studio journal

Sam Taylor-Wood, 2007

Recent research show that ancient moss could explain why the Ordovician ice ages occurred. When the ancestors of today's moss started to spread on land 470 million years ago, they absorbed CO2 from the atmosphere and extracted minerals by secreting organic acids that dissolved the rocks they were growing on. These chemically altered rocks in turn reacted with the atmospheric CO2 and formed new carbonate rocks in the ocean through the weathering of calcium and magnesium ions from silicate rocks. The weathered rocks also released a lot of phosphorus and iron which ended up in the oceans, where it caused massive algal blooms, resulting in organic carbon burial, extracting more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Small organisms feeding on the nutrients created large areas without oxygen, which caused a mass extinction of marine species, while the levels of CO2 dropped all over the world, allowing the formation of ice caps on the poles.

- Images of trees wrapped + armature + string from one tree - Oil and bundle of twigs - Muslin cloth work soaked - Papier-mache work? - preserved stick work

To do: - make larger jar of oil and bundle of plants - wrap 2 more trees

Wk 5 Tree Wraps

Dan Bell

- place papier mache balls under thread - finish wrapping tree - re-make perfume > sterilise jar and decide what scent > rock? - place something in dirt? muslin? - collect moss > place - collecting rain >