Complexity is a characteristic of an ecosystem, a system of interactions between the environment and the relationships with its natural and artificial elements. As with any complex system, it has inherent plasticity, and survives based on its ability to respond to continuous change in physical, cultural, and biologic elements. The L&J Ranch model of eco-plasticity emphasizes the adaptive and evolving nature of
ecosystems in response to environmental pressures and human activities.
This model asserts that ecological systems are not static, but exhibit a dynamic "plasticity", a capacity to reorganize and adapt to changing conditions. By examining the relationship between the natural environment and land-use practices, the L&J Ranch demonstrates how human intervention can simultaneously disrupt and enhance ecosystem functions. This approach moves from a perspective of controlling nature to embracing it as a co-evolving partner in achieving sustainability. Integrating an understanding of ecological flexibility with the realities of anthropogenic pressures, such as resource management and climate change, this model provides practical insights into fostering resilience in vulnerable ecosystems.
The term eco-plasticity was developed through the art and science collaboration represented by Joel Slayton and Lisa Johanson. The ongoing ambition is to develop a series of land-use and sense-of-place artworks that illuminate the role of eco-plasticity as it relates to an ecology responding to competing forces. By exploring the layered relationships between the natural and artificial challenges, we hope to better understand the destiny of a particular ecology.
See: The Gila River Project
Complexity is a characteristic of an ecosystem, a system of interactions between the environment and the relationships with its natural and artificial elements. As with any complex system, it has inherent plasticity, and survives based on its ability to respond to continuous change in physical, cultural, and biologic elements. The L&J Ranch model of eco-plasticity emphasizes the adaptive and evolving nature of
ecosystems in response to environmental pressures and human activities.
This model asserts that ecological systems are not static, but exhibit a dynamic "plasticity", a capacity to reorganize and adapt to changing conditions. By examining the relationship between the natural environment and land-use practices, the L&J Ranch demonstrates how human intervention can simultaneously disrupt and enhance ecosystem functions. This approach moves from a perspective of controlling nature to embracing it as a co-evolving partner in achieving sustainability. Integrating an understanding of ecological flexibility with the realities of anthropogenic pressures, such as resource management and climate change, this model provides practical insights into fostering resilience in vulnerable ecosystems.
The term eco-plasticity was developed through the art and science collaboration represented by Joel Slayton and Lisa Johanson. The ongoing ambition is to develop a series of land-use and sense-of-place artworks that illuminate the role of eco-plasticity as it relates to an ecology responding to competing forces. By exploring the layered relationships between the natural and artificial challenges, we hope to better understand the destiny of a particular ecology.
See: The Gila River Project
The L&J Ranch incorporates Generative AI to inform research and artistic strategies. Generative AI provides for a co-creative partner in the exploration of complex evolving systems that feature plasticity-like adaptation to changing conditions, over deterministic output. Such systems incorporate uncertainty, temporality, and ecological embeddedness. The model of Eco-plasticity identifies artificial elements related to land use, natural environmental pressures, and current land-use policy (characterized as ‘turbulence’) that may shape adaptive trajectories towards sustainability. Turbulence, therefore, can be characterized as a generative force shaping emergent possibilities. By discursively entangling the Eco-plasticity model with Generative AI, we hope to produce derivative artworks and provoke our understanding of adaptation.
• Exploration of complex ecologies
• Historical, political and cultural awareness
• Interpretation of emergent trajectories
• Engage with situational context
• Embrace of non-deterministic outcomes
• Experimentation with media technology
• Validation of the Eco-plasticity model