[Melissa Lobach]
PLACERVILLE, CA. (March 23, 2022) – El Dorado County visual, performing, and musical artists will gather to create an original work inspired by climate and location data to celebrate Earth Day in an evening performance during April. American River Conservancy (ARC) in partnership with Myrtle Tree Arts and Folsom Lake College Innovation Lab will present a special evening event of live music and art that takes scientific data from the environment as inspiration. The event titled Earth Dayta: Music, Media & Real World Data In Performance with Nature comes to life on Saturday, April 23rd, 2022, from 6:00-9:00 p.m. at landmark Wakamatsu Farm in Placerville, CA. This free event will feature new musical and video work developed by local and international artists.
The experience is an opportunity for ARC to join with groups in El Dorado County, including Myrtle Tree Arts, a new arts collaborative, and the Innovation Lab at Folsom Lake College around shared efforts to connect people to nature in new ways. By joining forces with these arts organizations, ARC is leveraging their audiences’ motivation and excitement around Earth Day. The artists are integrating climate data from as early as 1850 to the present day, along with live data from trees, to develop visual and musical works that will be performed and projected together at the event.
“We are using real world data as a way to creatively express change in the environment and connection to place,” says video artist Ameera Godwin, co-founder of Myrtle Tree Arts and artistic director of the event. “Paul Godwin, Elena DeLacy and I got together with Zack Dowell at the Innovation Center, Folsom Lake College, to talk about data, media, music, and sound. From that, I started developing ideas for Earth Dayta and a piece called “Harbingers.” Harbingers are subtle indicators of change in the climate. I looked for data that capture these variations, things we might ordinarily miss, like average temperature over the last century, to use as raw material to connect artistic senses to hard sciences and numbers.”
Earth Dayta is also an opportunity to elevate Wakamatsu Farm as a unique location both in California history and as a site for action and education around nature. “As a conservation organization, Earth Day has special value that aligns with our mission,” states Elena DeLacy, Executive Director of ARC. “By presenting an arts event, we are connecting with how we feel about the local environment and the planet, which includes how we express our sense of place through art and music.”
The event will begin with a musical performance called “Tree-Provisation” which will feature live data collected from the oldest Japanese elm tree planted in California by the first Japanese Colonists around 1869 at Wakamatsu Farm. Zach Dowell, founder of the Folsom Lake College Innovation Lab, will use live tree data collected with sensors to trigger modular synthesizer sounds as the basis for improvisation with musicians on site.
Artists for the event include composers/musicians Paul Godwin, Aron Faria, Zach Dowell, Elena DeLacy, Dustin Koupal, and Venezuelan synthesist Miguel Noya, who will join as an artist-in-residency at Myrtle Tree Arts. Also performing are Darin Coelho Spring, Alex Porte, Joseph Beatty and spoken word/poet Rina Wakefield.
Reservations are free, and parking is a suggested $10 donation at the event link https://app.donorview.com/3PM6o. All proceeds will benefit Wakamatsu Farm.