The Hearth

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Installation images courtesy Hazeline Photography (Hazel Fitzpatrick).

The Hearth, is an audio-visual installation work made specifically for the exhibition Stories to Wake Up With, curated by Moran Been-noon.

This show is a part of the Act series, an ongoing digital art project designed by Moran to encourage criticism of contemporary politics. The exhibit, originally entitled Re Act is an expansion of this concept, and is part of a curatorial residency at The Market Studios in Dublin, Ireland.

The original Act project included the development of five digital ‘tools’ or ‘guides’, which were then applied to political content to create artwork. Artists were invited to use the tools created for the Act series for production/inspiration/objects of critique to generate artwork, with no limitation on creative language or genre.

The video and audio were presented as three separate channels.  Visitors entering the space first encountered audio Channel 1, a male Irish voice reading the current Irish Constitution.  Moving further into the room audio Channel 2 comes to the fore and the projection of a fire in a hearth on an electric heater gathers visitors closer to Channel 2.  The installation is set up in a vaguely domestic arrangement of hearth-rug and coffee table.  Channel 2 is a multi-vocal reading of excerpts from Brehon Law, factual information about Irish Asylum policy and Law and excerpts from Merriman’s poem the Midnight Court.  Multinational friends contributed their accents to this piece.  Customs and practices around hospitality,  kinship and connected ness to the natural world are the focus of the work.

This is a sample of the audio to give a sense of the piece:  The Hearth excerpt, 7mins 30sec

Listen on headphones for best experience, as Channels 1 & 2 are presented separately in R & L earphones.

Thanks to curator Moran Been-noon for the impetus and support to develop this piece and to – Diana Caramaschi; Matthew Darragh; Ewa Miernik; Ndumiso Mhlanga (D-Snipe) and Dave Murphy and Martin Narrendorp (Ras Tinny) and Moran for lending their wonderful voices to the audio.

After Completion

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Documentation of A Group Performance in response to the Legs Foundation for the Translation of Things / Library on Fri 5 Oct, 2012 @ Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda.  Photos by Jimmy Weldon, courtesy the Highlanes Gallery

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After Completion involved 9 performers in a ritual action exploring our innate instinct to bear together.  The piece was developed in response to my interest in accounts of mysticism within the LFTT Library.  My thanks to artist Helen Horgan and Aoife Ruane and staff at the Highlanes Gallery for the opportunity to realise this work and to my fellow performers: Irene Bagnall; Catherine Barragry; Vivienne Byrne; Jessica Foley; Joan Healy; Aoife McKeon; Deirdre Morrissey and Grainne Rafferty.

Interpreting a Chinese shamanic ritual, the repeated movement in After Completion traced the line between ying and yang. This ritual predates the i Ching but is connected to the 63rd Hexagram which signifies climax and completion, a state which hovers on the edge of chaos, a state which requires care and attention to maintain.

The i Ching was codified and developed by a number of Chinese philosophers during a time of strife and crisis in Chinese history. I am interested in the potential of the i Ching as a process of chance and ritual questioning, which taps into our own internal resources to decipher its’ advice.

”That thou mayest attain to that which thou knowest not, thou must go through that which thou knowest not.”  St John of the Cross Pg. 215 in Mystical Phenomena, Compared with other Human and Diabolical Counterfeits by Mgr. Albert Farges, 1926 (a volume from the LFTT Library)

Monica Flynn, Oct 2012

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