Conversations

complex systems as spaces for acceptance

When I was about ten years old, my family rented a spot at a rural campsite that became our retreat for some years. Forests and lush orchards stretched as far as the eye could see. Summer holidays meant freedom to roam all day, exploring hidden corners of this deserted place. Most mornings, I stuffed my tiny backpack with fruits, candy, and drinks and set out with the intention of getting lost, trusting I’d find my way back.
My walks made me feel like an explorer in uncharted territory. I wandered through primeval woods and across open fields, imagining I was the first to set foot there. I sat on tree trunks, enjoying my snacks, and soaking in all the sights and sounds around me. In these moments, I got a taste of true independence from any parental control. I could take any path I wanted to, sit down on a rock, lost in thought, looking at distant hills, and nobody seemed troubled by my existence. It was just me and nature, and nature accepted me as the person I was. I guess much of who I am took shape on these long walks. They taught me to reflect on myself and my relationship to the world.
I usually returned for dinner—we’d grill, make salads with foraged herbs, or cook on the portable stove. Barbecue or not, we always had a campfire. We’d roast marshmallows, listen to music, and stargaze while I shared the latest astronomy facts from my books.

Twenty years slipped by before I revisited this place. The landscape had changed. The passageway over the picturesque brook leading to our campsite was gone. The old mill where we got our drinking water—which I learned burned down shortly after our time there—is now no more than a figment of my memory. The open fields near the campsite that were dotted with rare orchids have completely gone wild and are overgrown with young trees. But some things remained: the clearing with its amazing panorama at the edge of a huge beech forest, the field paths with scattered fruit trees, and that enchanting, untamed forest that gave the place its allure. Nature had reclaimed the area, and I’d changed too. Sun, sky, plants, animals—have become more than just scenery for discovery. They’re like companions, offering comfort and a sense of belonging I used to take for granted.

The forest remains my sanctuary when life becomes chaotic and overwhelming. While walking in the woods, this repetitive, mechanical action cleanses my mind and creates more lucid thoughts than musing at my desk. It’s the meditative quality of these walks, that has translated itself into an extension of my workspace, in which ideas come together and blockages dissipate. In this motion, my projects take form—to the point where wandering has become a precondition for doing work. I enjoy mixing the sounds of the forest with ambient music on my earbuds. Preferably without field recordings to avoid artifice and overlap. Sometimes a tune captures a moment perfectly and the universe seems to align; it raises the experience to create this weird state of overwhelmed consciousness as if opening a window to a higher, dream-like plane of existence.

Even in minor bits of forest, the slightest alterations to the path dramatically alter perceptions. The light hits the leaves in a different way, perhaps there’s a strange smell, and the whole scenery can create the impression of stepping into an entirely new environment. One of the describing moments, and which is the emotional foundation for Conversations, is when my eyes are drawn to the sky peeking through the distant canopy right above the forest floor. This view, combined with the music, creates a mystic, uncanny feeling—a type of future nostalgia, a longing for something indefinable yet familiar. It seems as far off as the foliaged horizon, always visible and forever out of reach. Though part of me recognizes the source of this feeling, I try not to surpass it. I’m progressing towards acceptance, yet I wonder if this feeling has put down roots too deep to ever fully remove.

Trees are social beings. They talk to each other via scents, share resources through underground fungal networks, have memories and feel pain. Trees of the same species form alliances that recognize and support their relatives. Mother trees feed their children by sending them sugars and other resources via the mycorrhizal network that joins their roots. Even different species of trees can work in harmony in order to preserve the forest’s ecosystem. This below-surface life of trees has shattered our conventional picture of forests as being a bunch of individual organisms competing for resources. They serve as superorganisms with trees acting together in symbiotic relationships. Yet, this does not negate the individuality of a single tree.

At first sight, one beech might look like any other beech; or a spruce could get lost among its evergreen companions. Nevertheless, every tree is unique and shaped by years’ worth of growth and adaptation. The barks have lichens growing thereon whereas trunks have time’s scars—strange fissures, twisted branches and unusual bulges—all these signs recounting experiences over the years for each individual tree. Similarly, external factors affecting the soil can be seen through a tree’s appearance. Leaves, bark, roots, and growth patterns of trees give hints to nutrient, water, and pH levels in the soil. They can also serve as indicators—lichens (or their absence) point to pollutants, poplars to historical land use by marking property boundaries, and environmental stressors like wind or drought. Thus, trees take on special status as natural indicators, monitoring the environment and detailing underground worlds as varied as the tree’s stories are.

Scientists have dubbed the mycorrhizal networks that exist in forest ecosystems the “Wood Wide Web.” These fungal filaments create a decentralized network, some of which can stretch over several square miles, connecting trees, plants, and other organisms; they shuttle water, carbon, nitrogen, and other nutrients between plants, allowing them to share resources. Chemical and electrical signals that transmit through the network warn nearby plants against insect attacks or even disease. Some fungi form mutualisms with the roots of trees, in effect extending the access of trees to water and resources in exchange for sugar produced through photosynthesis. At the same time, bacteria and insects break down organic matter, returning the nutrients into the soil. This underground ecosystem holds an ongoing conversation that sustains and balances the forest. Such complex interactions obscure the underlying principles governing a single species’ appearance.

When systems compound and grow more complex, a single sample might seem to dissolve into pure randomness. This feeling of disorder is illusory. Each organism is responding to its environment in its own way, based on its unique genetic makeup. Those genes interact with environmental cues to shape an organism’s development and behavior. Acknowledging these structures requires a willingness to look beyond the mess. What once felt like pure randomness becomes a territory of endless discovery—structures unfolding from one to the next, tracing chains of revelation that deepen our understanding of the natural world. Resulting textures and patterns flow into all aspects of our identity, engaging all of our senses. These textures—from the forest, into the city, our food, and onto our daily interactions—show us about the world around us, creating our realities across sight, touch, smell, and sound.

Consider a Baroque violin, an instrument renowned for its unique voice, enabled by its construction and playing techniques. Within these instruments, quite literally made from wood that once grew in forests, is held—a slice of tree history. This heritage still resonates through time, manifesting as a part in the distinguished, softer, more intimate timbre in comparison with modern instruments. The nature of the Baroque violin, with its lower bridge, shorter fingerboard, and lack of chin rest, is also suited to its gentler attack and subtle overtones.

During the Baroque period, violin technique was still evolving. Players experimented with a number of different ways to hold and support the instrument. This lack of standardization contributed to a profusion of playing styles across Europe. Some played the instrument against the chest, others against the shoulder. Gut strings used in authentic Baroque performances do give a mellower tone, less strident with a slight grainy quality that adds both depth and texture. The shorter, lighter Baroque bow therefore allows one to play very fast scales and florid passagework, almost allowing the violin to sing as if it had vowels and consonants. Authentic Baroque technique uses vibrato sparingly as an expressive device, unlike the continuous vibrato of modern playing. Thus, the approach, combined with the construction of the instrument, produces a leaner and more focused sound over which precise intonation is crucial. Its softer voice responds uniquely to room acoustics in which it enables players to balance their technique accordingly. In resonant chambers, notes linger and blend, while in drier spaces, the grainy texture of the violin is pronounced. It’s this back-and-forth between player, reverberations and audience that gives the Baroque violin its intimate sound and that contributes to its spatial presence. Every performance becomes a conversation that is tied to the specific moment and place.

The concept of performance as a unique, ephemeral event goes beyond musical genres and eras. Free jazz carries the concept to its furthest extreme, for improvisations are inescapably linked to the time and place of their execution. This extreme departure from traditional jazz eliminates all predetermined chord progressions, fixed tempos, and traditional song structures, all for the sake of unrestricted expression. Free jazz players are engaged in dynamic and often intense musical dialogue, responding in real-time to each other’s ideas. The sound changes from sparse and contemplative through dense and chaotic. It’s bound together by unconventional tonal approaches and the exploring of extreme registers and timbres. Virtuosity extends the instrument’s palette of possibilities in tone. A trumpet might devote itself to guttural growls or high-pitched squeals. A pianist might reach inside the instrument to pluck or dampen strings directly. Such experiments initiate new dimensions in musical dialogue beyond everyday vocabularies. In this context, each musician’s contribution is at one and the same time a response and a provocation; a conversation continua, in which the boundaries between composition and improvisation get blurred. The emerging soundscapes are as unpredictable and complex as any naturally occurring phenomenon.

Children’s art is, in many ways, the equivalent to free jazz—an open, personal expression that ignores normative portrayals of reality. The child artist is unrestrained by any societal expectations and formal artistic theory or practice; they create a fantasy-filled, emotionally forthright work. Their art usually simplifies forms, exaggerates proportions, disregards perspective or scale, and includes their developing cognitive and motor skills, together with their rather peculiar way of looking at the world. The development of these drawings progresses from initial scribbles and patterns, shapes, then charts or diagrams, designs, and finally to early pictorial representation. Basic scribbles alone lay down the very base of children’s art: lines, loops, spirals—come naturally without visual guidance. Bold color palettes are applied in unexpected ways, often more based on emotional attachment or preference than realistic depiction. An oversized flower may well dwarf a house, not through misunderstanding, but because it loomed large in the child’s experience that day. Scribbles that appear random to adults all too often hold deep significance for their young creators. Mandalas, suns, and radials are common motifs that children draw without prompting. These balanced, symmetrical designs form the foundation of more complex representations. Thus, early human figure drawings, as well as other representational subjects like animals and houses, evolve from these abstract forms rather than from observation. Actually, children’s artwork often narrates, representing not just what they see but what they know or feel about their subjects. It’s thus a complex form of communication that reflects their thoughts and experiences.

Every texture we encounter—tactile, visual, or auditory—carries stories of history, interaction, and correlation. It could be the life story of a tree, getting lost in some Westhoff partita, or being amazed by your child’s drawing—the world is run through an eternal process of communication and interaction. It’s these conversations, continuing on and around us in complex, sometimes invisible systems, that show us there’s much more going on than we initially realize. The very word “conversation” once referred to the manner of conducting oneself in the world, to the general tenor of a person’s actions and habits; the etymology comes from the Latin “conversari,” meaning“ to live with” or “keep company with.” Engaging with complex systems presupposes that one develops an ability for interpreting and joining these conversations. That helps us find our way within those systems and opportunities for meaningful intervention. Increased awareness not only deepens the sense of our own existence but also has the potential to improve the conditions for all living beings on this planet.