One last call - Almost surprised to hear a signal come through. The ringing music of the APT cascading down the waterfall. A warm, heavy atmosphere in the grey morning - new discussions of drought in the news. How does one write for an ending such as this? NOAA 19 is a source of static now, but the older 15 carries on - officially on its last day. I want to write something that feels up to the occasion, something that draws together the technology, the politics, the science, the history, the Earth itself - to acknowledge the conjunction of processes, human and more-than-human, that come together for an instrument such as this, and which will flow into new configurations after today. I don’t trust myself for this task - preferring to let the clouds above, the passing wind, and the (unsteady) antenna, do the speaking for me. Their particular registers of being are enough for this moment - and, of course, our attentiveness towards them.
Perhaps this is what sounding out the NOAA satellites has meant to me over the past year or so. We have myriad technologies of attention, and modes of being attentive that are bound up with them. Each satellite pass is a duration that requires a particular act of observing to sustain - a temporary entanglement of various artefacts and processes and practices that all must hold. I’ve been reminded afresh that satellite images are no straightforward “snapshots” of the planet, but always emerge from a period of sitting with it, as the satellite passes and the signal downloads and the picture builds. The data, of course, is then woven into a far bigger durational image, but the act of attention required for each pass feels significant in its own right - as a manifestation of the kinds of attentiveness and being with the world that is needed more than ever.
There is another NOAA 15 pass in 10 minutes, very low angle, 10 degrees. I will listen, but may not record. The act of listening, and reflecting, and observing, is perhaps enough.
I always wanted to get involved in gathering satellite signals, but the Open Weather project gave me the inspiration and guidance to do so - for that I am very grateful.