Martina O'Brien is a visual artist whose work thinks about
climate change
, data production, and different ways of
sensing
environments. Martina's project of ephemeral measure (2021-ongoing) involves installing and maintaining digital cameras at a range of sites in County Kildare – including a forest
plantation
– in an effort to counter the lack of phenological monitoring in Ireland. In contrast to the large open-data infrastructure of international projects such as the PhenoCam network, the production, purpose, storage, and use of data in of ephemeral measure is more contingent, "inconsistent and volatile" (O'Brien 2022). Noting the embodied efforts of maintaining a network and the energy-intensivity of cloud-based storage systems for accumulating data, O'Brien shares elements of the project through more low-tech methods, including 'walkshops' with community members and artist publications.
Leaving space for glitch, error, and blur, of ephemeral measure calls attention to the physical processes, material contingencies and indeterminacies underpinning
remote sensing
and the making of phenological data in changing environments. While similar to PhenoCam in suggesting the need for more phenological data in the context of climate change, the project also prompts us to question how, why, and where data are amassed and accumulated, and the spaces, relationships, and knowledges that are produced through these processes.