A Tree Calls: A Walk to Meet a Sound 

Performative action

Copenhagen, Denmark, and Mount Baker, National Forest, USA, and everywhere along the great circle connecting these two points

In collaboration with mathematician Luke Wolcott

2012 

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A Tree Calls is a collaboration constructed around a calculation of how long it would take the sound of a tree falling to travel across the world, from the US to Denmark. My collaborator hiked into the mountains in Washington State and chopped down a tree at midnight, while I simultaneously led a group in Copenhagen on a six-and-a-half-hour walk to meet the idea of the sound of the tree falling, as it arrived. The sound arrived 4 seconds ahead of schedule. Our co-authored paper about this project was published in 2018 in the MIT Press Leonardo Music Journal.

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The sound of the tree hitting the ground was predicted to take 6 hours, 31 minutes, and 47 seconds to travel 7686.35km. The sound arrived 4 seconds ahead of schedule.