1st July – Preparations for the 24 hour stare

The live stream of my 24 hour performance “You Staring at Me and an Oak Tree Staring at Each Other for 24 Hours” where I will be staring at an Oak Tree on my patio on the hour every hour from Thursday 2nd July at 09.00am – Friday 3rd July at 09.00am can be found here – https://www.twitch.tv/mirandawhall

Last night I tested the camera angle and the head torch. Thanks to Ash Calvert for this photo, it was very wet, it is very wet, it is going to be very wet.

The tree is looking terrible, after coming to life 2 weeks ago it was then burnt by sea salt in the winds last week, the sea is at the bottom of my road and when the wind comes off the sea it scorches all of the delicate leaves and shoots trying to flourish on my patio, this is the second time this summer it has happened, last time my jasmine took the brunt of it.

I am not sure, despite my love and commitment to this beautiful young tree, that the integrity of this work needs to belong to this particular tree, I do want the Gopro footage to possess a kind of beauty, so that the work resonates, so it is accessible, the concepts feel tight but the visual quality of the work also has to be tight, so feeling a little as though I was betraying my oak tree – dishevelled in its ubiquitous black plastic pot I set of for the magic of the wood in search of the perfect looking young oak sapling, arghhh I feel terrible to write it and admit it.

It was a perfect pre- oak tree stare experience; layers of ‘plant blind’ scales fell from my eyes as we hunted for oak trees, large and small. The large old trees stood majestic, aged, cragged, creviced, mighty, deeply rooted like knowing gnarly beasts. As I hung out around one particular huge crusty old lady I could feel her wisdom and energy, the thick rough furrowed bark buzzing, knots and plantations sprouted from her skin, she is a perfectly balanced and varied environment for all who feed off her, her girth and hight are host and testament to time and life in the wood. She is amazing.

In this work, as with my crawling practice, I am attempting, hoping, wanting to experience a sense of ‘interconnectedness’ because as we know all of the species on our planet are interconnected, but we humans seem to forget this, in order for our species to survive and thrive we need to remember this and ‘get this’ and to get it properly, throughly, deeply and quickly, we need to live the details of our daily lives in a manner that is conducive to our ecosystem, our behaviour needs to be healthy, beneficial, supportive, generous and integral to our ecosystem instead of violent, selfish and destructive. We read this and we hear this, we know this, we are saturated by this information, but do we get this? actually? in many ways I still don’t, I got it a little bit more today in the wood while we scrutinised the floor of the wood for young oak shoots, it was wonderful to see patterns of growth and certain plants and trees proliferating, we observed the rarity of the oak in the wood, but once we started spotting them we spotted more, it was thrilling and satisfying, we ate wild raspberries and I learned to identify the leaves of certain trees..life in the wood was abundant but I have no idea how healthy or unhealthy this ecosystem is?

Back home I am not sure what to do – to stare at my not so elegant, not so media friendly trusted friend or an imposter from the wood? I didn’t dig up an oak tree by the way!

I am nervous about staying awake and committed for 24 hours, I am nervous about the rain, I am nervous about lots of things, I wish it was sunny and warm, it feels hard and strange, I do keep wondering why I need to put myself through this, as I do whenever I set out at the beginning of one my projects ..but I do feel strongly that ‘giving something attention’ is as strong a protest and gesture of activism as any, and this tree needs my attention on behalf of all the oak trees we saw this morning….

Its noisy here now, the wood was noisy, the town is noisy and my street is noisy, lockdown is over, so I think this is my last nod to this very special time spent on, in and around my quiet patio.