This project, first exhibited in 1995, links a measured year of automobile use–and the corresponding carbon emitted into the atmosphere via engine emissios–with a century of carbon stockpiling that occurs naturally as a result of tree growth. An estimate was made of the carbon emitted into the atmosphere during the course of a year as a result of the artist's automobile use for art business purposes. Tree trunks with equivalent carbon content were then selected from a stock of harvested City of Chicago trees. Depicted here are tree trucks corresponding to 1994 carbon emissions, 1995 carbon emissions, and a third truck that was added later, in Basel Switzerland, to account for carbon emissions as the artwork traveled and was exhibited internationally. Additionally, the wood was heat treated to curtail transport of unintended organisms into the exhibition setting, although decay processes including mushrooms were evident as the project progresses through various travels and exhibitions. The work was exhibited in Chicago, Illinois; Basel Switzerland; Lüneburg, Germany; and currently resides in the Springhornhof Foundation sculpture park in Neuenkirchen in the north of Germany. The last image (below) shows one of the logs from this project after it was rolled into a lake in the Springhornhof sculpture park by playful vandals. The project is not intended to be permanently preserved, rather it depicts impermanent material conditions that continually vary over time, in the end giving their stored carbon back to the surrounding ecosystem.
