Complex Simply Painted: Out Walking | Jul 2025

16 minutes read time

I keep thinking I ought to explain what I am doing here.

July begins looking down at a small field of yellow flowers that transforms into a single purple flower as I walk.

My gaze wanders over the ground until a weathered piece of wood that looks like a wing rises like a ghost. Trees blend with their reflections in the water beside me. Clouds change form over several shots. A bird looks up.

Orange daylilies flutter in the wind. A red metal sculpture on the sidewalk blends into a July 4 backyard bonfire, then fireworks. The bonfire is relit and for a while we simply study the flames and the rotation of a perforated metal globe.

A young woman and her two dogs wade in Six Mile Creek. The sculpture spins as I walk around it, and then we are in Washington Park, where the wind animates a tree. I walk into an intense thunderstorm and take shelter under a bridge. Britt’s Ms. Harmony reclines there while rain pours from a drainage hole in the roadway above her, sheets of water passing the painted woman.

The sun comes out in a puddle.

A groundhog emerges.

A moment later I am studying the rhythms of a freight train passing, yellow becoming blue as it sweeps across the frame.

Whatever explanation I had in mind has already fallen behind.

I carry an iPhone because it is small enough to disappear until something catches my attention. I do not go out with a shot list. I see something and reach for the camera. Sometimes I have time to frame it. Sometimes I barely get it.

The realtime film keeps these encounters moving in the order I found them. Then I slow the same material down, giving the images more time to meet one another.

Chance is already part of the walk. I let it speak to me.

The iPod Shuffle I always carry on my walks is filled each month with a small, randomly chosen sample of music I have collected over many years. The selections continually surprise me. Surely some of these coincidences must be divine!

Today I hear Storms, a piece by my late friend Michael Sahl, recorded long ago in Buffalo. At the end, the applause goes on and on.

Go Michael in heaven!

Things disappear. Recordings continue.

Last dances keep appearing today. That morning I had saved a story about an artist trying to preserve the sound of a dying glacier. Now Michael is playing in my ears, and later Peer and I will be talking about art again after many years apart. Something disappears; something survives in a recording; something unexpectedly returns. They are not the same, but they meet inside this particular day.

That evening Stiller and I go to ElectroZone, an event organized by E Weber-Han. Wires, keyboards, people preparing to jam: an electro-industrial world that unexpectedly reconnects me with Peer Bode, whom I met in Binghamton in 1975.

Talking with Peer again floods me with memories. Harald Bode’s 1975 photovoltaic box comes back, and Cloud Music, the electronic work of Behrman, Watts and Diamond, my own ARM 1.0, Rod Serling, Gene Roddenberry and Ralph Hocking. Roddenberry and Hocking had both once been policemen. That coincidence amuses me. Enforcers of the known becoming explorers of the unknown.

Star Trek and the Experimental Television Center come together for me that way. Art goes toward what we do not know yet.

To go where no one has gone before.

Sometimes noticing means getting something wrong.

The bird recognizes me.

No. The bird wants lunch.

Later, a U-shaped black hose spins like a galaxy.

A green computer terminal passes: Failed to access id on NoneType

A dandelion sways in the wind.

Stiller runs into Ithaca painter Jesse Wright.

“You remember Neil, right?”

We hear a long, low groan. A leaf hangs from a tree, untethered. On a video screen, a man drinks from a water fountain. I move closer until the picture breaks apart into the grains of the screen itself. Those grains dissolve into the dense grain of a wooden fence sliding past, then into lakeside foliage.

A black bird calls.

Billowing clouds.

A sidewalk.

A large tree near Meldrim’s fills the sky. I already know it will soon be taken down. I circle it.

A last dance.

It no longer exists.

Back at the lake, everything is continuously moving: trees, water, clouds, shapes like a painting ever in flux.

At Cornell’s Herbert F. Johnson Museum, I find Yi Hwan Kwon’s Jangdokdae (2015), three human figures whose bodies take on the rounded forms of traditional Korean fermentation jars. I move around them with the camera and make the still figures move.

Then Adam Ames and Andrew Bordwin’s FEAR Type A, enclosed in glass near a clay frog.

We walk through the late Dutch paintings and I dwell on the Lizard, a character from my Act Requiring Maintenance video installation (ARM 1.0) from 1976. It sounds more like a play to me now.

Outside, bushes billow ominously in the wind.

I paint what I see with the camera in motion. Movement is the brush. But as soon as something appears, it is already disappearing, becoming the next thing, over and over again in step with my walking.

A helicopter above the WSKG sign downtown blends into the propeller of a boat beside the lake, then into the control panel of a fire truck. Like the wires and cables downstairs, the machine has its own found language:

Red Crosslay
Blue Crosslay
Deck Gun
Drivers Side Discharge

These machine dials are like poems. They blend into a torn baseball in the grass, and from the baseball Frances Perkins emerges. Architect of the New Deal and Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, she tells me to Have the Courage to Meddle. We see lacy flowers. A bee working the pollen. My own shadow walking across the pavement.

What do I gather that draws me back over and over again?

At home, washing dishes, the sun passes through a glass and throws a projection onto the wall. I am there to notice. A little free library has been made from the body of an old cello. A tree stump. Make America Good. With Liberty and Justice for All. Street art at WSKG. I love NPR. Radio is the playground of coincidence. Foliage and fences slide left and right, over and beneath one another.

A poster still announces last month’s No Kings rally. Three stuffed animals, gently loved, are looking to be found. Glass becomes a caterpillar. Spike plants become bees. The square rusty shapes of a sewer grate blend into blue lake water. Each clip collapses time. The view widens and I am standing on the stump where the large tree had been. Rusty loops frame the unfinished Jonathan Matas mural beneath the bridge.

Nearby, a sign says: Do not fear change. A pool blends into a crescent moon, then sunset. The walker’s shadow reappears amidst the rain on a flower, a leaf, and finally, bones and a skull in the yard at the Ithaca Sciencenter, a place to play with science.

Painting keeps appearing in different states: finished, unfinished, reflected, projected, moving, dissolving.

I did not arrange July.

But I moved through it with a camera, and later I put what caught my attention beside what came next.

Slowing the film does not make the world simpler.

It lets me see more of its complexity.

Complex, simply painted.

Smackdown

Official Story / Public Reckoning / Deeper Contrast

July 2025

White House / EPA

Federal agencies describe July through energy dominance, affordability, efficiency, regulatory speed, taxpayer savings, and consumer choice. The administration accelerates the rollback of federal support for wind and solar, reorganizes EPA science in the name of savings and efficiency, seeks faster environmental permitting for AI infrastructure, and ends the month proposing to remove the scientific and legal finding underlying federal greenhouse-gas regulation of motor vehicles.

Emphasis

• The White House presents the One Big Beautiful Bill as an expansion of domestic energy production, arguing that increased oil and gas production will drive down energy costs while restoring fiscal discipline and American energy dominance.
• President Trump orders agencies to rapidly eliminate federal support for wind and solar, describing those subsidies as market distortions that support expensive, unreliable energy sources and threaten national security through dependence on foreign-controlled supply chains.
• EPA announces a reduction in force affecting its Office of Research and Development, describing the restructuring as $748.8 million in savings and arguing that moving scientists and laboratory functions into program offices will put research closer to rulemaking and technical assistance.
• The White House orders faster permitting for AI data centers and supporting energy infrastructure, presenting environmental review and other regulatory requirements as obstacles to the speed needed for technological leadership, economic growth, and national security.
• EPA proposes rescinding the 2009 Endangerment Finding, the legal prerequisite for federal greenhouse-gas standards for new motor vehicles and engines. EPA presents the proposal as restoring consumer choice, reducing regulatory costs, lowering the cost of living, and returning the agency to what it considers the proper limits of the Clean Air Act.

Key verbs

• unleash
• eliminate
• streamline
• save
• rescind
• restore

Foregrounded

Energy prices, domestic production, grid reliability, national security, regulatory speed, taxpayer savings, statutory authority, economic growth, and consumer choice. Environmental and climate policy is repeatedly evaluated in terms of what regulation may cost, delay, restrict, or prevent.

Minimized or contested

The cumulative costs of climate damage, the value of independent federal scientific capacity, the future ability of public institutions to anticipate worsening hazards, and the scientific basis for treating greenhouse-gas emissions as a danger to public health and welfare.

AP / The Guardian / New York Times / ICJ

The public record follows July through climate-policy rollback, physical danger, preparedness, scientific capacity, and legal obligation. Clean-energy incentives are dismantled. Deadly flash floods strike central Texas, prompting scrutiny of weather-service staffing and future forecasting resources. At the same time, reporters caution against claiming a causal connection before the evidence supports one. EPA’s scientific research structure is dismantled and reorganized. At the end of the month, the administration moves against the Endangerment Finding just as the International Court of Justice articulates broader international obligations concerning climate harm.

Emphasis

• Matthew Daly reports that the Republican budget bill dismantles major portions of the 2022 climate law, accelerating the phaseout of wind and solar incentives, eliminating electric- vehicle tax credits and a methane fee, while expanding opportunities for oil, gas, and coal.
• After the Texas floods, Oliver Milman examines reductions in future NOAA forecasting and climate-research resources, while a New York Times analysis finds important leadership vacancies in weather offices serving flash-flood hotspots. The reporting raises questions about institutional capacity without by itself establishing that those conditions caused the Texas deaths.
• Rebecca Solnit warns against turning correlation and political expectation into causation. She notes that the National Weather Service issued warnings and argues that the causes of the disaster require evidence, patience, and a willingness to say that an answer is not yet known.
• Lisa Friedman and Maxine Joselow report on the elimination of EPA’s Office of Research and Development, describing the office as an independent scientific foundation for agency work on chemicals, drinking water, wildfire smoke, climate, and other environmental and public-health risks.
• Dharna Noor reports on objections to the administration’s plan to accelerate AI infrastructure, including concerns about rapidly growing energy and water demand and the environmental consequences of reducing permitting review.
• The International Court of Justice issues its advisory opinion on states’ obligations concerning climate change. Leaders of vulnerable island states hail the opinion as a major advance in establishing responsibility for climate harm.

Key verbs

• measure
• warn
• document
• question
• distinguish
• protect
• account

Foregrounded

Human loss, extreme-weather preparedness, scientific evidence, institutional capacity, climate risk, pollution, responsibility, and the consequences borne by people and ecosystems. Particular attention is given to how knowledge is produced, tested, communicated, and acted upon.

Minimized or absent

The administration’s broader argument that rapid deregulation can lower costs, increase domestic energy production, accelerate infrastructure construction, and place scientific work closer to regulatory programs receives less emphasis than the physical, scientific, environmental, and public-health consequences of those choices.

Sources

• The White House. President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Is Now the Law. 4 Jul 2025.
• The White House. Ending Market Distorting Subsidies for Unreliable, Foreign-Controlled Energy Sources. 7 Jul 2025.
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. EPA Announces Reduction in Force, Reorganization Efforts to Save Taxpayers Nearly Three-Quarters of a Billion Dollars. 18 Jul 2025.
• The White House. Accelerating Federal Permitting of Data Center Infrastructure. 23 Jul 2025.
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. EPA Releases Proposal to Rescind Obama-Era Endangerment Finding, Regulations that Paved the Way for Electric Vehicle Mandates. 29 Jul 2025.
• Matthew Daly. Republican budget bill dismantles climate law passed by Democrats. 1 Jul 2025. Associated Press.
• Oliver Milman. Ted Cruz ensured Trump spending bill slashed weather forecasting funding. 7 Jul 2025. The Guardian.
• Rebecca Solnit. Don’t blame the National Weather Service for the Texas flood disaster. 8 Jul 2025. The Guardian.
• Hiroko Tabuchi and Mira Rojanasakul. In Flash Flood Hotspots, Many Federal Meteorologist Positions Remain Unfilled. 11 Jul 2025. New York Times.
• Lisa Friedman and Maxine Joselow. E.P.A. Says It Will Eliminate Its Scientific Research Arm. 18 Jul 2025. New York Times.
• Dharna Noor. Climate advocates outraged at Trump administration plans to fast-track AI sector. 23 Jul 2025. The Guardian.
• International Court of Justice. Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change. Advisory Opinion, 23 Jul 2025.
• Natricia Duncan. Caribbean leaders hail ICJ climate ruling as ‘historic’ win for small island states. 25 Jul 2025. The Guardian.

The Deeper Contrast

Sometimes noticing means getting something wrong.

In the film, I think the bird recognizes me.

No. The bird wants lunch.

The correction is small, but the discipline matters: what I want an observation to mean is not necessarily what the evidence permits me to say.

That same discipline matters in July’s public record on a terrible scale. Deadly flooding sweeps through the Texas Hill Country. Federal weather services had lost staff, important National Weather Service leadership positions were vacant, and Congress reduced money intended for future forecasting and climate research. Those facts belong beside the disaster.

But adjacency is not causation.

Rebecca Solnit’s warning is worth keeping. The available evidence did not show that federal cuts caused the deaths. The National Weather Service had issued warnings. The reasons so many people died required investigation rather than a politically satisfying answer assembled from facts that happened to sit beside one another.

Saying we do not know yet is not an evasion when we do not know yet.

What July does establish is a direction.

Congress rolls back clean-energy policy. The White House accelerates the end of federal support for wind and solar. EPA cuts and reorganizes its Office of Research and Development, moving scientists into program offices. Environmental review is treated as an obstacle to rapid AI infrastructure. Finally, EPA proposes rescinding the Endangerment Finding itself, the scientific and legal basis for federal greenhouse-gas regulation of motor vehicles.

At nearly the same moment, the International Court of Justice moves in another direction. Its climate advisory opinion describes obligations of states under international law to protect the climate system, while vulnerable island nations see the decision as strengthening the case for responsibility when climate harm crosses borders and generations.

The official record asks us to notice the costs of regulation, the speed of infrastructure development, energy affordability, national security, taxpayer savings, and limits on statutory authority. The journalistic and scientific record asks us to notice another set of costs: weakened institutional capacity, physical danger, pollution, climate damage, and the consequences of failing to act on established evidence.

The deeper contrast is not between a flood and a budget cut.

It is between increasing climate risk and a government repeatedly reducing, reorganizing, or contesting the institutions and legal authorities used to measure, research, and regulate that risk.

On the walk, I let chance speak to me. Public policy cannot stop there. It has to distinguish coincidence from cause — and then act on what the evidence does establish.

See also: Lutz Stautner. The Last Words of a Dying Glacier. 8 Jul 2025. New York Times.

By approaching the glacier through sound, by making it seem alive, Berger gave me a whole new perspective, not just on climate change caused by humans, but on coexistence. The short documentary above, “Crying Glacier,” explores what we can learn by listening.

Lutz Stautner. The Last Words of a Dying Glacier. 8 Jul 2025. New York Times.

See also: Rebecca Solnit. Did National Weather Service cuts lead to the Texas flood disaster? We don’t know. 8 Jul 2025. The Guardian.

See also: Amy Goodman. “Damaging and Deadly” Heat Domes Nearly Tripled, from Europe to the U.S.: Climatologist Michael Mann. 1 Jul 2025. Democracy Now.

See: How Should We Do the Mountain?: Who the heck is Calvin Tilman?

See: Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

See: Land Board approves Otter Creek coal lease

See: Worlds Collide at Cancun Climate Talks

See: Freedom of Information in the USA

See: Snubbing Skeptics Threatens to Intensify Climate War, Study Says

See: Under the surface: fracking, fortunes and the fate of the Marcellus Shale