Swift Sequential Intimacies
Context Galleries presents ‘Swift Sequential Intimacies’ a weeklong exhibition by Cliona Harmey, Allan Hughes, Paul Murnaghan and Slavek Kwi investigating the Main Theatre Space in St. Columb’s Hall using the medium of sound.
Cliona Harmey’s ‘Seating Set’ work takes the form of a series of differently sequenced recordings using the sound of the on site theatre seating. Cliona Harmey is an artist who works across a variety of media including video, photography, sound and the Internet. Much of her work is about the process of recording, particularly small mutable everyday phenomena.She is currently based in Dublin and is a lecturer at The National College of Art & Design, Dublin. She studied Sculpture, graduating in 1992 and has exhibited in curated shows in Ireland and internationally. In 1999- 2000 she completed a one year residency at Arthouse Multimedia Centre, Dublin, which introduced her to working in the area of moving image and sound. She recently completed a multidisciplinary MA in Visual Practices at Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art Design and Technology which combines students of curating, writing and art practice. She is also one of the founding members of Blackletter.ie an online open publishing system for artists.
Allan Hughes’ ‘Auditoria’ work sets down somewhere inside a narrative of surveillance and counter-surveillance and begins to negotiate a course through our relationship to the surrounding audio environment. The work consistently makes reference to instances of looking but withholds this privilege from the spectator and instead establishes a system of auditory mise en scené by locating the listener in a series of audio settings (5.1 surround, stereo and mono). This not only locates them in the listening space but works to reproduce other spaces, repositioning their listening experience within the diegesis and the technologies that appear within. The course the work takes, aims to reflect our constantly fluctuating relationship to recording and mediated technologies and their impact on our understanding of events, people and places around us. That despite the promises to “bring us closer” they also function to produce a more precarious and detached subjectivity, maintaining a network that constantly keeps us apart.
Paul Murnaghan’s work Time loss recognition for heat exposure in humans (A sound work composed from the utterances of domestic pets) explores connective phenomena within the psychology of belief. Research within this area has led him to advertise his memory capacity for sale (Memorious – 2006) and to publish a contract in which an art space agreed to commission work that no one would ever see (Auto Da Fe – 2007).
Murnaghan constructs mnemonic devices which act as catalysts towards rendezvous, ritual and installation. Curation is a part of this process and projects rarely happen without other people and the generosity of exchange.With this new composition he uses the communicative powers of domestic pets to examine the telepathy of intense relationships.
Slavek Kwi’s new submersive 4D_soundwork ‘Morpheme (Signals from the Outer Zone of Human Perception – Movement 2) on 5.1 system uses recordings of sounds that exist on the periphery of human perception, such as underwater recordings, ultrasound and electromagnetic signals. Composition combines sounds generated from ultrasounds as sonar of bats and echo-location clicks of pink dolphins and other sounds of nocturnal amazon rainforest with signal-sounds from urban environment and inside airplane. The work was created February 2008, Ivy Cottage_Ireland.
Biographies
Allan Hughes is a board member of Factotum and the Digital Arts Studios at Queen Street. His work has been presented both nationally and internationally, most recently for “Northern Bound” at Sla rosa in Quebec, a solo show at the Old Museum Arts Centre in Belfast and an exhibition in the G126 gallery in Galway. He is currently undertaking a PhD at the University of Ulster entitled “Synchronisation, Authority & Duplicity: Screening The Voice”, where his research focuses on the development of our relationship to synchronised dialogue in cinema and more specifically our production and understanding of the recorded voice and it’s inclination to multiply meaning in the act of listening.
Paul Murnaghan is a Dublin based artist and a graduate of the Masters in Visual Arts Practice I.A.D.T. He has exhibited extensively nationally and internationally and was Artistic Director / curator of 5th Gallery at Guinness Storehouse for its existence (2000-03). Recent work includes ‘Synesthesia Sat’ which he curated as part of Birr Arts Festival, Co.Offaly. Forthcoming exhibitions include ‘A line describing nothings’, in May at The Lab, Foley St, Dublin and ‘Neocreedo’ in August at Platform, Vaasa, Finland.
Slavek Kwi is explorer, sound-artist and composer fascinated by sound-environments for the last 27 years, creating complex audio-situations mainly from site specific recordings, resulting in digitally frozen contemplations as multi-channel cinema for ears, sound-installations and soundworks designed for CDs. Interested also in free-music research as part of social investigation and employing the space and any objects it contains as musical instrument. His works oscillates between purely sound based and multidisciplinary projects. From the early nineties Slavek has operated under the name Artificial Memory Trace. He has published 11 CD/LP-albums and contributed to numerous international compilations and projects. AMT works are performed, distributed and/or broadcasted across Europe, North America, Australia and Mexico.
