Sharing some exciting news!
MEDIA ALERT
October 1, 2015
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACTS:
Margery
Newman, Publicity & Communications, 212-475-0252, MargeryNewman@aol.com
Blued Trees Serves Cease-and-Desist on Fracked-Gas
Corporation
As Next Phase of
Eco-Art Project Debuts Oct. 4
Algonquin Gas Tranmission receives notice to halt
forest destruction,
as Blued Trees Symphony’s First Movement Is about to launch.
Blued Trees is a symphonic art installation
encompassing visual and musical art forms in concert with nature. The project
was conceived by ecological artist Aviva Rahmani to move the function of art
beyond witnessing or illustrating ecosystem devastation and into direct
engagement with policy. Rahmani was recruited by New York
residents-cum-activists faced with condemnation and seizure of properties and
beloved places by fracked-gas pipeline corporations.
As corporations are
leveraging the legal tool of “eminent domain,” Rahmani is contesting the
justice of that leverage, using the sword of copyright law: Blued Trees is being copyrighted by
Rahmani in discrete movements, as it grows in scale.
Blued Trees consists of trees in the line of destruction
on which a blue sine wave is painted. One such tree is one note in the score.
One-third mile of these notes constitutes one full measure in the symphony.
A Cease-and-Desist
Demand has been served on the Algonquin Gas Transmission LLC. That corporation
seeks to “condemn” the private property in Peekskill in Westchester County, NY,
on which the overture for the project was installed on June 21, and
copyrighted.
The overture was
created on land that has been owned by a small group of families for four
generations. That property lies in the path of the Algonquin Incremental
Markets (AIM) pipeline for “natural” gas, planned by Algonquin and its parent
company, Spectra Energy Partners, to span four states: New York, Connecticut,
Rhode Island and Massachusetts. The pipeline is also slated to pass just 105
feet from vital structures at the Indian Point nuclear facility, 30 miles from
New York City.
Additional measures
and “Greek choruses” have joined the Blued
Trees orchestra from 11 other sites internationally since the summer
solstice overture launch.
On Sunday, Oct. 4, several
simultaneous events in the Blued Trees
Symphony/Saga will unfold:
·
Blued Trees’ First Movement will formally commence with
a full 1/3-mile measure of the score being painted and performed in the rural
Town of Augusta and Town of Kirkland, NY, threatened by the Dominion New Market
Pipeline and Niagara Expansion Project of TGP/Kinder Morgan; and
·
Additional
measures are joining the orchestra from the New River Valley of Virginia and
Nassau, NY.
These new sites
will be included in the second copyright filing. Five movements in total, over
the next year, will complete this symphony, with the Coda planned for fall
2016.
The words of Pope
Francis, delivered at the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 25, resonate
with Rahmani and other Blued Trees participants:
“Any harm done to the environment
. . . is harm done to humanity.”
. . . is harm done to humanity.”
Individuals and
groups whose properties lie in the path of fossil-fuel infrastructure are
invited to join the Blued Trees
“Greek Chorus.” Detailed instructions are at pushingrocks.blogspot.com/2015/09/painting-full-measure-of-first-movement.html.
NOTE to EDITORS and PRODUCERS: To arrange an interview with Rahmani or
participants, please contact Margery Newman, MargeryNewman@aol.com, 917-608-6306.
See map with locations and photos of Blued Trees Symphony and Greek Chorus
pieces at gulftogulf.org/map/.
View a graphic from
the Spectra Corporation’s website of Spectra
AIM project path at spectraenergy.com/Operations/New-Projects-and-Our-Process/New-Projects-in-US/Algonquin-Incremental-Market-AIM-Project/.
Blued Trees is an element of Gulf to Gulf, a fiscally
sponsored NYFA project, which has since 2010 investigated how art might impact
climate change policy, gulftogulf.org.
Blued Trees defense
fund site: tinyurl.com/BluedTreesDefense
Blued Trees art
support site: tinyurl.com/BluedTreesSymphony
