Cease and Desist Served, First Movement Launch: Moving Forward with "Blued Trees"

October 1, 2015
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACTS:
Margery Newman, Publicity & Communications, 212-475-0252, MargeryNewman@aol.com
Aviva Rahmani, Eco-Artist; GhostNets@ghostnets.com


Blued Trees Serves Cease-and-Desist on Fracked-Gas Corporation
As Next Phase of Eco-Art Project Debuts Oct. 4
Algonquin 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 policy engagement. Rahmani was invited 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 with 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 symphonic score. One-third mile of these notes constitutes one full measure.

A Cease-and-Desist Demand has been served by Blued Trees 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, a number of 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. 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, 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.”

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 & PRODUCERS: To arrange an interview with Rahmani, participating landowners, attorneys or painters, please contact Margery Newman, MargeryNewman@aol.com, 917-608-6306.

View a short video about the project at https://vimeo.com/135290635 


See map with locations and photos of Blued Trees Symphony and Greek Chorus pieces http://www.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.

More information about Aviva Rahmani is at ghostnets.com.


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The first and second movement of the "Blued Trees" symphony

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Moving forward with Blued Trees