes, under Ponderosa-pine to outwash, on textured soils, on outwash plains and colluvial fonds, in moist draws. Communities are dominated by rough fescue, Solomon’s seal, cattle in the understory. The thick Ah horizon saturates saline meadows and limits cotton wood along the swales. Soils belong to the, brown, dark brown, black, dark gray, all the great groups of the Chernozem order.

Location 4 - Prince George. Sub-boreal Spruce Zone

Location #4: Prince George. Sub-boreal Spruce Zone.

Book Located: N.53 53.562 / W. 122 50.390

Dominates landscape of the central interior. Occupies the gently rolling terrain of the Nechako and Fraser plateaus. Fingers into more mountainous areas. The zone generally occurs against seasonal extremes. Field crops and cereal grains in the thaw. Spruce forests to the southwest; boreal forests to the north; subalpine forests at higher elevations. Both lodegpole and trembling aspen pioneer the extensive stands. Paper birch, often moist, in rich sites. Snowmobiling upland, climax forest. Soil orders orthic gray. Tamarack is a rare species. Devil’s club spores seed clearcut.

Location #5: Kootenay Lake/Columbia Mountains. Engelmann Spruce

Location #5: Kootenay Lake/Columbia Mountains. Engelmann Spruce-Subalpine Fir Zone.

Book located: N.49 44.229 / W. 116 44.506

Uppermost forested zone. Lies below the alpine tundra. Occurs in the steep and rugged. The elevation, dissected, clumps in the mircosite. The snowpack and fur harvest amasses in the data. Growing season moisture under species after fire. Whitebark pine, limber pine. Meadows occur in open areas. Avalanche tracks Sitka or slide alder. Humus forms are mors. Moss layers, continuous. The grazing is limited and clearcuts serve as transitional. Seeded to domestic forages, recreational pursuits include ruggedly scenic parts.