21st Field Trip to Alice Holt Forest
From left-right, Christopher Meigh-Andrews, Hiroko, and Anna Xambó.
On Thursday, 26 June 2025, we went on a field trip to Alice Holt Forest to check the status of Luigi’s streamers and Pete’s Dendrophone sound installation as well as to show Dendrophone to Christopher Meigh-Andrews in preparation for an interview he will conduct for a podcast we are organising.
Meadow near the pond: Giorgio’s streamer
I first went to the meadow near the pond to see the status of Streamer I. All looked good. I cleaned the solar panel and noticed that the QR code was not working. The QR code that we coated a few months ago seems to have lost strangely all the coating. Although we produced a new QR code and a new wooden scientific poster for replacement, this has not been replaced yet. We will make sure to do it within the next few days so visitors can make a connection with the online information of the project.
Willows Green Trail: Dendrophone and Paula’s streamer
On Saturday, 21st June 2025, the summer solstice, the two streamers stopped working for no apparent reason. Streamer I came back to life after a day or so, but Streamer II (Paula) took a few days to come back. This prevented us from checking if the Dendrophone installation was working or not - yet Pete mentioned that after a few days, the Dendrophone system was running sufficiently to send the daily battery information. Luigi has created a remote monitoring system that is extremely helpful in these situations.
Anyhow, before Christopher’s visit, I went to see the installations in Willows: I also cleaned the solar panels and noticed that the Dendrophone QR acrylic code stopped working. It looks like the printed materials get damaged and/or the contrast is reduced under the canopy. I noticed that the new wooden scientific poster was not set up yet, which we need to do to keep the audience informed.
Danielle also kindly checked the installation for us right before our visit confirming that the installation was working. Thanks Danielle!
Christopher Meigh-Andrews’s visit
The BSc Computer Science final year student Aleksander Skutnik interviewed Chris Meigh-Andrews for his dissertation, an interview available here on the StF blog. Chris Meigh-Andrews is a video artist, writer and curator from Essex, England, whose work often includes elements of renewable energy technology in tandem with moving image and sound. As an expert in the field, Chris will interview Pete for a final podcast that we are preparing about our collaboration with Alice Holt Forest. We decided to meet on-site so that Chris could get to see Pete’s installation first. I showed the site to both Chris and Hiroko, and we had a wonderful chat about the challenges and rewards of producing self-powered artistic work.
Follow-up
We will need to work on the signs: the scientific posters should be there and the QR codes should work. We should also bring more information about Pete’s installation on-site. We also need to encourage more participants to leave their opinions on the quick survey. It is a unique opportunity to capture visitors’ opinions while the Dendrophone installation is up and running!
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Danielle Grimsey and Emma Ward for their help with the logistics of the day.