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21.05.03 One Trees, one thousand cloned trees.
One Trees is the latest project by Natalie Jeremijenko, who continues to develop the idea her works are based on. The subject is cloning and the understanding of biotechnologies, in a time where the public perception of genetic engineering is that of a science which which can only find the particular gene to solve a particular problem, ignoring the complexity of the interactions between the different elements and, more importantly, the richness of their biological variety, all of this compounded by the endless doubt about how much natural life is determined by genes and how much by the environment. Continuing a debate developed by the Genterra project by Critical Art Ensemble, the artist is planting one thousand trees, all of them cloned from the same one, and therefore all potentially identical, in several zones of San Francisco, from the Golden Gate Park to suburbian schools, to Union Square, after exhibiting them at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. This way, during the next years, it will be possible to publicly observe the differences arising from the different social and environmental systems, and they will form a map of the microclimates in the Bay Area. The project includes an electronic part consisting of a software which simulates the growth of a tree on the PC screen, controlled by a carbon dioxide (CO2) detector connected to the serial port. The simulation hopes to prove the fallibility of simulations, if compared to the actual development of the real trees in their natural network.