A Project by Christina Della Giustina

You are Variations

Christina Della Giustina’s project proposal you are variations reads scientific data on the life of trees as a music score. It interprets, translates and arranges long-term measurements of trees into a composition. In so doing, it draws attention to the complex water cycling and sophisticated energy balance trees exhibit under different environmental conditions. In light of the contemporary environmental situation, the project unfolds against a backdrop of serious concern regarding trends in climatic change and responds to those trends by dealing with issues of overall temperature increase and related water cycle modifications.

„Looking through the window one day in spring 2007, I imagined myself leaning on the big Platanus tree outside. When my ear imaginarily touched its trunk, I seemed to hear something. I concentrated on a fleeting sound and started to listen: Here it was, I was hearing the tree’s inside, an activity so subtle, but then again so distinct, it was intriguing. I started to search for its source.“

you are variations [vol. …] is an ongoing series of research projects on acoustic and visual environments built and fed by ecophysiological and meteorological data. In this series, it becomes possible to observe and listen to the environmental processes that underlie diverse ecosystems. The data sets were drawn from the Long-term Forest Ecosystem Research Programme and analyzed by experts at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL. Christina Della Giustina experiments with the potential contained within these meteorological and physiological long-term monitoring data for interpretation and transposition into sonic soundscapes. Her work involves live and interactive audio, video and light installations, performance, drawing and writing. It can be seen as a series of attempts to convert physical distance into sensual intensity, focusing on a qualitative transformation of segregation into immediacy, especially with respect to relationships between human and non-human forms of existence.

christinadellagiustina_5 — From the work Pinus sylvestris

christinadellagiustina_2 — From the work *Pinus sylvestris*

christinadellagiustina_3 — From the work *Pinus sylvestris*

christinadellagiustina_4 — From the work *Pinus sylvestris*

Christina Della Giustina is an artist living in Amsterdam. You can browse other projects mentioned in her portfolio at dg-c.org.

Photos: Christina Della Giustina