On 26th of May, I participated in the Inferno event at The Shed’s new location of 43 Gardiner Lane, Dublin 1. The main event of the evening was Maria Laura Ronzoni’s Notes From The Underworld, which is a combination of texts from Dante’s Inferno and the work of Samuel Becket, each part ending in a song of Maria Laura’s own. Great show and one for which I was happy to be asked to improvise little musical links from one part of the performance to the next. Robson Jamaica demonstrated the music and dance of Capoiera, while talking about it’s origins and history and I did a hellish set of improvised electro-acoustic noise. With screaming and everything.
I’m working at the moment on compiling and editing the entire video archive of The Shed’s three or four years of events in performance, theatre, music and installation and Notes From The Underworld will be a part of that work but for now, I’ve just got this little video of a not very typical A Room For Improvement set. Not very meditative and there are no visuals.
On the 6th of May, I went along to Live Stock, Market Studio’s monthly evening of live art. It’s informal and workshoppy and really rather cosy. This was their fourth event and featured myself doing the sound piece I’ve been working on based on Genesis 11 7 and the story of the tower of Babel as well as a performances by Louise Ward and Joan Healy (who also organise the event with Francis Fay), who performed an object and spoken word piece called “Ornament and Grime” which was fascinating and funny, Valerie Joyce, who’s action of painfully slow crawling down the street in a powder-blue power-suit drew suitably baffled and concerned reactions from the passing public and really was quite intense and the tounge-in-cheek “Inner Child Workshop” by Mari Jarva and Eithne McAdam, involving the shaping and baking of the audience / participant’s inner children, which you were then allowed to take away and do what you wish with. Some people had eaten their’s before the end of the evening; mine is sitting in my cupboard in the pantry. This was the highlight for me. There was also a screening of American video artist Matthew Silver’s “Overmodulated Marriage” which was unsettling and unconscionably amusing.
You can find a comprehensive collection of photos from the evening on the group’s facebook page.
This Thursday, the 29th of April, our college group opened our show UNIT 30 Something at The Complex, Smithfield Plaza.
There's a nice little review some photos here - the second ever post in our brand new group blog. The blog and indeed the exhibition (in a very large part) were organized by Paul Coffey who has been absolutely legendary through the whole process - Big Ups! Thanks and praise also go to our class' fearless rep Tanja Harney for all she's done for us throughout the year.
There was soooo much great work of all sorts there that well, if you weren't there, you missed it. Aideen Barry was good enough to come along and open the event, which was great; we're big fans.
Here's a wee video from the few clips I captured in-between setting up before the show and drinking and smoking during.
I was unfortunately both absent and, when present, absent minded during a lot of the post-opening celebrations and, indeed, work. The reason being that I was distracted by the looming performance of a brand new piece of story-telling the next night, Friday at the Dublin Art Mill, as part of the Misfits show curated by Patryk Starzykowski and Niamh Murphy. In the end, I had a great time. The performances were varied and super-facinating from start to finish.
Joan Healy's Cyberskin must be experienced to be believed. It's simply a miracle of modern technology. Any more info will ruin the surprise should you ever have the chance to catch this performance. Elizabeth Cleary's Box was a grippingly performed, deceptively simple, object-based narrative performance. Tracy Martin and Sadie Ryan performed Papa Don't Preach, an absolute scandal of a performance; it was hilarious, shocking and really thought provoking, all in about 3 minutes. Angelika Schori's bizarre and beautiful human sculpture, Boundries, turned out to be a heck of a lot more engaging than it sounded when described to me. So, try to see it. Francis Fay's Delightful Illusion was delightful and very real.
Here's quick clip of my own piece on the night. I really enjoyed doing this and want to do it again soon, only slightly better. The story is a retelling of an ancient greek myth and a passage from the bible, which are intended to contextualise the main part of the story which is an original myth about our own time, as told from the perspective of an improbable, distant future.
It seemed to go down well.
Related again to the Unit 30 Something exhibition, here's a fun video of some of our college mates helping to hoist Michael Gavigan's exhibition piece Church 2.0 into the air, in-studio, a few days before the exhibition. I'm not there, because I was guarding some TVs at the time. It was mostly shot by Moya Clarken, I think. As I say, I wasn't there. As much as we all enjoyed making fun of him during the process, it's an impressive achievement. Kudos to him and all the other v v v talented folks who were involved in a wonderful show which has made us all very, very, very tired. And poor.
Paul Coffey's informative flyer and map say it all really but, if you need more words to read today, here are some I typed out earlier.
UNIT 30 SOMETHING is a two day exhibition of thirty something artists from IADT working in a wide variety of media. Art works on show range from ambitious architectural and technological experiments to deceptively low key, intricate explorations of traditional media such as painting, drawing, print and sculpture, as well as a host of original approaches to contemporary interdisciplinary media of video, sound, performance and installation.
So, that's it really. My own piece won't really be seen by most people since its a hefty 80 minute video, housed in a small self-contained installation BUT I like it so much that I'm going to burn lots of extra copies because I'm sure everyone will want to take the video home and enjoy it in the same cold, dark, lonely light as the starry heavens above and the moral law within.
I've uploaded a scene from the video here
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The statement available at the exhibition will read something like this.
Spectre (For TV)
This 80 minute video is a scaled down
visualisation of an 8 hour sleep cycle. Narrative structure is superceded by a
form derived from the marrying of the progression of a sleep cycle to the
behavior of a complex dynamic system, as described by chaos theory. The content of the video revolves chiefly
around the creative process and the anxiety of the protaganist in the face of
the blank page.
A Room For Improvement
This installation of appropriated and
combined objects is representative of a philosophy of self-improvement and
introspection which motivates much of my work. Here, I am using the structure
of the room and the inconvenience of the entrance to suggest that the work
requires more commitment on the part of the viewer than many shorter or
repetitive/durational video art works.
Opening on the same night, Thursday 29th April, is the Misfits show in Dublin Art Mill in the Liberties. I'm hoping to make it down there to have a look but in any case, I'll be there the next evening to tell a story at a performance oriented event curated in conjunction with the show. Details to follow.
Click here to download the full Senryu #4 live set as performed by A Room For Improvement at the Last Arty Party, June 13th, 2009. (Electro-acoustic ambient noise)
Click here to download a demo live set of Icarus Crane spoken word, created in the run up to the exhibition in the Market Studios, August 27th, 2009, Bray Summer Festival 2009 and KnockanStockan Festival 2009. (Electronically processed spoken word with sequenced beats and loops)
Click here to download The Chased Train, a relatively radio friendly remix of an A Room For Improvement live set. (Electro-acoustic ambient noise)
Recommended Websites
My class in IADT - Visual Arts Practise Class of Twenty Twelve Y'All!
sverigedemokraterna.de Opposition to the Swedish Democratic Party, an extreme right party which has seen a worrying rise in credibility in recent years.
