Buster Simpson's living art installation Host Analog consists of a large 1,000-year-old Douglas fir log placed outside the Oregon Convention Center to nurse seedlings from the state's old growth forest and represent the "connections between the forest and the citizens of Portland".
[1][2] The wind-fallen tree was taken from the Bull Run River's watershed east of Portland and cut into pieces, resembling a fallen Roman column; mist from a stainless steel irrigation system installed around the log is sprayed in fifteen-minute increments.
[1] The Public Art Archive offers the following description of the artwork: The growth and development of an indigenous volunteer plantscape are shown in three panoramic images taken over a nine-year period.
[3] In 2000, Paul Kelsch wrote in Environmentalism in Landscape Architecture about a dilemma faced by Simpson: Though the seedlings are growing quite well, the log is being enveloped by other vegetation that has seeded itself in around it.
As he put it: How much should he "play God"?The sculpture has been called "unique" and included in published walking tours and guides of Portland.