Inhale Exhale – Ecologies That Refuse to Behave, a solo exhibition by artist Fiona Mc Donald, unfolds as a constellation of works where peatlands, sensors, and slow code converge in quiet insurgency. Across the project, Mc Donald hijacks the instruments of climate science—flux towers, CO2 sensors, automated chambers—and redirects them toward ecological intimacy.

Developed through years of durational, embodied research with Ireland’s National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS), these technologies become collaborators, shaped through shared data practices, mutual trust, and sustained attention in the field.

The works draw on real-time CO2 measurements from onsite and distant sensors including eddy covariance flux towers that monitor peatlands by recording the ecosystem’s “breathing,” allowing scientists to trace annual carbon cycles.  Algorithmic works retrieve aggregated CO₂ flux data at 30-minute intervals and translate this atmospheric exchange into the rhythm of human breath, aligning atmospheric processes with embodied time.

Over four years of attending to these daily fluctuations, Mc Donald has observed the data gradually settling within the rewetted cutaway bog at All Saints, Co. Offaly. This subtle calming mirrors the landscape itself, where earthen bunds divide the peatland into shallow cells that slowly refill with rainwater as restoration takes hold.

“Restoration of raised bog ecology takes time, years to decades. Bogs of the past formed due to a unique combination of species time and climate. Restoration projects are starting from a new baseline with more limited species and in our current climate will take time to develop. “ -Dr Noeleen Smyth

Rather than pursuing predictive certainty, the multinodal works listen to quieter rhythms—embracing drift, fluctuation, and the slow recalibration of living ground.

Formed through restored bogs, shared datasets, and slow walking alongside scientists and NPWS contractors, the works emerge from peatlands that store carbon, memory, and breath. These landscapes function as living archives whose capacity to regulate water, sequester carbon, and sustain biodiversity is inseparable from practices of care and restoration. Intact bogs remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere by locking carbon within waterlogged peat; when drained, they shift into an aerobic state, triggering decomposition and the release of stored carbon back into the air.

Across the exhibition, low-power animations, custom-built greenhouse gas chambers, data-driven giclée prints, wearable CO2 receivers, and sensor-driven performances assemble into a techno-ecology that quietly resists optimisation. Mc Donald’s slow-media, small-file methodology privileges ecological time, subtle perception, and minimal energy use. Her coded line drawings—developed in JavaScript using low-resolution datasets—position “small-footprint” media as both aesthetic strategy and ecological ethic.

“We Share the Same Air along with other automated sculptural works, Cloud Chamber (868MHz Transmitter) and Floating Chamber (868MHz Transmitter)  are creative adaptations of the closed chamber method used in the field by peat restoration experts. These works traces a lineage to early eighteenth-century glass-chamber experiments that first demonstrated how plants regenerate air through light. In We Share the Same Air and a series of floating chambers developed for performances at All Saints Bog, the chamber are reimagined not as a sealed scientific container but as a porous, light-permeable ecosystem. Echoing the Wardian case—once used to transport plants through colonial trade networks—these structures redirect enclosure toward reciprocity and care.

The film Bund Walkers / Cloud Chambers, set within the rewetted peatland of All Saints, Co. Offaly, anchors the exhibition in the landscape that generated it—where sensing, restoration,and embodied attention converge within the slow respiration of the bog.

As media scholar Radek Przedpelski writes in his essay : Fiona Mc Donald”s Bog Bodies: Peat-Oriented Ontologies, Moss Media and Gestures of Care

“Rather than staging a romantic return to nature before the ills of extraction through an essentialising metaphor of the bog, Mc Donald’s project stays with the trouble, to paraphrase Donna Haraway’s seminal 2016 eponymous publication.

Data infrastructures are decoupled from their capture by technoscientific capitalism and become a pliable material for art; a transformation of social, environmental and mental energies; a site of intimacy, community-building and democratisation of ancestral rituals.

At the same time, the artist strives for her contraptions and custom-designed software to be lightly infrastructured and ecologically sustainable, for example by using low-resolution datasets and minimising energy use. In development of whole sustainable systems of data sensing, storage, conversion and display, Mc Donald echoes digital eco-activist movements such as low-carbon research methods and small-file media. “

“Mc Donald’s take on data technologies embraces glitch, latency, calibration problems, computation error or malfunction. These are nothing but affects of their underlying infrastructures; symptoms diagnosing fault lines in today’s hegemonic techno-governmentality geared towards optimisation, speed and progress.

Gentle gestures of care invite us to slow down and resist the ideology of constant data driven progress”

The Project is funded by Arts Council of Ireland and Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts (RHA) with further support from National Parks and Wildlife Services (NPWS), by Parity Studios UCD, and SEED project DCU.

Bog Bodies text by Radek Przedpelski 2026

I walk around the exhibition under warm light

passing through zones of mauve, mossy green and yellow

to unfold its worlds upon worlds stacked under one roof

I am unfolding a constellation

trembling in the air, a single blade of grass sitting on a hammock of Sphagnum

mosses encased in a Perspex chamber used for ecologists to measure CO2 emissions

from a restored cutaway bog

a Newgrange triskelion of round Perspex chambers housing three distinct bog

ecologies

one of degraded peat

one where Sphagnum mosses roam freely

one with rows of potted Sphagnum

a tri-spiral of the bare, wild and cultured

a robotic arm seals their lids one by one so that CO2 readings can be recorded

meticulously aligned like the inner chambers of the Stone Age tomb

welcoming the first rays of the sun on the Winter Solstice

a field of sound and a colonnade of pixels signalling to us CO2 measurements from a

faraway flux tower presiding over a rewetted peatland in rural Éire

a life-sized model of the flux tower presides over the gallery space but records no data

I try to find my way in a cloud of readouts, screens, sensors, measurements

dreaming, emitting, converting, rerouting, manifesting

I slow down and synchronise my breath

I dive deeper into the many zones of intensities

I am a body in the bog

one of the bog’s bodies

at All Saints, Co. Offaly

We Share the Same Air[1.1] is an automated sculpture exploring the ecological and atmospheric significance of peatlands as living surfaces and critical carbon sinks. At its heart, We Share the Same Air [1.1] consists of three transparent chambers arranged in a circular configuration. Two chambers house living sphagnum moss ecosystems—emblematic of healthy peatlands actively sequestering carbon dioxide—while a third chamber contains bare peat, representing degraded landscapes. A robotic arm at the centre of the installation moves with quiet precision, opening and sealing each chamber in turn, creating a rhythmic choreography. As the robotic arm seals a chamber, an embedded CO2 sensor captures atmospheric readings over ten minute intervals. Under grow lights the healthy sphagnum moss chambers show a slow drop in CO2 levels, mirroring the photosynthetic process, while the aerobic bare peat chamber highlights the contrasting release of carbon, a stark visualization of environmental degradation.

Bogs are more than geological layers; they are relational systems, processing the atmospheric, hydrological, and biological flows that define them. We Share the Same Air [1.1] extends this notion to include the gallery space itself, transforming the atmosphere into a site of interaction. The CO2 levels in the room are directly influenced by the presence of visitors, particularly during moments of density when human breath will dramatically elevate the CO2 concentration. This feedback loop between human bodies and the living systems within the chambers underscores the entanglement of our atmosphere with peatlands and with our own collective presence.

The installation’s technological interventions such as ultraviolet grow lights and moisture-regulating pumps, sustain the moss in a feedback loop of care and control. These same technologies—born of extraction and industrial systems—are reimagined here as tools of restoration and observation and care.

Fiona McDonald is an interdisciplinary artist whose work has always been at the nexus of art, science and technology. Working primarily with sculpture, installation, print, hardware and code she creates technological systems that interface into the gradual and often imperceptibly changing natural world.

Credits

Mark O Connor for inkind hardware mentorship original version We Share the Same Air [1.0], Fiona Mc Donald original Hardware and Software Research and development version [1.0].

Thanks to: Dr Nicholas Ward UL for electronics & firmware support design & development version [1.1], National Parks Wildlife Services (NPWS), Dr Gerry Boland javascript/mentorship , Bord na Móna, Parity Studios UCD, EFJ engineering, Gordon Kavanagh Rosemount Research Station UCD, Dr Noeleen Smyth UCD, PEAT ECR and The Arts Council of Ireland Project Award.

My current project at RHA Gallery studios & funded by Arts Council of Ireland Project Award explores technologies which read peatland ecosystems to unveil hidden interactions with a focus on the invisible mediums such GreenHouse Gas GHG flux. This work is facilitated by my continued work with researchers from National Parks and Wildlife Services (NPWS) and a new collaboration with a community-led peatland restoration project at Abbeyleix bog. One strand of this work involves the development of a series of artworks which respond to live data feeds from GHG flux monitoring surveys managed by NPWS at Peatland restoration sites. One of the methods being used to calculate (GHG) CO2 sequestration or emissions involves the use of eddy covariance flux towers. Eddy covariance is a key atmospheric measurement technique which measures an ecosystem’s “breathing” , allowing scientists to get a sense of the annual carbon cycle of ecosystems.

My work for the exhibits Woman in the Machine at VISUAL gallery 2021 and Transcoding - The Living Mountain at Talent Garden 2022 involve the translation of a natural system. The work was an outcome of an inaugural Artist Residency in Innovation and Technology at DCU Alpha and Talent Garden supported by DCU and Arts Council of Ireland.

The residency began in the midst of the Covid pandemic: I was hiking in the mountains and reading the seminal book The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd. During this time I was also working on a few new projects, leveraging different technologies. I had been working with a company called Taoglas, a leading enabler of digital transformation through the Internet of Things (IoT). I started bringing the company’s Taoglas EDGE™ IoT starter kit up into the Cooley Mountains and used it to track my position and collect weather data, ambient light, temperature and humidity. The kit monitors and collects data and sends it back to Taoglas Insights, a cloud-based software platform, in real-time. Typically found in E-Scooters, I was interested in how I might apply these technologies with new agendas in unexpected ways on the mountainscape, collecting different data sources to create something quite different and poetic.

The environmental data, ambient light, temperature and humidity was recorded while I traversed the mountainscape and sent back to the Taoglas® Insights™platform. I create a custom-designed algorithm that takes the recorded environmental data and uses it to generate audio and coded drawings. The work comes to life gradually as the received weather data changes. The data driven drawing/animation is layered on a static photograph taken at a sensor data collection point. The system also responds to the collected fluctuating data using it to modulate the frequency of a sine wave oscillator creating a soundscape. In this way, the viewer is given access to different forms of pattern recognition.

Some of the algorithms are more complex than others. I change other parameters of the algorithm to modulate sounds using a set of coded instructions that can be configured to give you a pre-defined amplitude distribution over time, ‘envelopes’.

In other works I recorded the soundscapes generated by data and then used an analysis algorithm called Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) to visualise the sound. FFT is used to isolate individual audio frequencies within the waveform and computes amplitude values along the frequency domain. Using these values I then create a data-driven radial drawing/animation.

https://womaninthemachine.com/artists/fiona-mc-donald

Gateways an exhibit by Fiona Mc Donald was commissioned by Linda Shevlin Roscommon Arts Center for an off-site space at King House Boyle. McDonalds recent works explore live networks & the idea of making scientific data systems more visible. One strand of her research involves developing data driven sculptural works which respond to real time satellite data. Using custom designed hardware and software, these works track the position of recently detected transient astronomical events. These new works incorporate sophisticated handcraft and innovative technologies, fabricated and found materials, knowledge and intuition. After a number of visits to Boyle Roscommon a number of new works were created which contemplate both real and fictional communication systems. A text by Sue Rainsford written in response to these works in progress accompanies the exhibit. #1,542/Sue Rainsford

The work GRB-Locator-Array responds to real-time data recorded on the distribution of GRB Gamma Ray Burst locations detected by the spacecraft Integral, Fermi and Swift. As GRBs have travelled billions of light years from distant galaxies before they are detected by the spacecraft, in some ways, this work lets us look into the past.

The work [1111100] visualizes the level of gamma ray radiation of the five most recently detected GRB’s, versus time.

Once retrieved by an intermediary web server, the satellite light curve data is processed and prepared into the appropriate Hex format for sending to the LED structure. This process, in the form of a data downlink, is sent via the Pervasive Nation network server to broadcast to all gateways across the country. The appropriate device, in this case the LED structure, recognizes the message via the LoRa transceiver and incorporates the new data into its display.

On Culture Night 2018 at Doon Shore, Lough Key people were invited to view the premiere of an “augmented reality” work developed by the artist and accessible via a smart phone app which explores the proposed UFO portal off Church Island discovered by the late Betty Meyler.

This research and work to date has been supported by the Arts Council of Ireland, Parity Studios, Art in Science Residency at UCD School of Physics, Space Science Group at  UCD, High Energy Astrophysics Group UCD, CONNECT Center for Future Networks at TCD, Science Gallery Dublin, Science Foundation Ireland and  I-Form Advanced Manufacturing SFI Research Centre and NCAD, UCD School Of Electrical Engineering, UCD School of Architecture & Roscommon Arts Center

Other reviews & text

Materials Encounters/ Joanne Laws/Visual Artist Ireland News

https://www.siliconrepublic.com/machines/3d-printing-fiona-mcdonald-sarah-brady

https://connectcentre.ie/news/postcard-from-boyle/

This Project is supported by the Space Science Group, High Energy Astrophysics Group & Parity Studios at UCD School of Physics. We recently received a commission from Science Gallery Dublin  & (Science Foundation Ireland) to further expand this work through collaboration with CONNECT (the world leading SFI Research Center for Future Communication Networks at TCD)

This work explores live networks and the idea of making these communication/data systems tangible or physical. This research developed during an Art in Science Residency at UCD School of Physics. My research here focused on the areas of physics, Space Science & Astrophysics Through this residency I began collaborating with active researchers in these fields and exploring the crossovers of our combined experience in use of new technologies, programming, hardware, robotics and digital fabrication. As a result of initial explorations using real-time data from the European Space Agencies' Gaia Satellite and meeting with researchers at UCD, I have developed an interest in the detection and observation of Gamma Ray Bursts (GRB's). GRBs are extremely energetic explosions that have been observed in distant galaxies. They are the brightest electromagnetic events known to occur in the universe.

Space based satellites Fermi, Swift (NASA) and Integral (ESA) detect GRBs and distribute information about their location to ground based telescopes via the Gamma Ray Coordinate Network (GCN). Using custom designed hardware and software our research has focused on creating works which will point to the position of the most recently detected GRB. Space based satellites observe approximately two GRBs a day. Although the sculptures will track the observed GRB's in real-time, these Gamma Rays have traveled millions of light years from far off galaxies. Thus in some ways the works are reminiscent of time travel interventions allowing us to look into the past.

Since light travels at a finite speed, the further away something is the further back in time we are seeing it. Since GRBs are so incredibly energetic, they are one of the most distant events we can observe and hence show the universe when it was very young.

Thanks to Parity Studios UCD Art in Science Residency, David Murphy & Dr Antonio Martin- Carillo Space Science Group at UCD, John Quinn High Energy Astrophysics group at UCD, Science Gallery Dublin, Science Foundation Ireland, the Othogonal Methoods Group at CONNECT TCD, Brian Murphy at Pervasive Nations CONNECT TCD, Neil Smyth at CONNECT ,Brian White freelance Software Engineer, Ultan O Conchubhair Studio 13 UCD Architect, Konrad Dechant at NCAD Product Design, Brian Merrigan at U3D UCD, Peter Knief at Cared.ie ,The laser Company, Ciaran Rodgers at Sirius XT UCD Tom McCormac, Fergal O Reilly UCD Physics  artist Cliona Harmey.

http://www.ucdartinscience.com/fiona-mcdonald/4591561476

My practice comprises of installation, print, and digital media works which utilize audio-visual and sensor technology, incorporating generative sonic and visual content. My artworks consist of bespoke experimental apparatus - which meditate on the dynamics between art and science; man- made and‘natural' systems; the technological and the ‘alive'; experiment and knowledge; form and content. This work explores generative approaches to systems of science and natural phenomena.
Generative artworks usually involve the artist setting up a system which has some level of autonomy. The systems in my work often combine sculptural structures, custom supports, hacked objects, electronics, software, the laws of physics, chemical processes and bespoke apparatus which allude to space travel, science fiction, alternative futuristic worlds, analytical scientific technology and scientific data

Often my works incorporates physical computing technology to create data driven generative systems. In other new work, I use special photo equipment to film the microcosms and tiny dynamic landscapes within electrically driven generative chemical reactions. These HD video works provide a view into unseen microcosms, meditative transforming landscapes in which the viewer is the only inhabitant.

The video works in installation [Lunar Surface] are projected onto and through folded coated Aluminium structures. Projection is refracted and overspills into the architecture of the space. Lunar lander like structures within the space collect data from the environment of the installation. This data is transformed into a real time data driven soundscape.

While this project references climate change analysis of scientific environmental data and our relationship with the changing landscape it also references works closer to science fiction, alternative futuristic or forgotten worlds. Technology left behind on an uninhabited planet with uncertain functions and data sonifactions of uncertain meaning.

Mc Donald's practice comprises of installation,print and digital media works, which utilize audio-visual and sensor technology and which incorporate generative sonic and visual content. This work explores generative approaches to systems of science & natural phenomena. Generative artworks usually involve the artist setting up a system which has some level of autonomy.

During her BA & MSc at NCAD Mc Donald combined her background in chemistry to discover an alternative non toxic methods of etching. Mc Donalds'  Electroetchings, are created by an electrically driven chemical reaction.  By varying the voltage using this unique technique lines are etched ranging from braille like marks to stratified lines to more intense bands. The lush saturations of color, (created using a rollup technique) subtle variations of texture and density of line in these works are reminiscent of scientific imagery, incredibly refined litmus papers, radio telescope images of deep space or some other less decipherable rendering of scientific data.

In Exhibition U-TURN CURATED by Marysia Weickiewicz-Carrol at the Library Project

The installation "Lunar Surface creates" a transformative link between progress and the future

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Images provided by Ákos Major (http://akosmajor.com). All rights reserved.

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Images provided by Ákos Major (http://akosmajor.com). All rights reserved.