Skooby Laposky Creates Hidden Life Radio Public Art Project For Cambridge, MA Trees
Hidden Life Radio, a public art project from artist Skooby Laposky (Printmaking ’99) was recently featured by Fast Company. The program aims to increase the general awareness of trees in Cambridge, Massachusetts and the city’s disappearing canopy.
The idea for Hidden Life Radio came about after having conversations with Cambridge residents who were concerned about the disappearance of the city’s old-growth trees. Concurrently, Laposky had been reading Peter Wohlleben’s bestseller, The Hidden Life of Trees, and realized that a long-form biodata sonification “radio station” could function as a poetic reminder of the trees’ amazing existence.
Hidden Life Radio’s “broadcast” is a musical composition unfolding in real-time and running twenty-four hours a day from leafout in summer until leaf drop in November. Weather, climate and other environmental conditions directly affect how the composition is shaped. These generative musical compositions allow for listeners to tune in and hear the trees’ “hidden life.”
