Hello Pine and good Epiphany. I didn't realise that your home here on top of Ullanlinnanmäki or the hill in Kaivopuisto Park is actually a very popular spot for kids with sledges and because today is Epiphany there's plenty of people around. But I thought I'll come and pay you a visit anyway. We have not met before. I've been performing with other pines and talking with them, too, here near you, but so I have to introduce myself. I am living in the neighbourhood, only a few blocks from here and I'm probably not that, I might be of your age, maybe a little bit younger but not a youngster anymore, like you. And I would like to, well let's put it straight away, bluntly, I would like to start a series of conversations with you. I've been talking to trees before and especially with pines, all kinds of pines and I know you're very good listeners, and very patient, and I really admire you. I also know that you can be very different and I think you're probably the tallest pine that I've ever dared approach. I regret, or did first regret that I didn't find a pine I could make contact with more physically by sitting in the lap of the pine. Some pines have branches that are low in a manner that I can climb up and sit in the pine. No I'm sitting on a small rock covered with snow next to you, but I'm under you. I feel somehow within your aura if we can use that word. Before I came to you this morning or actually this afternoon now, I stumbled upon a quotation by a very unlikely person Benjamin Franklin and the point was something like "either write something that is worth reading or do something that is worth writing", writing about I guess, somehow noting. And I wonder if this kind of conversation with a pine really fits any of those categories. Of course talking and recording one's speech is a form of writing but whether somebody would like to read this if I would transcribe it, that's another matter. And of course talking to trees is a kind of doing as well, kind of shifting perspective, kind of attempt at addressing beings that we normally don't address by talking or in any manner. But I'm not sure if it's a doing that is worth writing about, or then it is. I thought I would come to you a few times a month maybe and to have sort of private conversations with you, so not necessarily about, well, more in general, but just what happens here between us and with us and of course with me. I realise there is something rather therapeutic in talking to a pine because you're such a good listener and have such a wise perspective on life, but my aim is not to find ways of therapy or consolation, but more I would like to try to articulate some observations about the world but also about myself or how I feel. And I hope that wouldn't be too self-indulgent because as they often say focusing on one's own experience doesn't have to be narcissistic or self-obsessed, but it can be a tool to understand the world, because other people might have similar feelings, too. Officially they call it auto-ethnography, and I'm not going to engage in any serious business like that; this is just a conversation for fun I hope, or if not for fun then for pleasure. But if there is some use of our conversations that might be in that vein, perhaps. Anyway, I now feel slightly embarrassed because I'm sitting in the middle of all the people here so maybe I should just thank you for listening to me now today, and I hope that you don't mind if I come to you again. And I also hope that you don't mind that I record my speech, which is also recording your presence of course, especially on the video, although I cannot catch more than the very middle part of your trunk, so everything higher up in your crown, which is tall and beautiful, is excluded from the image and of course everything below ground. But there is a part of you that will be recording together with me and perhaps also the sounds; now they're not audible because there's so much other noises, lovely noises in some sense but, yeah. So thank you for this and hope to see you soon again, yeah. Take care.
Hello pine, nice to see you again. It's been a long time, almost three weeks or maybe more than three weeks. Now it's Sunday afternoon and quite late because the sun will set in half an hour or so. There's not much traffic except there helicopter sound, but it's quite windy so let's see how this will work. Well, at least the helicopter will pass, yeah. So hello again, really. I thought I would come to see you and talk with you about freedom. That's a strange notion and somehow means very different things for different people and in different parts of the world, but I've encountered the notion now in several contexts. On the one hand in Stockholm, where they really try to protect the freedom of expression but that has led to weird incidents with protest actions sort of not really only like motivated protest actions but provocations that hurt very many people, like burning the holy book of the muslims and so on. But there has all also been talk of, and yes, and also the debate then endangering the safety of the whole nation because preventing, by preventing the NATO negotiations to be further developed. And on the other hand other people claiming that freedom of expression is the basis for democracy and if you start to make exceptions to that you will be on the way to totalitarianism. But there has been another debates on freedom of expression recently here in Helsinki. There was a note, somebody, an editor-in-chief of a smaller paper in the centre of Finland was sentenced with some sort of fine because he had written about individual persons in a mocking way, in an inappropriate way that could be considered insulting. And then - now, what is happening here with this helicopter, some problems, I hope not. Well, anyway concerning the inappropriate mockery by the editor-in-chief of that paper an other editor-in-chief wrote that there is a difference between sort of inappropriate or stupid behaviour and illegal behaviour and the freedom of the press should go before everything else. Well, this idea of freedom of the press I was reminded of in Tallinn as well, where I visited for a few days to take part in a very interesting winter school at the Tallinn University and even had a talk there about artistic research. And sort of in passing I compared the so-called freedom of the arts with the freedom of the press and somebody present there in the audience found that juxtaposition very interesting and fascinating and so on. I thought it was somehow self evident, but maybe not. Of course the freedom of the arts is is often much criticised but it is necessary in the same way as freedom of research and of course it doesn't allow us artists to break the law nor does it prevent us from doing stupid things. And of course all artists laugh at the idea of freedom because what is freedom if you don't have the resources and so on. Now some people passing by here... But anyway, if we think of freedom we have to think of the different meanings, do you mean freedom to do something or do you mean freedom from something. And that is actually one of the things that I thought I would like to ask you about or talk with you about, because freedom to move is one of the basic freedoms we value very much as human beings, I think everywhere. Sometimes freedom is considered a purely western concept but all human beings probably like to be able to move around freely. And that is reflected in the punishment for crimes, where the major punishment tend to be to put people in jail or in house arrest or something like that or prevent them from moving freely. And of course all the national borders are doing that, too, preventing people to move freely but to be stationary in the same way as you, dear pine, that is very strange for us humans to understand. And still you seem to be very very free here in your own manner, although you cannot move away if there is a storm but you have to take the storm when it comes. Or maybe not, well, you can turn your needles towards sun and so on, but that's different. Yeah, so your freedom is very different from our freedom. It sounds as, you have the freedom not to reply to my request also, another absurdity. This idea of freedom of expression on the one hand and freedom from want or suffering or harassment or something like that on the other hand, is of course relevant, but I was reminded of a book, the writer of which I've forgotten, but a bestseller of sorts, about the different values in different parts on the planet. And there I remember for instance the value of harmony, which was considered by the writer as the main value in China and cultures influenced by China. So, unlike freedom, which is something strange and not important in the same manner, the idea of harmony is important. And of course for a western person or a European person that sounds like a perfect excuse to maintain the status quo, for the Emperor to sort of guarantee the harmony in the country and everybody keeping in their place and in their hierarchical position and so on. But of course there is something beautiful with harmony, especially if we allow for change. So how could change take place in a harmonious way. Because freedom is, it's a problematic thing. Of course it's very difficult to imagine what it means not to have freedom of expression or freedom from want, if I think of myself. But I'm nevertheless reminded of an old rock song, I think it was Janis Joplin or something like that - now I reveal how old I am. She was singing "freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose" and of course that's true as well. Yeah, this idea of freedom of movement, it's important, but of course there is a freedom in being able to stay where you are as well. And that's of course sort of an old-fashioned idea of sort of expanded sense of freedom of the nation coming from the freedom of the farmer to take care of the place, an expanded sense of sort of loving the land you grow on. I don't know, complicated, complicated. But I somehow admire your freedom here, which is so different from mine, but I'm going to use my freedom to move now and leave you here, because night is falling and I'm freezing. But thank you for this moment, thank you for your patience and yeah, thank you. Take care.
Hello pine, there is spring in the air, strangely, although it is middle of February; a chirping bird takes care of that. But it's really windy and not that warm even though it's not as cold as it is normally in February. Normally? What is normal these days of climate crisis. But you look good; maybe the humidity it's nice for you. There's been mist all day yesterday and still some today. It's quite a while since we've met. I came back from Stockholm and Oslo only yesterday, but nice to see you again. I thought I'd talk about growth. That's what you're an expert in, of course, although at your age you're not growing as fast as the younger ones. But why I came to think of that is because I picked up a book at the railway station in Oslo called Mindset written by a Stanford professor Carol Dweck or something like that. It's quite a famous concept, I've encountered it before, this idea of that you can have a growth mindset or a fixed mindset and it changes a lot the way you learn or how you relate to life experiences in general. And the idea is somehow that if you have a fixed mindset you think that intelligence and talent and all kind of qualities are innate and can't be changed that much. Whereas if you have a growth mindset then you focus on change and the possibility to grow. And that is of course helpful for instance when encountering setbacks, because the setbacks provide then an opportunity to learn, while if you have a fixed mindset the setbacks provide evidence that you're not any good, and so on. But of course the question of growth, we're used to think that it's something positive, but more and more with the sort of, with the explosion of human activities to destroy everything else except humans on the planet, has, as the result of a belief in constant an exponential growth, especially economic growth, has lead into disastrous things. So growth, people speak of de-growth and there is like, growth is not automatically something positive. But especially when getting older, like me, it's so very obvious that we stop growing, we start declining in many cases. For instance, I'm 3 cm shorter than I used to be when I was younger simply because my bones are sort of shrinking or. But nevertheless, I was curious to know about your relationship to growth, because you of course keep on growing, slowly but you grow. But then you shed also dead parts, like the needles sometimes when they get dry, or this branch which is lying by my feet, which probably has been broken by the wind or then by a human, I don't know. Growth is also something that we have in common. For instance philosopher Michael Marder speaks of humans has growing beings and the whole idea of sort of emphasising similarities rather than emphasising the complete otherness of humans and trees or plants in general. I think that makes a lot of sense, so yes, we are growing beings in many ways and have that in common. But, yeah and I guess of course you have, probably you have a growth mindset in some sense because if you encounter a setback and a branch is broken you're not sort of going inside your structure and somehow pondering on "oh God I'm not so clever after all, how can I have had this mishap", but you you react to it as, well this happened, what can we do about it now, and that's of course a healthy way of thinking. But could we somehow, what do you think, could we maintain an idea of growth in the sense of development or change without this crazy demand of constant expansion in the sense of growing too much. I don't know. What else could I tell you about? That was the only thing I thought I'd like to talk with you, but but now I realise it's cold and I don't have anything else on my mind at the moment really. Probably I have, I'm returning to my routines after travelling and I also enjoyed very much the seminar I participated in near Oslo for doctoral candidates of artistic research in Norway, and all the discussions we had. But maybe it's no point in me telling you about those discussions but I wish you a nice end of February here in Kaivopuisto park and I will come to see you in a week or maybe ten days again, now when I'm here. So thanks for your patience in listening to me and and take care.
Hello pine, nice to see you again. And nice Kalevala day. I wondered why they were flagging, a lot of flags on the street and I looked it up and it's the Kalevala day. It's the last day of February and clearly the snow is wet. There is a lot of pinecone peels or like parts of pinecones lying around you and I wouldn't have noticed it but when I was placing my camera tripod there was a squirrel sitting on this rock where I'm sitting right now enjoying a meal, I guess. And now there is another one up there, oh, eating snow, lovely, of course. Probably it's not visible in the image and of course not audible but there it is, drinking water that is eating snow. Well, nice to have some colleagues around, but anyway what I was planning to talk about and I hope the wind will keep calm as it is now, relatively, so I thought about to speak about performance and the meanings of the word performance in English, which are so impossible to translate into Finnish or Swedish. Or not impossible to translate but difficult to find the right words for, in the same way. Of course that's true for all words in human languages that they have like different meanings and combinations of meanings, which means - I remember when I studied there was talk of connotations and denotations - so the main meaning and then other secondary meanings that create a universe around the word, which associates to very different things depending on the language so.. But anyway, why would we talk about performance is of course that in a sense we are now performing together. And we are performing together for the video camera on tripod but we're also performing together for this microphone in the phone I'm having in my hand. Of course this will record more of my sounds and less of your sounds, but anyway we are performing together in some sense. And that is relatively easy to understand as a performance also in the Finnish sense of the word 'esitys', which is like a presentation, also a representation, but a presentation, a show, a display. It also can mean a proposal, which is very interesting, and which a performance is not in the same way. But the other meaning of performance, this act or this action or like doing something is not so clear in Finnish, because it's more like yeah, representation. But anyway we are creating a representation in sound and visually, together sure, but we're also doing something together here. Of course we could ask what this together means and is it so that I'm the one performing and you are the one serving as the backdrop or is it actually that you are the one performing and I am the audience here, although I'm speaking and trying to interprete your performance but you are the one really doing the job. And if we understand performance as the performance of the world, the way the world is busy in evolving and living, then you are the main performer, that's obvious. And also of course in terms of size and importance in many ways. This idea of us performing together, I've been writing about that as an ethical challenge also, because normally if you would be a human being I would ask for your consent and ask if it's alright if I take an image of you and if you want to perform together with me. And now, as many colleagues have pointed out to me, there is no real way that you can say No. So, I'm not sensitive enough to feel if you say like 'go away'. But this idea of performance as something that takes place like a showing doing as Richard Schechner would say, something that takes place for an audience or at least something with a beginning and an end, is of course different from this idea of performance as an ongoing process, as a performativity of things and life forms in the world, as Karen Barad would say. So according to her if I paraphrase her, we are both taking part in the performance of the world. But, so as I've said elsewhere, in one sense the performance for the microphone and the performance for the camera is like one slice of a performance of the general performance that takes place ongoing between us and also continuing while we're not here together, in this specific performance or slice of time. Yeah, in some sense this idea, I've also used the word appear to somehow distinguish the Finnish two meanings of perform, because there is the performance 'esittää', which is like perform as somebody else, so represent something else and 'esiintyä', which is like performing in the sense of being on display. And of course it's easier for us to understand that we are here on display in the park for the passers-by, for the squirrel, who by the way now has disappeared when I didn't look at it. I didn't notice when it disappeared, it might have been, oh well, I think it's up there, high up. I didn't see it come down anyway. Well, the squirrel is also performing unwillingly probably, or not conscious of performing for me but we are appearing in the sense of 'esiintyä' being on display, but also occurring. We are taking place in a way. But performing in the sense of performing an action, in Finnish 'suorittaa' which you can when you have a sports clothing shop called Peak Performance it's not only the show, although it's both probably, it's also the show, but it's the accomplishment the performance, the doing, the hitting the target, the 'perform or else' -demand that John McKenzie has written about 20 years ago and more. Well, and of course you are, you have the same situation albeit not for cultural reasons but for the reasons of living, perform or else. Perform your photosynthesis or else be hungry, get the nourishment and humidity and the different chemicals you need from the soil with your roots or else starve. Keep your balance in the wind or else topple over and so on, these are all performances but not necessarily in the Finnish sense of the word. Yeah, so this whole problem of performance is not helped if we turn to other languages. I was trying to add a text into a short introduction to a book about how to do things with performance and about how you say that in Swedish, and it's no easier because the idea of a performance in terms of a show like a theatre performance or a dance performance even a musical performance would be 'föreställning', which comes from the German 'Vorstellung' which is like presentation and representation and even a fantasy in some cases, not so much a doing, but this idea of showing something for somebody else. Well, why is this important? I wonder, it was just this idea of somehow yeah accomplishment and performance in the sense of doing something. Perhaps what we are doing here together, besides appearing together in the image space and in the recording and in the city space in the park, we are also occurring together temporarily, we're also somehow. Yeah why, how could I explain that; what are we doing together? We are - yeah performing, existing, trying to communicate also. I'm trying to communicate; you're maybe not trying to communicate with me, you just simply communicate by your being. That's one thing I suddenly remembered, this idea by Luce Irigaray that you are actually saying things by doing things all the time, so if the... your being is your statement. So if the old idea by J.L. Austin - now the wind is strong - if the old idea of J. L. Austin was that some expressions or utterances are performatives, they don't only describe what happens or they're not constatives, they don't state the state of affairs, but they accomplish something, they do something. If I say I promise to come back to you in March, by uttering this promise I actually perform that promise and the classical examples are of course that 'I do' in the marriage ceremony and so on. But if I understood Luce Irigaray correctly, your whole being is sort of, instead of saying things and doing things by saying you do things and by doing things you say them. So your body is your utterance in a way. Of course my body is my utterance, too, and that becomes very obvious when I choose what to wear each day and how I should appear and so on. In a very beautiful sense your body is also the accumulated performance of your life, and of course in some sense that's true for me as well. All the wrinkles and my pain in my joints is the result of the way I'm living my life and in the same way your beautiful shield bark is the result of your life here on the slope. So our appearance is the result of our performances, maybe that's the answer or where we can end this conversation this time. I hope you are doing fine and I hope the squirrel up in your crown is doing fine, too. And I wish you all the best for the coming weeks and see you in March. So take care.
Hello pine. Nice to see you again and greetings from Stockholm. It's more quiet in the park now, although right now there is somebody walking past. It's Friday and no longer sunny; the morning was sunny. The streets in Helsinki are mostly dry already; the snow has melted to a large extent, but here in the park it's full of snow, that has partly melted and then frozen so it's like, everything is covered with ice and super slippery. But here around you the ground is free of snow and ice, so everything should be fine. You look like before, I must say, nothing special; no squirrel this time. There are some birds, crows, but there was a small bird I didn't recognise, but it was singing very very very intensely and made it feel like spring really. I thought about, when I thought what to talk with you about I thought I'd pick up the thread from an old text that was now finally published. It was published as part of a Finnish theatre research publication, so maybe not the right context for it, and therefore I also had to frame the text a little bit for that theme, which was the audience. So the text was originally written for a plant performance publication, where it didn't then fit in, and it was then, I sent it to several other journals or issues, three actually. So this was the fourth time it was peer-reviewed and I re-wrote the text of course a little bit based on all comments. But now it was called - why I'm talking to you about this text because first of all it was based on a letter written to a pine on Örö in November 2020, that is well, more than two years ago, no three years ago, well two and a half - and the title of that text then in the final version was Writing with a Pine Tree: Addressing a Tree as Audience, and that was the theme of the theatre research publication of course. But originally I didn't think of the pine as audience, but as the addressee. So this idea of a speaking for somebody or speaking to somebody or speaking as somebody or even speaking nearby somebody as Trinh T. Minh-ha mentions in an interview with Nancy Chen. And many many years ago I've been speaking as trees in a series of small audio plays called Trees Talk, but that was of course very unsatisfactory, because that meant using you or your colleagues like puppets of sorts, making them speak what I wanted them to speak in a fictional manner. And then of course speaking for which is the normal thing in terms of nature lovers and tree lovers; there is an organisation in the UK called Trees for Cities, so in the same way we could say People for Trees. Well, there was some project called Artists for Plants. But speaking for others is difficult and problematic and... a text by Linda Alcoff that I got from a colleague in Stockholm many years ago is very good at discussing the problem of speaking for others. Because on the other hand it's not possible really to, or it's very difficult to speak for others in an ethically reasonable way, but it's also not possible not to speak for others in a way, because whatever we do, if we're not speaking for others, we are nevertheless by speaking about something directing the attention of the audience, the listeners, the viewers, and also by not speaking we provide an example of how to live and be and so on, so there is no, there's no way of keeping silent or being innocent because also our silence speaks. Well, so that's one of the reasons why I wanted to experiment with this speaking to. And I began, by not speaking to, as I'm doing now, but I began by writing. And that was actually a coincidence, because I felt the urge to write to an old olive tree in Ulldecona in Catalonia at Christmas time in 2019, and I just instead of sitting next to the tree, I just started to make notes and addressing the tree in writing, but with no aim to disclose those words to anybody else; they were meant for the tree and I was simply performing the action of writing for the camera. But then I started to explore the possibility of also using the text then in the video, to record it, speak it read it and record it and add it as a voiceover or even as subtitles and so on. And of course, then the next step, or there were many steps in between, like which language to use; I began in English because I didn't know Catalonian, but then I've been writing in Finnish and in Swedish of course. The first moment I spoke to a pine tree or to any tree was in Örö, on the western shore of Örö in; I think not in November 2020, when I visited the island for the first time, but sometime in January February 2021 when I went there, not to the residency but on my own accord. And I remember using a microphone first instead of my phone, but sort of experimenting with this idea that would it be more spontaneous more like a performance, more like a real conversation to speak rather than to write. And then I learnt how to synchronise the speech and to use my phone instead of an external microphone and so on. So now I'm mostly actually talking with trees, also other trees than you. But I'm not sure if that is so much more spontaneous or direct as a contact, because one of my initial thoughts about writing, was exactly this idea that by articulating my thoughts more carefully, you might be able to discern them, not as words, but as my intentions. And the risk of sort of talking, instead of writing, is, of course that I'm babbling away in a way trivialities; it is more casual in many ways. But of course you can hear the sound or experience the sound waves so that's at least something. But I have to admit that of course when I talk to you, this is more about me than about you, of course, unfortunately and I don't pretend it to be anything else. So in order for really to let you perform or give you the main role or give you the space on central stage I should try to experiment with some technology, although I'm so sceptical and sort of critical about the use of technology to... For instance you can have these sensors that react to the electricity or the electric signals that move through plants in the same way as they move through humans, and then transposing that electricity, those electric signals to some kind of music or sound. Or I saw once a sculpture where a sort of Hedera plant had been tied to all kind of strings that were moved by a motor so it seemed like the plant was dancing, but I thought it looked more like torture. So this idea of sort of using technology to somehow make you, force you to speak in some sort of signals for us to understand is, it's ethically problematic in some sense. But maybe I'd like to try, if there are some ways of sort of, I hope to meet some scientists who could teach me how I could read the signs that you emit sort of naturally, or if there are ways of measuring some sort of processes in a way that I could understand you better. But that's for the future; maybe already next autumn if all goes well or then next year. Anyway, until then I'll keep on talking with you every now and then, so I'll come back in a few weeks, I guess, before I go back to Stockholm in April. So have a nice weekend here in the park, where probably there will be much more people around soon. Take care.
Hello pine, you're looking good today. It's the last day of March and it's supposed to be spring but there is a lot of snow. There was a real, a few days of snowstorm not so long ago, and now it will take time before all this melts even though the sun is doing its best, and the days are longer and longer and light and beautiful. And I guess you like that; I like it too, even though I can't transform that energy of the sun directly into food as you can, but yeah. I was listening to a real podcast yesterday, by accident or not by accident but I happened to listen to an episode in the podcast Networking with Plants in the Anthropocene, that's what it's called, I guess. And there, Paul Moss was the guest and he is the director of the Plant Initiative, which I've signed up for so I get their newsletter or something like that. And it was quite an interesting talk or he was, he really knew what he was talking about when propagating increased respect for plants. And I also realised that before I go into the topics that we discussed, that our conversations are really quite absurd from the perspective of a sort of normal podcast, because if I would be, like I am the host, then usually the guests are always new ones. But you, I come to you every time so you are always the same guest. And on the other hand, the guest is the one providing the content and doing most of the talking and the host is simply interviewing the guest. Of course, my idea was that I would do that with you, that you you would be sort of the main person here, but because you're so silent and I'm so impatient, the result is that I keep talking. So this is a very absurd podcast in that sense. But maybe in the future there will be possibilities for us to translate pine language or yeah, something like that. If there is artificial intelligence translating between human languages and making text to speech and speech to text and so on, why not translate pines to... Although of course they've done that quite a lot, with a lot of plants and also pine trees. I remember many years ago there was an exposition bye Marcus Maeder or however you pronounce his name, who translated the vital data of humidity of a pine, if I remember correctly, into some sort of music or sound to make explicit how the pine tree was suffering from drought. And of course, there is the Harvard University witness tree. I'd love to make one like that in Finland, too, with some biologists, who could explain which kind of signs I should look at to know how you feel. But right now, even though I might be totally mistaken, I think you look good. And perhaps that's partly because I expect you to be somehow happy when the light returns. Otherwise, thinking of the topics they discussed in the podcast or the topics that Paul Moss brought up, one of them was exactly this relationship with on the one hand, gardening practices, and on the other hand enjoying plants as they are where they are. And of course in some sense gardening is the ultimate 'performing with plants', because it's really collaborating with plants in the best case. In the worst case, it's horrible slavery, and extraction of course. But this idea of visiting a plant where it has chosen to grow, that I could very much relate to, because that's what I've been doing. Although I feel like it would be great to be able to do some gardening, because that's a way of learning about plants. He also spoke about - because he had a background in agricultural studies somehow - he also spoke of the necessary changes that we should implement in the different types of agribusiness that's going on. And those changes, he made a distinction between two kind of changes of increasing respect for plants. So on the one hand, there are many types of changes that could be made that would be good for the plants and be good for the people and good for the soil, and for the whole ecosystem and for sustainability and so on, so it would be a mutually win-win situation with less pesticides, less fertilisers and less monocultures and so on. But on the other hand, he also recognised that there are changes that need to be made that are not only beneficial for humans. I mean, curbing overconsumption is certainly good for, in western societies, but there are societies that are still malnourished and so on. And people don't like to let go of the profits they're making of course. But he also mentioned the importance of learning from indigenous cultures and their much more horizontal relationship to plants, and animals and rocks and rivers, and all kinds of elements of nature are family in a different way, and not our western hierarchy with humans at the top, below the angels maybe, and then rocks at the bottom and plants very close to them. So the closer you are to the human faculties the higher up in the hierarchy you come, which is, of course, a total mistake, because you can have all kinds of specific talents. I'm just thinking of your capacity of photosynthesis or growing as tall as you grow and standing here in snow storms. Standing here, by the way; this idea of agribusiness on one hand or agriculture or gardening, and on the other hand growing in the wild or even if not in the wild then where you please. And of course parks are a strange mixture, because you're not here on a plantation and you can expect to be here in peace and not be harvested. I mean, in the forestry plantations where your relatives grow in rows, more or less, you would already have been harvested many many years ago. So there, the pine trees are not allowed to live to their old age, but are actually harvested, sometimes before middle age. But, then on the other hand you are very strictly somehow in some sense restricted from communication. Of course, I remember seeing a squirrel here and there are birds and insects and probably your roots can find contact with mycorrhiza and fungi and maybe contact with relatives, other pines. There are a few, but they're quite far away. So in some sense you are rather isolated, nevertheless. Not in the sense of flowers in pots or like animals in zoos, no, but you're somehow not in a naturally evolving ecosystem. But I don't know actually, if you prefer this, because of course you have sort of, you can grow here in peace and not be bothered with much competition for light for instance and so on, so perhaps it's nice. Perhaps it would be great if parks would be places for pleasure for you too, and not only for humans. I always think that they're designed for human pleasure, but if they would be like, how should I say, pleasure gardens for trees as well, that would be great. And at least you're not cut into forms here; this is not a formal garden. I actually wonder if you are planted here. I guess it might be that you've grown here on your own and then the people maintaining the park have decided that alright there is this beautiful young pine and let it grow there and then you're here. I don't know. What else should I take up? Well, Paul Moss also spoke about weeds and that's of course are rather popular theme. This idea of weeds as discuss providing examples of resistance against the human need for control. Last week I was participating in a beautiful little symposium in Würzburg, in the botanical garden of Würzburg in southern Germany, organised by by University of Würzburg and it was called Approaching Plants. And it was like a multidisciplinary encounter with artists and ethnographers and many types of people interested in plants. And there are I met a colleague from Finland, Kalle Ham, who, I've met him before, who is working very much with plants and especially weeds. He has his Band of Weeds, which is a weed orchestra, where he uses the electric signals from plants as material for creating electronic or well some kind of synthetic sound, music, which is quite interesting. But he also spoke about preferring to record material from plants that grow in the wild instead of causing unnecessary suffering by transporting them to a stage as they did first, and so on. Well, if we think of sort of respect and ethical guidelines for working with plants of course it's the minimum not to cause unnecessary suffering. I'm very much aware that we depend on you, and you're kin for our food and and for paper and for houses and furniture and many many many things. But unnecessary suffering. Of course if we think of some sort of respectful relationships that's somehow the minimum and the ideal would be some kind of reciprocity. And that's where I have a long way to go. But that I've been, that we've been talking about before, and I haven't solved the problem yet, so I just have to say thank you thank you. Thank you for listening to me again and have a really nice beginning of April here in the sun. So see you soon again, take care.