small change
A conversation between Martina O’Brien
Michael Hill


MH: Urgent social and political issues, such as the climate crisis, rely on individual action to generate a feeling of collective responsibility for change (for example, picking up plastic fragments from beaches, giving up or cutting down on consuming animal products). In your videos in Quotidian (2019), the actions by the observers from the Weather Observation Network feel somewhat helpless in the grander scheme of data collection, and its potential effects on climate change. Do you think that the observers’ repeated actions each day have a potential effect on how we view our climate?

MO’B: The observers’ daily action of manually recording how much rain has fallen in their back garden is simply the next step beyond opening the curtains to check the morning weather conditions (1). Most observers I met take the readings for their own knowledge, or they appreciate the nominal fee offered by Met Éireann. Most have been observing for decades. Unlike the abundance of Instagram influencers who ‘#Take3ForTheSea’ or ‘#GoGreen’ etc., I did not meet observers who were recording data for the social good. For the most part, the nationwide network of observers in Ireland don’t know each other, and the requirements to record the data daily, namely faithfulness to the routine and to accuracy, has not attracted personality types who harness attention toward their work.

Despite the invisibility of the committed observers, the data they collect is commissioned and processed by Met Éireann for an aspiring reason – to predict our future climate. The rainfall measurements they collect at 9am every morning – 0.2mm or more, 1.0mm or more – are sent to Met Éireann by SMS text message each day and also recorded in personal notebooks to be subsequently sent to the meteorological office by post on a monthly basis. As such, all data sent in is historical because the readings taken are of rainfall that fell over the previous twenty-four hours. Once received by Met Éireann, the information is archived and processed digitally. Data gathered from the 500 rain gauge locations in Ireland is amalgamated, giving an overall understanding of rainfall over the past day, month, year and decades. Using this information, combined with data on CO2 increases in the atmosphere, computer scientists such as those at the Irish Centre for High End Computing (ICHEC) Dublin, then engage in climate modeling and create visualisations of climate forecasts (2). With the implications of this future-proofing knowledge in mind, the data supplied by the observers, in addition to data submitted via automated data stations, is essential to Irish weather forecasting.


MH: Ian Malaney’s book of essays, ‘and the wind it tremendously blew ’, describes his personal investigation of silence and its connection to memory and place. Walking through a familiar bogland landscape, he makes field recordings of the sounds of his environment: the wind blowing through long grass, birds chattering, and the sound of rain thudding against the leaves and bark of trees. “What was I recording for if not to remind myself of what it is like for a particular person to be there, in a particular time?”(3) This bears some resemblance to the routine of the rainfall observers in your work. Each day they go outside into their own familiar settings and crouch by the ground, dismantling the copper gauges and recording the rainfall level within. Your recorded conversations with the observers hint at their motivations for their dedicated daily practice. Do their reasons correspond to any of your own reasons for the practice of recording in your own work?

MO’B: Much of my work is a study of something, akin to the observers’ work. It is process-led, meditative, almost an unconscious action. It is giving time to focus on something.

As hinted above, many of the observers enjoy monitoring nature but have an added personal interest in gaining knowledge on the weather in their locality that often supersedes potential grander ambitions to contribute to national forecasting. Some participate in the Met Éireann network because they have outdoor hobbies, such as gliding, or they have work-related interests, e.g. they are farmers and can share their findings in the community.

Somewhat similarly, my journey as an artist dealing with climate-related issues is underpinned by a localised experience, shared with neighbours, of our homes flooded by the River Dodder in Dublin city in 2011(4). Since this period, my work has engaged with different communities and expert bodies to explore measurement technologies and data-driven practices of quantification, (such as ICHEC’s future climate modelling and forecasting). A key developmental phase in my practice was the research and creation of Peripheries (2017), a two-channel video that opened with 41 significant projected storms predicted to affect Ireland between the years 2040 – 2060, and explored advancements in technology that connect the present and the foreseeable future.

Arising from my experience of pursuing process-led research in a science-heavy field, engaging with the human aspect of data analysis and governance is important to me. Quotidian features a range of footage from The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast’s robotic archive, to the decentralised system of the Weather Observation Network. In this work, that focuses on data agencies and their agents, the lens is two-fold, as are the motivations of many observers.


MH: Thinking about the use of the word ‘observers’, at what point do we (collectively) need to take individual responsibility to act on the information we receive about our climate?

MO’B: Over the past years I have witnessed very gradual increased interest in the climate. Wider concern escalated roughly two years ago when, among other factors, an increased number of foreboding weather-related reports were published and shared: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report; and, in October 2017, the collective experience of Storm Ophelia coupled with Met Éireann’s new Red/Orange/Yellow panic-inducing warning system. Video content on social media platforms has escalated, ensuring that almost everyone sees clips of environmentalists surfing through seas of plastic, and turtles squirming while straws are removed from their nostrils.

I could speculate that the point to take action, in response to information received, was in the early 1970s when the independent scientist, environmentalist, and futurist James Lovelock first published his scientific principle Gaia hypothesis; or on 28 March 2019, when the UN General Assembly meeting on climate and sustainable development released a press release titled ‘Only 11 Years Left to Prevent Irreversible Damage from Climate Change’; or on 9 May 2019, when the Irish government declared a climate and biodiversity emergency. Over the past year, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has arguably been the most prominent trailblazer in repositioning climate concerns from private headspace to public discourse.

My path of responding began in 2012 when I developed Knitted Flood Wall in collaboration with the Ballsbridge Dodder Residents Committee. It was a participatory artwork created to emphasise the need for a flood defence wall. For this work, I used data from the Catchment Flood Risk Management Study Velocity Map of the River Dodder, produced by Dublin City Council, to inform the conceptual underpinnings and aesthetics of the public outdoor installation. I realise now that analysing this Dublin City Council document was a key research method that I would apply with even greater motivation when developing subsequent artworks.


MH: With the need for action in our moment of undeniable ecological emergency, has the time for observation of nature passed?

MO’B: The physical signs of climate breakdown suggest that the time of undeniable ecological responsibility is overdue at all societal levels. Correspondingly, the observation of nature remains essential, to foster communities and networks, for the expansion of individual knowledge, for the development of scientific knowledge and, as in the case of the observers, for the advancement of revolutionary weather forecast systems, that I have no doubt we will be extremely grateful for in a few decades to come.


MH: I have been thinking about the copper rain gauges used by the observers, which are becoming obsolete, and how the element of copper has both scientifically proven conductive properties in addition to holistic immaterial healing powers. Does a material like copper help us to stay connected with nature, and is that kind of connection and understanding of the natural world vital when it comes to tackling the issue of climate change?

MO’B: Copper is a commonly encountered precious metal with a repertoire of uses. Beyond its value in science and holistic healing, it’s more prominently experienced collectively as a five cent coin and seen as an ornate roof on key Dublin buildings, such as the Custom House. Unlike other metals and alloys, namely iron and steel, that we also encounter daily but that are associated with industrialisation and Futurism, copper seems to hold greater warmth and earnestness. Copper’s colouring, expressing vibrant hues from pinkish-orange to sea green, verges on being sentient; it is known to be a soft material, so instantly we’re rooting for it. Albeit perhaps subconsciously, humans have an established relationship with copper that is evoked in Quotidian when we see the observers’ hands take the readings, confidently handling the rain gauges on the ground.

I would say that a material like copper does bolster our connection to nature, due to our knowledge that it comes from within Earth, as well as its reactive nature to oxygen and heat. It’s also a material that symbolises the pre-industrial era; times when copper coins were handmade and valuable, when more people’s livelihoods depended on the weather. Although a connection to nature is a valid and obvious reason to tackle climate change, for many people, as indeed was the case for me, the shock effect of realising that your home (physical house/country/ planet) is under threat is the key motivating factor.


MH: Despite the commitment to their daily task, it becomes clear that the observers’ tangible routine gathering of information will soon inevitably cease to be possible. The lack of willing participants and a finite amount of measuring equipment are two main examples. To manage this daily practice, there is a need for discipline to commit to a routine task. You also recently participated in an Atlantic expedition, for ten days at sea. Can you compare this commitment other data gatherers, of various extremities, to your own dedication as an artist?

MO’B: It’s true that Met Éireann have hinted that in the future, some of the 500-plus nationwide rainfall stations will eventually become automatic, rendering the human aspect to the Weather Observation Network almost obsolete.

As you mention, one such example of extreme data gathered by scientists was an oceanic expedition in May 2019 called Monitoring Changes in Submarine Canyon Coral Habitats. The research group’s ship journeyed to the Porcupine Bank Canyon region of the Atlantic, 200 nautical miles beyond the West of Ireland. I was extremely grateful to join the scientists on board for the ten-day duration, on their mission to collect underwater data on cold-water coral, to sample sediment and ambient water-mass, and to complete mapping coverage within the Porcupine Bank. The purpose of this ambitious data collection method, involving landing equipment and cameras in obscure deep-water canyons, akin to a black abyss, is to test for ocean acidification and to assess damage to the coral reefs from fishing trawlers. More than anything, this research group collectively wish to better comprehend the deep ocean. They want to expand human understanding of this cold water living ecosystem, knowledge of which is still in its infancy. Their aim is for their results to be shared with the global research community and to inform policies needed to conserve the corals.

Climate change has been an enduring subject in my practice for eight years to date. In this regard, whilst our daily routine and vision for what we do may differ, my long-term commitment to researching our weather aligns with the observers, as well as with the scientists who spend years gathering and analysing climate-related data.


MH: On your return from the Porcupine Bank expedition, you presented me with a vial of seawater extracted from hundreds of metres below sea level. This sample of water could be hundreds of years old because water circulation is so limited at that depth. The Porcupine Bank is an interesting site in terms of its visibility throughout time, particularly in relation to the Hy-Brasil (5) phenomenon – potentially describing the change in sea level over recent centuries. Of course, there are also connections here to the rising sea levels that we currently experience. Mythology and folklore can sometimes be described or explained through scientific means as new technologies and ways of gathering data are put into use. Do you think the collision of those different types of knowledge, or ways of understanding the world, come into play in your work?

MO’B: Certainly. Often my work processes heavy information on the earth sciences through imagery and narratives that deal with perceptions of time, futurology, or divination (such as Tarot reading) - all key interests within my practice.

Climate Central, an independent scientific body, relaunched their Surging Seas website in 2015, forecasting the land mass that will be lost if global temperatures increase to 2˚C . In light of these visualisations of Ireland, it’s interesting that you mention Hy-Brasil. If the predictions made on Climate Central’s ominous website come true (the website was recently shared by the media, including some online tabloid news sites such as The Irish Mirror), it is possible that in my lifetime Howth will become an island to be rendered onto maps; and Pearse Street, Heuston Station, North Strand, East Wall, Clontarf, the docklands, Ringsend, and Sandymount will become the sea.

The cyclical bond between ocean tide and lunar phases also recurs as a theme in my work. This natural system benefits from both logical and mythological appreciations of its effect on the primal workings of Earth, as well as the psyche of Earth’s beings. In a recent video work I created called B-scope, C-index (2019), I am beginning to explore the relationship between the Soviet Union/USA’s Space Race exploration of the 1950s-60s and, in the opposite orientation, deep-water missions such as that undertaken recently by the Monitoring Changes in Submarine Canyon Coral Habitats Research Group. The mileage in either direction of the horizon is not so interesting to me, but the conditions of the seabed’s “Grand Canyon” holds subversive appeal that sparks the imagination, especially that of John Boyd, a scientist on board the Porcupine Bank expedition: “Sound velocity in water slows down slightly as the water becomes denser…surface temperatures fell to nearly 2˚C at 4500m depth...canyon floors eventually opening out onto an abyssal plain of 5000m in depth……cast in perpetual darkness…the grandeur of the submarine terrain cannot be matched by anything on land...un-walkable”.(6)

This deep-water mission in the Atlantic hints at contemporary signs of the times; rather than pushing the boundaries of humanity’s achievements - regardless of the environmental consequences as had occurred in the Space Race - scientists are now exploring the unexplorable for a different reason, to predict future catastrophes – to buy us more time. Approximately 400 years after the infamous Age of Discovery –> via industrialization --> via globalisation –> via Capitalism -> we have arrived at the point where a primary motivation of exploration on Earth is avoiding extinction.


MH: There are several opposing value systems in your work, (for example, scientific data collection vs. the natural world and holistic living). Coming back to the collection of recovered copper rain gauges in your studio; they are dismantled and arranged in a cluster and, although aesthetically and sensory appealing, they feel redundant. Much like in Mike Nelson’s exhibition in Tate Britain this year, The Asset Strippers, these discarded functional vessels have a poignancy that transcends their physical properties(7). As objects they convey a sense of loss, of perhaps what was once a standard form of labour and data collection. What value do you find in the analogue processes represented in your art work? Is that value associated with ideas of its civic value?

MO’B: Indeed those copper gauges are poignant and it is wrapped up in their use values and the gravity of the end-point information produced, in addition to their relationship to their past owners. When I look at them, I can’t help but think of the observers preparing to go outside to take the data reading, performing to the camera, and to me. In the same way that Met Éireann’s TV forecasting brings an element of human-to-human trusted relationship when relaying storm alerts and the like to the public, the value of sharing the observers in action with the gauges in my work reveals invisible climate change research and humanises the process. My work is also an alternative to written reports. The footage shows that person-by-person, reading-by-reading, the data is accumulated from humble, relatable places. From another perspective, the observers also represent Ireland’s citizens who are at risk of suffering from climate-related disasters.

In much the same way that the observers are familiar, fellow citizens, their analogue process is comparable to anyone who habitually checks the weather outside. It is an automatic action that is both insignificant and weighty in its doomsday appeal when we peer out of the window to subconsciously collect information on the outside world, checking for anomalies to make an internal remark to oneself if the weather is odd: an extra hue in the sky beyond grey or blue; too windy – is a storm brewing?; cold for May; low-hanging clouds that induce twilight too soon. In Quotidian, the footage of the archive, for example, affirms individual aspirations to internalise knowledge on the weather.

The video footage I take also shines a light on the fact that the Earth’s crust and its surrounding layer of air are being smothered by overpopulation. Yet this abundance of people living on our planet means that Earth, as an object, is always being observed. It is here that the role of civic values come into play, as we consider how humans are treating our planet: Is it with responsibility and respect? (8)

As I often engage with groups of people who are directly linked to aspects of climate research for sustained periods of time, such as scientists at ICHEC or members of the Dodder Anglers Association, my work is ever more confidently embracing its position that it is informed by many parties, and in the process these values also come into play in my work.


MH: How does your work advocate for individual and collective action within a system that overwhelmingly favours large and incredibly wealthy corporations (who in fact are responsible for more damage to the environment than any individual)?

MO’B: I make work about our climate as a way for me to process feeling personally susceptible to climate change, as well as, more broadly, to deepen my understanding of the Anthropocene and humans’ impact on Earth. My research and resulting artworks express my reverence towards the atmospheric systems that give us life, as well as the behind-the-scenes networks of people and technology that are trying to predict future disasters.

In recent years, during a time when one of the artworld trends was to make work about late capitalism and financial systems, I was challenging climate denial. To some this seemed like an inconsequential thing to create work about in the midst of austerity, despite implicit links between climate change and capitalism. My approach to tackling the subject, which I still apply, is to spend time with people; their materials and their processes. I break down my pursuit of information to understand our situation: why are there more and more floods and storms in Ireland; how does future forecast prediction work; how do scientists come up with the facts and figures; how do local authorities come up with policies; how climate change news is disseminated. This has been my way of dealing with changes I have observed in the climate in my lifetime, in addition to unnerving scientific reports.

It is increasingly reported that a minority of companies are responsible for the majority of reckless climate-affecting behavior. Even mainstream media is calling out the imbalance of carbon emitter perpetrators, for example in Oct 2019 The Guardian published ‘Revealed: the 20 firms behind a third of all carbon emissions’(9). There are advocacy and activist groups like Extinction Rebellion, who are recruiting, whose chief messages are ‘System Change Not Climate Change’ and ‘Tell the Truth’. Their profile accelerates daily with arrests of journalists such as George Monbiot and protest actions that slow down city life. But this is not my work. I feel more of a kinship with the scientists gathering data off the coast of Ireland, who publish their work. Rather than a report, as an artist I publish my work publicly in galleries in the form of exhibitions; at video screening events; giving and organising public artist talks; this very book. These are my placards.

Michael Hill is Programme Curator at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios and an independent publisher and curator as 100 Years Ago Today.

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1. For many people, looking outside the bedroom window first thing each morning or Googling ‘weather’ on a smartphone is normal behaviour, if only to determine whether to get the bus or cycle to work. As islanders, people in Ireland are often inherently clued in to the weather. The Irish language is abound with words and phrases that succinctly and poetically express the country’s atmospheric conditions, and that sum up a collective mood, e.g. ‘leamhach’: a ‘bright, calm patch in the sea’; or ‘doilneann’: ‘stormy’, or ‘the stress of weather’ (The Water Glossary by Carol Anne Connolly). Water is embedded in our psyche, likely because rainfall is a key indicator of changes in the climate, and analysing rainfall is essential for assessing water cycle changes for farming, fishing and flood mitigation purposes.

2. This is an area I engaged with in a previous artwork, Fifty-Two Years from Monday (2017), a series of 46 drawings made from thread that visually map extreme weather trajectories forecasted to affect Ireland from 2070 to 2099. These weather forecasts depicted are based on the outputs of ICHEC’s high-resolution climate models and plotted in MATLAB, otherwise known as Matrix Laboratory - a multi-paradigm, numerical computing environment.

3. Ian Maleney, ‘and the wind it tremendously blew’, Minor Monuments, Tramp Press, Dublin, 2019, p.19.

4. ‘Dublin floods caused by 'monster rain'’, www.rte.ie, Tuesday 8 November 2011, https://www.rte.ie/news/2011/1107/308388-weather/

5. Hy Brasil is mythological island off the West of Ireland that ceased to feature on maps after the late 1800s. Hy-Brasil has also been identified with the Porcupine Bank in relation to the discovery of the shell of a Common Periwinkle at the Porcupine Bank, also in the late 1800s. The Periwinkle requires occasional exposure to air above sea level to survive, indicating that, a short time before its discovery, there may have been a rocky protrusion from the sea, that is otherwise not visible, or in existence.

6. John Boyd, Galway Mayo Institute of Technology, Smart Sea School blog; Cold Water Corals on Ireland's Continental Edge with the Marine Geology Research Group: An observer’s impressions of CE19008, 5 June 2019.

7. “In his bid to make sense of the moment, Nelson is looking back, not with nostalgia, but with a deep sadness. The past is the past, he seems to be saying, and it’s gone.” Jane Ure-Smith, ‘As Britain Suffers an Identity Crisis, Artist Mike Nelson Laments an Industrial Past’, www.frieze.com, Friday 22 March 2019, https://frieze.com/article/britain-suffers-identity-crisis-artist-mike-nelson-laments-industrial-past.

8. Sites for Watching (how political economy works) (2017) is a video artwork that processes such links between people and their observations. The footage focuses on Johnstown Castle in Co. Wexford, a highly monitored space that is home to three research operations: Johnstown Castle Dairy - Teagasc’s research dairy Farm, Environment Research Centre for soils, air, water quality and agro-ecology, and Met Éireann’s Johnstown Synoptic Automatic Weather Station.

9. Matthew Taylor and Jonathan Watts, ‘Revealed: the 20 firms behind a third of all carbon emissions’, www.theguardian.com, Wednesday 9 October 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/09/revealed-20-firms-third-carbon-emissions.