Residuals – Creative & dance journal

Part 1: Writing a literature review using AI (‘Artificial Intelligence’) – a case study – crop trials using charcoal/biochar and potatoes

If you write a paper for publication in an academic journal then you need a literature review. So I used AI tools from OpenAI (Chat GPT), Google (Gemini) and Anthropic (Claude) to create a review for a paper about crop trials using charcoal (biochar from wood) as a plant fertilizer. Here’s the results and how I used them.

Sea ice and mass flow

I travelled overnight from Stockholm to Helsinki on February 5 across the Baltic sea by ship to the Skiing on Skin 2026 dance festival. This year is much colder than last year, and the sea ice is more extensive. This mass flow of ice on sea, makes me think of movement and dance. Here’s photographs and thoughts.

Poster! ‘Integrate Your Practice’ for ECSA 2026 conference, Oulu, Finland

This poster for the European Citizen Science Association conference in Oulu, Finland (3-6 March) shows how the co-created art practice (‘Residuals’ series) was integrated with the science practice of co-created crop trials – both of which used charcoal/biochar. The A1 poster included an ontology of human and more-than-human-expression. See the poster (PDF 3 MBytes).

Situating an Integrated Research Practice: charcoal and expression as a mediating material and practice

I came across the idea of more-than-human-expression. To aid my understanding, I draw this diagram which seeks to reconcile the Residuals art series (drawing with charcoal) and crop trials of potato plants and charcoal (wood biochar) which I produced. The unifying concept of expression in human and non-human actors (potato plants) through charcoal, shows the material, practice and conceptual integration in an ontology.

Crop trials with biochar and the residuals art series

The residuals series of art works/performances used biochar granules that were re-purposed as artists charcoal for drawing. The series ran parallel to crop trials of potatoes with biochar – which acts as a plant fertiliser. The abstract for a scientific paper about these trials in 2024 is presented here which was developed with my collaborator Karl Wallendszus in 2025.

Suspending Residuals #7

Residuals #7 was the longest of the Residuals series: an 8 metre long charcoal drawing which was intended to be suspended upside down so that you could move underneath it and experience the sensation of ‘flying over its surface’. In spring and summer 2025, Theo Hopkins – who is a designer and wood craftsman, worked with me in designing a wooden hanging frame to suspend the Residuals #7 drawing.

Residuals #10 Light

In January 2025 – a year after starting the Residuals series, I used performance and long exposure photography to record light – its reflection from the surfaces of moving bodies, as a residual – including darkness and shadow too! Here are presented these ‘light graphs’ from the session at Goldsmiths CI at Goldsmiths, University of London on Saturday 18 January.

Residuals #9 Circle in the Hayslip

On 24 September 2024, I returned to Schumacher College, Dartington to harvest the potatoes from the crop trial which I started there in summer 2024. It was part of my Integrated Research Practice. After the performance, a circle of charcoal remained in the soil: an archaeological art work and residuals in my body as memory.

Residuals #8 Apple picking

The apple harvest of 2024 was one of the most prodigious I’ve known. Dancer Jo Dyer and I performed a dance to celebrate the apple harvest on 12 September 2024 . We picked apples using them as a movement and drawing construct. Not unlike the dancing/dance drawing with potatoes in Residuals #4, and Residuals #7 but now apples. (Pomme rather than pomme de terre!)

Residuals #7 Draw Potato Harvest

In 2024, I conducted a crop trial of potatoes and bio-char (charcoal) in my allotment garden in Oxford, UK. In September, it was time to harvest the potatoes and entact a performance: drawing the produce from the soil through dance and movement; and creating a drawing – a potato drawing. The performance was with the Unknown Performer – a person who prefers not to be named, from 19 August 2024 and other days in August/September 2024.