Ruderal Esthetics

Ruderal esthetics R University of Southern California Ecologists use the term ruderal fro the atin rudu misbehavior, and yet at the same time trigger optimism and imagination rule to descrie disturanceadated secies about redevelopment of a site. German biologist Herbert Sukopp and Ruderal secies eod the unrul tenacious and his German colleagues, and a number of citizen-naturalists extensively oortunistic ualities of egetation he are et mapped colonies of ruderal plants in growing in the rubble post WWII Berlin. Sukopp’s work inventorying ruderal species, their habitats and ahoricall aradoical indeing catastrohe and migrations, laid the foundation of contemporary study of urban ecology.2 aandonent et conersel reresenting resilience and reneal Ruderal secies and rocesses are engaged In this paper I discuss how ruderal species are dispatched as aesthetic in a range of conteorar ors of art and landscae subject and medium in works of contemporary art and design, and how these methods, materials and metaphors in these works can be produc- architecture n these ors ruderal secies erfor tively engaged in all modes of site work in post-industrial landscapes. ecological satial isual and etahoric or his discussion dras together and critiues eales of RR RR R ho an aesthetics of the ruderal is constructed oth hsicall and etahoricall his article outlines Ecological restoration projects aim replicate an authentic yet idealized the deeloent and roection of ruderal aesthet point in history, but to what point exactly? Do we restore to a pre-distur- ics in three arts a reie of recent literature on the bance condition, before urbanization, before a species invasion, before ruderal role in landscae architectural and eco European colonization? Ruderal species are a perennial trouble in the field of ecological restoration. They physically displace “desired” native logical theor an outline and critiue of ruderal ors species, of course, as the unwanted time-travelers emerging from a in conteorar art and landscaes architecture and worm-hole of now. Ruderal biotopes are authentic to a specific site, and seculation on the future use of ruderal secies fors to a particular momentright aftera specific disturbance. Ruderal is a and rocesses in ostindustrial cities wild card: to be ruderal is to be that “right after” landscape-in this case right after landscape that rises into Detroit’s urban obsolescence. Ecologists use the term ruderal, from the Latin rudus, or rubble, to describe species that thrive in poor soils. Ruderal species are visible, vir- Though we see examples of nostalgic ecological restoration in cities, the tual, and ambient. Visibly, they cover abandoned lots and the spaces in material and theoretical tenets of restoration quickly falls apart in the between pavement; as virtual vegetation, their seeds lie dormant in soil, city. Cities are too disturbed, too novel, too cosmopolitan to be viable awaiting disturbances that provoke germination; they are ambient, in the sites for imaginary ecosystems 3. Thus, ruderal, non-equilibrium models air around us, descending on recently exposed soil.1 The term ruderal of ecosystem dynamics may prove more open-ended and generative is ostensibly objective, as it describes a specific adaptation. Yet particu- than those of ecological restoration. The following discussion of works lar ruderal speciesdepending on locationare vilified for their very of ruderal aesthetics offers models for a multivalent, ruderal urbanism in adaptability and resilience, described with adjectives such as invasive, today’s post-industrial cities. aggressive, and non-native. In his 2008 essay, “Aesthetic Implications of the New Paradigm in Ruderal species perform ecological, metaphoric and cultural work. They Ecology”, Jason Boaz Simus discusses how the new paradigm of ecology, are employed by humans as first responders to disturbance: after for- as outlined by S.T.A Pickett and V.T. Parker, and P.L. Fielder in “The Ecology est fires, seed mixes of ruderal species are dropped from helicopters to of Natural Disturbance and Patch Dynamics”, challenges aesthetic biases stave off erosion after forest fires, and they are sprayed on road cuts and in that privilege balance and stability in the evaluation of ecosystems4,5 . quarry sites to stabilize soil and lay foundations for other species. The He contrasts new paradigm with the early 20th century model promoted presence, or images of, ruderal species can have contradictory meanings: by Frederick Clements, whereby ecological succession is geared towards ruderals can at once represent dereliction, abandonment and ecological a stable climax community, and that any disturbances to this balance are 388 Ruderal esthetics “explained as temporary anomalies” 6. In Clement’s model, biotic actors Figure 1: Katherina Grosse: psychylustro. were considered as a super organism with a telosa goal to achieve climax condition and balance without disturbance 7. Pickett, Parker and Fielder’s contemporary research disproved the notion of an optimal “balance of nature” by revealing that landscape processes, and disturbances in particular, had a greater influence in shaping the environment than interactions between species. According to Simus, the new paradigm “emphasizes dynamic change, disturbance, and non equilibrium in natural systems” which “presents some challenges for contemporary environmental ethics”. Simus proposes we consider the aesthetic implications of a nature that “is imbalanced, disor- derly and disharmonious” and “that the beauty of nature is dynamic and chaotic rather than stable and orderly”. Thus, I propose we dig deeper into the ruderal period in the continuum of “dynamic and chaotic” eco- Figure 2: Harrison Studio: Trümmerora logical events. My analysis of works of ruderal aesthetics is parsed through a series continuous confection of textures and colors that amplify an impression of verbs. These verbsdemarcate, initiate, occupy, reconstitute, resti- of the ruderal vegetation that once grew on the viaduct. tute, and stylizedemonstrate how ruderal aesthetics operate or are R R R PSYCYLUTO constructed or dispatched in site works. Katherina Grosse’s bold murals demarcate the ruderal spaces of Philadelphia’s commuter rail corridors, Katherina Grosse’s psychylustro (City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Project, colonizing space with swaths of color. In works such as Hans Haacke’s 2014) (fig. 1) is a complex of seven murals sited within the AMTRAK cor- Bowery Seeds, materials and formal qualities of soil and substrate are ridor in North Philadelphia. Like the ruderal vegetation growing along the carefully considered to initiate, or lay the groundwork for, the emer- corridor, psychylustro is hooligan work, occupying and demarcating an gence of ruderal vegetation. The political instrumentality of ruderal infrastructural cut. The work’s primary audience is the daily commuters vegetation to occupy contested sites is illustrated by the photographs riding the AMTRAK and SEPTA rail lines. Her fluorescent paint limns a of The High Line by Joel Sternfeld. TerraGRAM’s proposal for the High liminal space, as if a giant highlighter were dragged across the landscape. Line reconstitutes the High Line of Sternfeld’s images through the con- psychylustro disturbs: disturbs with color splashed against all in its path; struction of new layers that provide public access and highlight ongoing buildings, ruderal vegetation, rubble. Though it demarcates a space, the ecological processes. Through the redistribution of ruderal soils, the work does not begin and end neatly (and why should it). Harrison Studio’s Trmmerora, a proposal for a memorial on the site of In one gesture psychylustro brokers a truce between architecture and the former Gestapo headquarters in Berlin, builds a dialectic process of landscape architecture, and unites building and infrastructural ground restitution, or a healing, of physical and metaphoric aspects of the site. with a single hue of color 8. It disturbs notions of painting, namely Finally, I examine how designer team of James Corner Field Operations that painting (abstract or figurative) is largely a planar and contained and garden designer Piet Oudolf stylize the ruderal vegetation into a he ertilit of ran Ruins rooln as oe to etroit 389 System as of May that traced the financial relationships of the museum’s trustees and a notorious slumlord, and ecological systems (Rhinewater Purication Plant, Krefeld, Germany, 1971). Bowery Seeds also recalls Yoko Ono’s Painting for Wind (1969), which featured a small packet of seeds hung from a larger piece of paper, and text instructing one to cut a hole in the paper and then cut a hole in the bag and place it in the wind (Masters 2008). Bowery Seeds and Painting for Wind are examples of early works of ruderal aesthetics. These works foreground ideas of latency, ambience and emergence: the seeds lie dormant in the soil; the atmosphere provides sun, water and windborne seeds; the seeds then germinate on a given fertile substrate as formed by the artist. A key aim in the parsing of a ruderal aesthetics from the genre of “green Figure 3: Hans Haacke Bowery Seeds art” is to differentiate how artists and designers interpret or channel ecological relationships and mechanisms vs. “ecology” a both an ideol- endeavor. Grosse’s previous monumental works of “painting” combined ogy and means of countering capitalist, consumptive systems of human multiple hues that dematerialize the figure and form of its various sub- interaction with the living global

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