conduit - Volume 1
Martina O’Brien
This publication marks a mid-way point in my current project of ephemeral measure. A year ago I semi-permanently installed a number of semi-autonomous cameras in different outdoor locations across Kildare. The function of each individual camera is to regularly capture digital images in colour, and accumulate them – until I arrive on foot to collect the files. I am the first person to view the landscape images at home on my laptop, where they’re then saved within the expanding collection (approximately 2,500 images so far).
of ephemeral measure defies definition by the usual artworld determinations, and a number of questions weave in and out of being central concerns: who these photographs are for; the question of machine and/ or human authorship; the longevity of the project; and the uses (and abuses) of data. It’s a minimal project – in many ways mundane – that steers clear of directly engaging big data centres or colossal energy usage to store the image data. Yet it’s also deliberately micro-mirroring huge international research projects that utilise remote sensing: the acquisition of information about an object or phenomenon without making physical contact with the object(1).
measuring measure
For several years, in tandem with creating art installations that explored the role of data in the fight against climate change, I have been actively researching the proliferation of contemporary methodologies and technologies that enable us to view, calculate and monitor nature remotely, be it on land or in the depths of the ocean. As part of this, I’ve been keenly interested in the ideas of access versus inaccessibility, surveillance, and spatial and temporal orientations–what Hito Steyerl refers to as a “God’s-eye view”(2) –and how these technologies have changed our ability to experience spaces that are hostile to humans, such as ocean beds.
As an extension of this research, I explored automated visual systems, including sensors, remote sensing, light detection methods and other lens-less imaging. I pursued lines of en- quiry into the changing roles of technologies of reproduction, and the shifting fields within contemporary image-making. I was considering what counts as a camera or a photograph in visual culture, and the ways in which cameras, images and image practices can act as sensors, sensor data and sensor practices, taking into account systematic publicly accessible webcam feeds (think Temple Bar in Dublin streaming on EarthCam 24/7) as well as personal activity on our phones from the constant snapping and sharing of images to the scanning of QR codes on street posters. While cameras are generating images of outdoor activity, they are also functioning as sensing and measuring apparatuses–converting what’s physical into electrical signals that transform into sensor data within extended sensor networks. Cameras-as-sensors produce distinct articulations of environments and environmental operations(3).
sensed arrangements
My preoccupation with sensing began when I read Benjamin H. Bratton’s book The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty. He writes about planetary skin and how sensing, through observation points and planetary scale computation, has turned our understanding of the globe into a vast machine. Bratton likens Earth’s surface to a highly networked epidermis, discussed in the book as the object of its mass(4). Its invocation suggests total dominion; the rolling out of behemoth systems that hold the planet and all of its entities in a space of complete capture. This total view of Earth has a prolonged history within modes of control and colonialism(5).
A pivotal point in my research was when I came across the PhenoCam Project, an ongoing undertaking by Ecosystem Phenology Camera Network that provides automated, near-sur face remote sensing of tree canopy phenology across north eastern United States and adjacent Canada(6). Initiated in 2008, this network began with the installation of high-resolution webcams in twelve established research sites and has since grown in scale to see 600 individual cameras installed globally. Images from the individual cameras are uploaded to a PhenoCam server every half an hour, and the colours of each picture are then analysed. At relatively low costs and without the need for a human observer at each of the 600 locations, the process provides a means by which canopy phenology objectively monitors and quantifies: tree canopy greenness indices reveal the amounts of foliage present at each location, and hint at what the colouring of the leaves may indicate.
conduit
There is a notable contrast between the cameras I use in my project, of ephemeral measure, to those utilised in the PhenoCam Project. At approximately one fifth of the expense, the cameras that I installed in Kildare are not conjoined via the internet or ethernet. I, as the artist, serve as the conduit; the embodiment of the network. Capturing one image at precisely timed intervals on a diurnal basis, the network consists of seven cameras at a remove from one another throughout the county, situated in seven diverse environments. Under observation is: an agricultural site, a research bog, a forest plantation, a carpark, my garden, a riverbank and a Phenological Garden (this site was previously monitored by Ireland’s National Phenology Network as part of the EPA’s Climate Change Research Programme through 2007-2013)(7).
measuring art
While each photograph captured by the Kildare cameras contains its own merits–and I enjoy that the images reflect an everyday aesthetic–the image quality of the output pales in comparison to what is produced by the high-res cameras in operation in the PhenoCam project. of ephemeral measure’s cameras generate low-res imagery, and at times the ghost of an image is produced. The variable pictorial quality suggests the passing of time and seasonal changes in nature as a series of mood swings: sometimes sharp and contrasty, other times vague and nondescript. The cameras’ weather-proof housing system also occasionally affects the photography conditions, sometimes resulting in imperfect images being captured. Every so often, an image is degraded to the point of being a hurried blur. One wonders if there might be some Shintō animistic reasoning(8) or perhaps a teleconnection connectivity explanation at play(9) the anomalies seem to manifest beyond a lack of resolution or regularity.
of ephemeral measure is thence an inconsistent and volatile project, one which reflects its own real conditions of existence. It sits outside of traditional and contemporary phenological practices. Rather the images create their own visual vernacular, and the project establishes itself within the framework of process-driven art. The end-result imagery isn’t anchored within classic scientific or citizen scientific spheres, mediated and supported by botanical, biological, ecological or environmental contexts, but instead this artwork floats on the surface of temporary and dubious data pools.
Walking–the act, and time demands of it–plays a critical role in the durational processes that underpin of ephemeral measure. At the project’s origin, scouting out the sites to place the cameras all occurred on foot, and since the cameras have been installed, every two to three weeks I visit each camera in situ to check its functionality and retrieve its images onto a USB stick. Walking has played a part in the dissemination of the project too, as in late 2022 I organised a number of ‘walkshops’ with members of the public at several of the cameras’ locations. At these events, the cameras witnessed people moving and walking together, and their automatic picture-taking revealed further environmental engagements at each site. In tandem with the photography, walking started to become a technique for mobilising collective inquiry into the possibilities of environmental transformation.
ideal green
of ephemeral measure, and the activation of its new network of digital wild-sensing cameras, established the first phenological network, artist-led or otherwise, in Co. Kildare. Participants engaged in the project have included members of the farming community, researchers from the Irish Peat Conservation Council, greenskeepers and local resident volunteer groups, amongst others. They each identified interests in the project beyond my own, and have aided and affected its development in diverse ways, such as allowing me to install cameras on their properties, keeping an eye on the cameras, and participating in events such as the walkshops. In addition to their hands-on participation, the genuine interest in learning about phenology I have encountered across the board with this project has spurred on motivations for me that I could not have imagined at its outset.
The artistry of this project can be understood to be defined by what it is not: it’s not science. In its oddness, actions of intervention, the physicality of its labour, and the curiosity it invites, of ephemeral measure sparks interest in the actual extent to which plants are affected by changes in temperature and rainfall. Deep down, I and the project’s diverse participants to date, are aware of the importance of the intrinsic adaptation capacity of plants, a quality that will ultimately determine the potential for sustained ecological stability and food security. Even the act of monitoring an agricultural field via this odd artist thing feels important.
The durational aspect to the project has also heightened my awareness of seasonal cycles, and thinking through how ecosystems are responding to climate change has become key to how I objectify this artwork. Do the images of of ephemeral measure signify a future so strange? As this is more-or-less a two year project, my understanding of the work is increasingly aligning with applications of the word ‘biennial’, both in the cycle of nature and in the context of the art world–Biennial: of a plant, taking two years to grow from seed to fruition and die; art world, an exhibition of contemporary art taking place every two years. I have also been increasingly acknowledging the Celtic Calendar and various other dates of significance in the project’s actions, and how these could influence the project heading into year two.
This publication is itself an artistic outcome and a way for me to process the volume of images that I have collected. It exists in opposition to the distillation process of global research projects such as PhenoCam (the process of storing huge amounts of imagery in big data centres year upon year in order to publish pockets of research is questionable). These very printed pages, in their knowledge that artists’ books have a lifespan, revolt against global systems of infinite collection.
In its current usage, the term ‘remote sensing’ generally refers to the use of satellite or aircraft-based sensor technologies to detect and classify objects on Earth. Unlike conventional remote sensing, near-surface remote sensing via cameras provides imagery that is continuous in time, free of contamination by clouds, and not requiring correction for atmospheric effects.
Steyerl Hito (2011), In Free Fall: A Thought Experiment on Vertical Perspective, eflux journal, issue 24
Gabrys Jennifer (2016), Program Earth: Environmental Sensing Technology and the Making of a Computational Planet, University of Minnesota Press, pg. 69
Bratton Benjamin H. (2016), The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty, MIT Press, pg. 277
Gabrys Jennifer (2018), Becoming Planetary, eflux Architecture journal Accumulation
https://phenocam.nau.edu
Donnelly Alison (2013) Ireland’s National Phenology Network (IE-NPN), Climate Change Research Programme 2006–2013, Environmental Protection Agency https://www.epa.ie/publications/research/climate-change/CCRP_23_web_updated.pdf
Japan’s indigenous religion Shintō considers kami – deities, divinities, spirits or phenomena – to inhabit all things and hence referred to animistic.
Teleconnections are recurring and persistent, large-scale patterns of atmosphere pressure anomalies that link climate in areas that are far away from each other.
