Ireland’s environment is under pressure from issues like pollution, land use, and climate change. While environmental data is available, we often struggle to engage with it in meaningful ways. At the same time, media visuals can overwhelm rather than inspire action. Our project responds to this gap by gathering and sharing examples of how artists are already using technology and creative design to translate environmental data into multisensory experiences. This includes approaches that allow people not only to see, but also to hear, touch, smell, or even taste environmental information. Through an open-access database, toolkits, and learning resources, we aim to support artists, educators, and community groups who want to explore or apply these innovative methods for public engagement and environmental awareness. Grounded in practice-based research, our project turns existing knowledge and artistic practices into accessible tools for wider use.
SEED (Sensory Experiences of Environmental Data) is an interdisciplinary project, between communications, environmental geography and engineering. It explores how environmental data can be communicated through the five senses: sight, sound, touch, smell and taste.
Ireland produces a wide range of environmental data through monitoring systems, sensors and open public datasets. While this data is essential for research and policy, it is most often communicated visually, through charts, dashboards or reports, which can limit how people engage with it.
SEED focuses on how environmental data can be translated into sensory and experiential forms, allowing people to encounter data not only by seeing it, but also by hearing it, touching it, smelling it, or experiencing it in embodied or physical ways.
Environmental data plays a central role in understanding environmental change, but there is often a disconnect between the availability of data and how it is experienced or understood by wider publics.
Research shows that there is a wealth of environmental data available, and that it can be communicated in engaging ways to audiences using novel communication forms. SEED aims to provide examples of how novel communication can engage audiences by exploring creative and multi-sensory approaches that move beyond visualisation alone.
By engaging multiple senses, SEED supports alternative and inclusive ways of communicating environmental data that can be:
The project does not generate new datasets. Instead, it focuses on how existing environmental data is communicated, shared and interpreted.
SEED is grounded in practice-based research and builds on existing artistic and technical work in this area.
The project brings together and makes available:
Trish Morgan is an assistant professor in the School of Communications at Dublin City University. Her research is concerned with the systemic aspects of environmental crisis, and the communication of these. Her work engages with interdisciplinary perspectives on environmental crisis from geography and communications, and through theory and practice-based approaches. She has completed (as PI) two EPA-funded research projects concerning the communication of environmental issues and the role of communications, including novel practices in behaviour change towards sustainability. She has also been actively involved in two rounds of ClimateTalk, a programme that works with Transition Year students to equip them in science communication and multimedia storytelling about climate change.
Dr Shirley Coyle is an Associate Professor in the School of Electronic Engineering, DCU. She is a Funded Investigator in the Insight Research Ireland Centre for Data Analytics and Chair of the Education and Public Engagement Committee in Insight. Shirley’s main research interest is in smart textiles and wearable sensors to improve health and well-being and sports performance. This involves user centred design, to develop garments that are comfortable to wear, accepted by users and sustainable. As a fashion designer she is pushing the boundaries of novel textiles which can sense, respond and even generate energy. She is also passionate about developing technological solutions to global challenges, particularly global health and environmental factors. Her role as Programme Chair of BSc Global Challenges aligns with her research in sensor technologies, data analytics and IoT to apply innovation and emerging technology to today’s societal challenges.
István László is an artist, lecturer, and researcher whose interdisciplinary practice bridges traditional and digital media. He holds a BA in Sculpture (UAD Cluj), an MFA in Digital Art (NCAD Dublin), and a PhD in Digital Media and Urban Space (DCU, 2025). His work investigates the digital mediation of collective memory and environmental data through augmented reality and interactive digital objects. László’s projects combine archival research, digital reconstruction, and participatory engagement to reimagine historical and environmental narratives.
Aka is a Researcher with the DCU School of Communications. Her current research specialises in the archival study of environmental media and the development of creative methodologies for communicating climate and environmental issues. With a BSc in Multimedia and an MSc in Public Relations and Strategic Communications, Aka’s interdisciplinary background bridges technology, culture, and communication. Her work within SEED (Sensory Experiences of Environmental Data) investigates how environmental data can be reimagined through multi-sensory practices, engaging sound, touch, visuals, and performance to establish new forms of public engagement. Beyond academic research, her work includes creative projects in music, cosplay, public relations and editorial practice, which inform her exploration of experimental modes of storytelling.
Adam has been with the team for 3 months, after recently completing a Master in Mechatronic Engineering in DCU. His technical knowledge is used to support artists when developing artwork. Adam’s Final Year Project involved creating and testing an energy harvesting floor panel. This aligns closely with the goal of SEED, using technology in a way that benefits the environment.
