Project Description

Magnetic Sympathy is an experimental technique for visualizing multispecies narratives and engages psychometry as it relates to Intuitive Interspecies Communication (IIC) research.

My process of communicating with squirrels through art-making continues with gall wasps in this project using intuition, touch, and chance during foraging and through the creative process in the studio, where I use psychometry—the extrasensory perception, or clairvoyance, that comes from using my hands to collaborate through the materials gathered from a multispecies environment.

The word psychometry (or thought-transference) was coined by an American physician and professor of physiology at the Eclectic Medical Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio. Dr Joseph Rhodes Buchanan (1814–99) was one of many nineteenth-century researchers in this area of research. Psychometry is a Greek word which means “soul measuring.” Buchanan intended it to express the power of the human brain to detect a certain subtile fluid, or aura, which pervades all things in nature which preserves indefinitely micrographic impressions, images, or pictures of all things which have had objective existence. This is also called “Deep Time” by some, which refers to how nothing is lost, it is all recorded.

Our brains, just as the energy of an electric charge may operate in all the space around us, may also exist as a faint echo in space. Two agents are necessary to carry out an experiment in thought transference, such as myself and gall wasps. All objects are believed to become impregnated with vibrations emanating from persons or other species who come into contact with them. Matter, such as oak galls, preserves the memory of these vibrations. Our thoughts and thoughts of others can affect the vibratory nature of objects around us, while the vibrations retained by material substances, in turn, affect us. Described another way, the aura of every particle of inanimate matter is capable of “talking,” so to speak, like an astral photograph of every occurrence and every scene which has taken place in its neighbourhood. Nature is filled with a “daguerreotype” of impressions containing all actions. Perhaps, then, Nature is the most skillful at assembling portraits and designing a great canvas that is spread out over the material universe.

IIC experiments

Action: Garry oak galls (native) collected from the Garry Oak Meadow Preservation Society Nursery

Dates: Nov 2023, Feb 2024, April 2024, Sept 2024.

Action: Channel the species of oak gall wasps that emerged from oak galls while holding in hands.

Question: How did you co-evolve with Garry oak trees/white oak?

Images of thought: Our ancestors and same generation metamorphosis of leaf fibre, movement, motion, circular, sea anomie, burrowing, to mimic acorn, had a taste for the acorn as food, evolved learning from the oak tree, but originally used old acorn shells to reproduce. Use the same knowledge of the oak tree to create a nest—end of transmission.

Material experiments

In 2023, the Garry Oak Meadow Preservation Society (GOMPS) shared a fascinating photo of speckled gall wasps and their plant growths on Instagram. Artist Christi York saw the post and reached out to GOMPS Director and fellow artist Carollyne Yardley. Together, they collaborated on a unique oak gall ink research-creation project. The vacated oak galls were collected from the GOMPS nursery, and Christi transformed them into ink for early experiments on paper. This ancient technique is one of the oldest ways to make permanent black ink. The earliest recorded recipes come from Roman author and naturalist, Pliny the Elder. Many famous and important manuscripts have been written using ferrous oak gall ink, including the Codex Sinaiticus the Declaration of Independence, Da Vinci’s notebooks, Bach’s musical scores, Rembrandt’s drawings, Shakespeare’s plays, and the Magna Carta.

Both artists were drawn to creating drawings of different types of stones or rocks using the ink. Follow for more on this exciting project, including oak gall ink recipes GOMPS on Instagram @gomps_victoria Christi @york_christi and Carollyne @carollyneyardley

 

Notes

Galls are made of plant tissue and form when an insect secretes a chemical that causes interference with normal plant cell growth. Adults lay eggs in expanding tree buds and leaves in the spring. The larvae then feed, pupate, and emerge from the gall as adult wasps. Fortunately, galls do not cause significant damage to trees, although some leaves may drop prematurely.

Garry oak trees have evolved with hundreds of different insect species, as well as a number of micro-organisms, and it’s perfectly natural to see nibbled oak leaves or leaves with small holes in them. Large spherical galls (1–2 cm, ½–1″ “speckled oak leaf galls”) are caused by native gall wasps whose populations are kept in check by native parasitoids and do not pose a serious threat to Garry oak trees.

Native oak galls are different than jumping gall wasps. The jumping gall wasp is native to the western United States and is thought to have been recently introduced to British Columbia. Since its initial discovery in British Columbia near Victoria in 1986 (Thetis Lake) the area infested by the jumping gall wasp has steadily increased and now includes all of southeast Vancouver Island and Saltspring Island. The available evidence suggests the jumping gall wasp was inadvertently introduced here since no British Columbia record or specimen is known to exist prior to the initial discovery in 1986, despite extensive long-term surveys of insects occurring on Garry oak in British Columbia. Notably, in BC, Garry oak is the only tree on which the jumping gall wasp can complete its life cycle. The jumping gall wasp also lays eggs on a number of ornamental oak –– English oak, Quercus robur L; red oak, Quercus rubra L.; scarlet oak, Quercus coccinea Muenchh.; and pin oak, Quercus palustris Muenchh. — but fails to complete its development on these trees.

Bibliography
Duncan. R.W. Jumping Gall Wasp. Pacific Forestry Centre. Government of Canada. ISBN 0-662-25884-3 Cat. No. Fo 29-6/80-1997E
https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2012/rncan-nrcan/Fo29-6-80-1997-eng.pdf

Garry Oak Ecosystems Recovery Team
https://goert.ca/gardeners-restoration/planting-caring-for-garry-oak-trees/