Exploration in Crynoch Burn - Aberdeenshire
It was the end of October 2018 and the weather was damp and cold. It had been raining for several weeks and the river was high and in areas the banks were flooded. So, I decided to explore Crynoch Burn, a tributary of the Dee. Apart from taking photographs underwater, I had a curiosity about the fragility of the swirling foam rotating in the eddies. Although foam can be created by pollution, the foam in many Scottish rivers is created by the organic matter abundant in peat decay and fatty acids (surfactants) are released by small organisms and float to the water surface. These molecules interfere with the surface tension of the water and when there is turbulence in the flowing water, the surfactants trap small bubbles of air which make up the foam. As long as there is a supply of organic fatty acids, and water turbulence, this autogenic formation of foam can occur (1).
Curious to work with the river’s foam “medium”, I decided to expose 320 gsm acid free handmade paper made of 100% long fibred cotton rag. I painted the pieces of paper with blue non-toxic acrylic paint and exposed the papers in the water, where the foam accumulated. The foam was a very difficult medium to work with, as the river flow interacted with the paper differently in comparison to the foam. While the water current washed away the paint, the foam simply covered the paper and then began to disappear as the foamy bubbles dried in the atmosphere leaving a sheen of organic fatty acids across the blue paint. I was also surprised to find that the white foam actually did have a brown colour, because the surfactants in the water surface also suspended very fine clay particles within the foam bubbles. As the bubbles evaporated and popped, the very fine sediments left traces across the faded blue paint
Autogenesis - self-organising behaviour
Geomorphologists describe rivers as autogenic dynamics which creates behaviour and spatial organisation of rivers within the landscape (2). Autogenesis has various definitions, for example, “a concept that evolution is directed by innate orientating factors independent of the interaction of organism and environment” (3), “origination with no external cause; self-generation” (4). Although the white foam seemed so simple floating on the water surface, the autogenic process that created the foam needed several interacting elements; the natural decay of organic matter in the water to form surfactants to increase the surface tension of the water, a form of water movement that aerated the water surface to create the foam and then other elements like fine soil particles and vegetation could also join in the performance and add themselves into the foam.
Perceiving the creation of foam in this way, allows thinking about other autogenic processes relating to water, like condensation, which Hans Haacke introduced into the gallery. He explained in an interview that he became interested in things that actually performed independent of the viewer. And in the case of the condensation cube it was important for Hans Haacke that it was not the object (mainly the cube made out of acrylic plastic), but it was “the actual physical exchange between the environment, including the viewer and what is enclosed in the cube.” (Tate Modern, 2014). This resonated very much with my fascination of watching the foam evaoprate and later disappear from the surface of paper. It was not about the final outcome of washed paint and muddy marks on paper, it was more about the process of flowing active water across paper and the foam evaporating leaving behind sediments that interested me more. This was because it was not me as the artist creating the marks on the paper, but it was the river iself generating the marks. I also could not predict what would evolve on the paper, even though according to science, river flow can be predicted by the physics of liquid flow. This was an important lesson for me, because working with the river in this way, showed me that although geomorphologists describe autogenic behaviour existing in rivers, it does not mean that the behaviour of rivers is predictable, but rather it is something that perhaps the human can work alongside with, as I did with paper and paint.
1.Schilling, K. and Zessner, M. (2011) ‘Foam in the aquatic environment’, Water Research, 45(15), pp. 4355–4366.
2.Paola, C. (2016) ‘A mind of their own: Recent advances in autogenic dynamics in rivers and deltas’, SEPM Special Publications, pp. 5–17.
3.Merriam-Webster 2021 “Autogenesis.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/autogenesis. Accessed 3 Jul. 2021.
4.Oxford (2021). Definition of autogenesis [online]. Oxford University Press. Available at: https://www.lexico.com/definition/autogenesis (Accessed: 3 July 2021).
5.Haacke, H. (2014), Hans Haacke: Exposing systems of power. The artist talks about two key works, Condensation Cube 1963–5 and A Breed Apart 1978. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/hans-haacke-2217/hans-haacke-exposing-systems-power (Accessed 3 July 2021).