Ailve McCormack talks to artist Andrew Carson

November 11, 2011

In the lead up to the opening of Amharc Fhine Gall VIII - Unknown Knowns, curator Ailve McCormack talks to artist Andrew Carson about the work he is exhibiting.

Next week Ailve will be talking to Sally-Anne Kelly and Lisa Shaughnessy.

Andrew Carson

Q: Can you tell me about the work you are exhibiting in this exhibition?

The work in this show stems from my research into the ways in which we engage with each other and our surroundings through digital environments and text-based communications, and the effects these have on social paradigms and our perceptions of reality. There will be two new works in this show, one small video piece, and a larger installation. It’s a bit of a new departure for me aesthetics wise, and one of the first times I won’t be working with text itself.

Q: Your most recent work is inspired by the Egyptian Book of the Dead – what drew you to this book?

For as long as I can remember I’ve loved Ancient Egypt, and have been dipping in and out of reading the Book for years, but never really found a way I could in anyway link it to my art practice. About this time last year however, I just happened upon one chapter from it, “The Chapter of not dying a second time in Khert-Neter” and the spark was born. It’s been a lot of fun to make this work, as it finally combines two of my biggest passions in a way that is, for me, quite natural.

Q: Your current series of work is inspired by a chapter from this book that is concerned with the survival of the soul through the afterlife, how do you interpret this through your work?

The book itself was intended as a guide for surviving the passage through the underworld, and this particular chapter was designed to give the deceased the tools to ensure their soul lives on, through the dispersement of elements of the self amongst the cosmos. I began to see links between this concept, and our contemporary uses of social media sites, particularly Facebook’s decision in October 2009 to allow for the retrieval and download of a user’s entire account. For me, that opened up a world of unseen links between Egyptian afterlife beliefs, and the parts of ourselves we present online in public forums.

Q: You use a quote from the book within this series of work; "I have hidden myself amongst you, oh imperishable stars", which relates to “exploring online realities and virtual immortality”, can you explain this in more detail?

That quote comes from the afore-mentioned chapter that was the catalyst for the work. I really liked the poetic phrasing of one particular translation, and thought it best summed up my research and outputs from the series. I was looking at Facebooks memorialisation policy at the time, and found it really interesting that even after a user has passed on, the data and memories they uploaded to the site, lived on as a sort of shadow-self. This, coupled with other media sites generally used, such as Twitter, Google+ etc, allowed for a semblance of immortality, one that was not dependent on the continued existence of the physical self. The Egyptian concept of death did not only consist of the physical act of one’s body dying, but death in the Egyptian sense was also a separation from one’s social context, so for example, a person ostracised from the community, or left bereft of loved ones, was for all intents and purposes considered dead themselves. In contemporary terms, these perpetual online effigies circumvent death-by-social-exclusion.

Q: You have said that your work is inspired by a combination of “Eastern spiritual and philosophical thought, Structural and post-structural linguistic theories, folk and pop music, and 1960's psychedelic culture.” How do each of these influences manifest themselves in your work and can you expand a little on one or two?

I like tying different strands of inquiry together in my work, most of which stem from my own personal interests. Spiritualism holds a big attraction for me, especially Eastern forms, where the emphasis seems to be more based around personal enlightenment and betterment. The likes of Buddhism and Hinduism for example are appealing not only for their thoughts, but also for their rich visual history. There’s a sense of community, or greater belonging in a lot of religious identities, and that’s something that really attracts me to them. Similarly, I find music an almost infinite source of inspiration, in its use of language and poetry, alongside melody to create a lovely dynamic between being both intensely personal and emotive, and somewhat universal. In terms of manifesting these in my work, I often use particular songs, or lyric snippets to spark off a certain collective consciousness in the work, or to make immediately relatable to the viewer, whilst also utilising it to create an insight or frame of reference for the work and ideas I want to put forward.

You can see more of Andrews work on his website

http://www.andrew-carson.com/

Further Detail about Amharc Fhine Gall VIII can be found here

(SOURCE: http://www.draiocht.ie/blog/entry/ailve_mccormack_talks_to_artist_andrew_carson/)

Amharc Fhine Gall - Unknown Knowns

The term Unknown Knowns which constitutes the title of this exhibition, is the description used by the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek when he refers to the “unconscious beliefs and prejudices that determine how we perceive reality and intervene in it.” Things we know, but don’t know we know, dictate how we address situations we encounter. Obviously it is impossible to know what the unknown known is because if we did it wouldbecome the known known, but the work in this exhibition addresses the theme of unconscious knowledge.

The three artists in the exhibition have explored and represented specific elements of this through their practice. Shown through a diverse range of works, from the manipulation of materials that we know on some level are familiar to us, to the investigation into the possibility of another self and how this can determine our lives, to the idea of the second life and the attempt to survive for eternity, all three artists’ work delve into certain aspects of the unknown known.

With his latest work in the on-going series inspired by the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Andrew Carson explores notions of “online realities and virtual immortality”. This series derives from a particular chapter of the book which was written as a guide on how to survive the afterlife. It was written in order to prevent the deceased from “dying a second time”. The work draws parallels between contemporary social media interaction and ancient concepts of the soul; an idea which many people trust is known to them, yet, it is something which remains ephemeral and unknown.

Through her current work Sally-Anne Kelly is “exploring ideas about who we are, who we think we are, who we become, who others think we are, and who we present ourselves as being.” Her new series of photographs ‘The Hunted Self’ examines what we do not or cannot know about the self. She investigates the internal power struggle of the hidden and unknown self or double and how that can be realised as another or separate identity.

Lisa Shaughnessy’s practice is concerned with the physicality of the materials used and alludes to the processes used by the artist. The work presents ideas of construction and deconstruction. There is a blurring between the boundaries of painting and sculpture and what the viewer felt they knew about these materials becomes a little less certain but the fundamental qualities of the materials are still apparent. These known and familiar materials have been manipulated in such a way as to render them initially unknown.

The examination of this unknown known, equated by Žižek to the Freudian unconscious which recognises the importance of the unconscious in comprehending conscious thought and behaviour, creates a platform for this exhibition to reflect on the convictions of our knowledge and to propose that it is not vital for our existence to know that we have all the answers …

Fingal Arts Office is delighted to showcase recent local art college graduates with its annual exhibition opportunity Amharc Fhine Gall. The show seeks to increase the profile of emerging Fingal artists by giving them the chance to show in a professional, contemporary art space. It may be their first major show but with the professional presentation of their work and accompanying catalogue we hope it is the first of many. The opportunity also extends to the emerging curator who will work with the graduates to create a suitable context to show this work to a wider local and contemporary art audience.

Curated by Ailve McCormack

Video game in a box

Happy Birthday Draiocht

A special recital by Coolmine Musical Society to help celebrate Draíocht's 10th Birthday.

(Filmed and edited by yours truly)

Hell's Microwave

Pallas Projects Summer Programme presents

HELL’S MICROWAVE

Darren Barrett, John Byrne, Andrew Carson, Aoife Cassidy,
Garrett Cormican, Orla Gilheany, Ian Slattery

Opening reception: 6 – 8pm Friday June 17th 2011
Exhibition continues: June 18th - 25th 2011

The first installment of the Pallas Projects Summer Programme of artist-initiated exhibitions is Hell's Microwave. A group show of artists who were based at the Pallas Studios on Grangegorman Road, the title is a humorous reference to the malicious arson attack in March in which the studios and offices were destroyed, the fire having originated from the kitchen microwave being set alight and its subsequent explosion. The exhibition mainly comprises of individual pieces completed by the artists since the incident, with a common starting point of making a piece with the value of representing individual work damaged in the fire. Tragic as the incident seemed at the time, it is generally agreed that on an imaginary Richter scale of human suffering, when viewed on a global social and political scale this catastrophe would maybe register a 0.5 reading, possibly even 0.25 And so, rather than using the incident as an excuse to luxuriate in feeling sorry for oneself, it was broadly agreed that a positive has emerged from the negative, fire has been the cleanser and like a phoenix from the ashes new ideas and work has arisen.

Darren Barrett’s work operates within a metaphysical crevice situated somewhere between theory and practice. Barrett characterises his own artistic and intellectual position as that of a diverging artist and is currently living through what he describes ‘as the intermittently glorious years of onanistic solitude’. John Byrne went to Art College in his native Belfast before attending the Slade School in London in the mid eighties. His early work was Performance based, culminating in his Border Interpretative Centre 2000. He has gone on to make Public Artworks including Dublin's Last Supper 2004 and Misneach 2010. Andrew Carson’s work for this exhibition is part of an ongoing series inspired by the Egyptian Book of the Dead, "I have hidden myself amongst you, oh imperishable stars" exploring online realities and virtual immortality. Recent shows have included Jockeyism (2011), Sonic Vigil, and Shortlisted (2010). Aoife Cassidy's work is autobiographical, a visual diary of personal thought processes and experiences. Combining these aspects, she implements the use of various media and techniques, traditional and non-traditional, to create kitsch and often gaudy imagery. Garrett Cormican is a painter. He makes no claim for his work, offers no explanation and invites you to look directly at it instead. Orla Gilheany has exhibited at Monstertruck Gallery, DEAF Festival, with Supafast Collective and most recently at the Flatlake Literary Festival, Co. Monaghan where she created fantasy and Irish bungalow scenes on bales of silage using graffiti techniques. She graduated from IADT with a BA Hons in Visual Arts Practice in 2008. Ian Slattery examines concepts of stereotypes and association within society. With the representation of familiar images he allows for a reinterpretation of the imagery and simultaneously of one’s preconceptions. He graduated from DIT 2008 with a BA Fine Art.

Jockeyism

Jockeyism

Time:
16 June 6pm- 9pm

Location:
Block T (Above Chinatown), 1-6 Haymarket, Smithfield Square, Dublin 7

Participating artists:

Andrew Carson
Jane Fogarty
Aoibheann Greenan
David Lunney
Grace McEvoy
Oisín O'Brien
Anna O'Byrne
Kurt Oppermann
Laura Smith


Jockeyism is an invented term which describes a playful and conceptual approach to creating a series of diverse works from nine different artists. Each of the artists began by selecting a racehorse name which they deemed relevant to their own practice in both its physical and theoretical capacity and created a piece around their chosen title. This conceptual approach facilitates the collective while also informing individual practices as each artist pursues their own personal trajectory within their work.
On the one hand Jockeyism can be seen as a playful poke at the various trends and neologisms that emerge endlessly within the art world and to which artists often feel they must conform in order to establish their work. To a higher extent the title evokes some of the darker aspects of the art market i.e. the struggle to get ahead and indeed the financial risk or gamble involved in choosing art as a career. Jockeyism is an attempt to undermine this dominant position. Curated by a group of recent fine art graduates from NCAD and DIT who began a fortnightly peer critique group in Block T, this exhibition emphasises the importance and benefits of support over competition. Each participant has created their own rules and experimented outside of their regular context and mediums thereby challenging the pressure to obey convention.

David Brooks: The social anima

Golan Levin makes art that looks back at you

Wooden Mirrors by Daniel Rozin

Jerusalem born, New York living interactive artist Daniel Rozin specializes in making mirrors out of unreflective surfaces such as wood and cork. His Wooden Mirror uses 830 square pieces of wood which are hooked up to an equal number of small motors which move the wooden blocks according to a live feed from a built in camera. The camera picks up movement in light and transfers the signal to the wood. The result is an eerie representation of reality depicted in tiny wooden pixels.

Rozim has built mechanical mirrors of various other materials that share the same behavior and interaction, such as the Pegs Mirror…

and the Weave Mirror.

SOURCE: http://www.amusingplanet.com/2010/08/wooden-mirrors-by-daniel-rozin.html

Book Posters from Postertext

The book posters from Postertext lets you hang your favorite book on the wall, literally. The posters are created from the book's text, arranged to depict a memorable scene from the book. They resemble close to ASCII art, but not quite it.

Posters made from text out of popular classics like Moby Dick, Time Machine, Frankenstein, The Count of Monte Cristo, Jane Eyre, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and dozens others are available. Since the entire book could not possibly be accommodated in one sheet of paper, Postertext often uses text from the first few chapters. The font sizes are big enough for someone with normal eyesight to read the text without visual aid. Occasionally, the poster comprises text from the entire book, like ones for War of the Worlds and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Postertext posters make excellent decorative additions to your home or office, as they are both expressive and captivating. They also make great conversation pieces for book lovers. Prices range from $24 to $35.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Dracula

Moby Dick

The Count of Monte Cristo

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea

War Of The Worlds

SOURCE: http://www.amusingplanet.com/2010/11/book-posters-from-postertext.html

Peter Molyneux demos Milo, the virtual boy

Movie Bar Code Compresses Entire Movies Into Barcodes

Movie Bar Code is based on a simple but amazing concept - take every frame in a movie and compress it into a line. Then put them next to each other and you get a barcode of the movie. Movie Bar Code is brilliant because it gives an interesting perspective into the color palette used by different movies.

As website FlowingData observes, it’s even possible to determine when a particular scene in the movie begins or ends from the barcode, as noticeable in the barcode of the movie The Matrix (above). You can tell when they're in and out of the system.

Below is a collection of images taken from Movie Bar Code. Checkout the site for more.

American Beauty

City of God

Inception

Jaws

Kill Bill Vol1

Slumdog Millionaire

War of the Worlds

SOURCE: http://www.amusingplanet.com/2011/03/movie-bar-code-compresses-entire-movies.html

Book Origami by Isaac Salazar

Claron McFadden: Singing the primal mystery

3D Paper Sculptures by Bert Simons

Dutch artist Bert Simons has discovered a way to create very life like 3-D sculptures out of paper. He first maps his subjects' faces using sophisticated tracking technology and feeds the data into a computer. Then using some special software he constructs the subject’s contour and then print their form on paper before putting it together using glue.

SOURCE: http://www.amusingplanet.com/2010/12/amazing-3d-paper-sculptures-by-bert.html

Patricia Ryan: Don't insist on English!

Why did LOL infiltrate the language?

The internet slang term "LOL" (laughing out loud) has been added to the Oxford English Dictionary, to the mild dismay of language purists. But where did the term originate? And is it really a threat to our lexicon?

"OMG! LOL's in the OED. LMAO!"

If you find the above string of letters utterly unintelligible, you are clearly an internet "noob". Let me start again.

Golly gosh! The popular initialism LOL (laughing out loud) has been inducted into the canon of the English language, the Oxford English Dictionary. Blimey! What is going on?

The OED defines LOL as an interjection "used chiefly in electronic communications... to draw attention to a joke or humorous statement, or to express amusement".

It is both "LOL" where all the letters are pronounced separately, but also commonly "lol" where it is pronounced as a word.

The phrase was ushered in alongside OMG (Oh My God), with dictionary guardians pointing to their growing occurrence "in e-mails, texts, social networking... and even in spoken use".

As well as school playgrounds, words like "lolz" and "lolling" can be heard in pubs and offices - though often sarcastically, or in parody.

Love it or loathe it, "lol" is now a legitimate word in our lexicon, says Graeme Diamond, the OED's principal editor for new words.

"The word is common, widespread, and people understand it," he explains.

The word serves a real purpose - it conveys tone in text, something that even the most cynical critics accept.

"I don't 'LOL'. I'm basically someone who kind of hates it," says Rob Manuel of the internet humour site b3ta.

"But the truth is, we do need emotional signifiers in tweets and emails, just as conversation has laughter. 'LOL' might make me look like a twit, but at least you know when I'm being arch."

Death of the dictionary

But for young internet entrepreneurs like Ben Huh, of the Cheezburger Network of comedy sites, "LOL" is much more than a necessary evil. It's both a tool and a toy.

"'LOL' is a part of everyday life. I use it all the time in e-mail exchanges. It's a polite way of acknowledging someone," he says.

"And yes, I do say 'LOL' out loud. In almost an ironic sense, like a slow handclap after a bad joke. 'Lol' means 'yes, I understand that was funny, but I'm not really laughing'."

But no matter how much irony we cake it in, the L-word grinds the ears of many people over the age of 25.

"The death of the dictionary" is how one blogger greeted its induction to the bastion of English.

While on Facebook, there are at least half a dozen "anti-LOL" groups, where lol-ophobes dream of loll-ageddon:

"If something is funny, 'ha', 'hehehehe', or 'hee hee' is perfectly fine depending on the joke, and more descriptive than 'lol'," writes one hater.

Another complains that lol "doesn't sound anything like laughter. In fact you physically CAN'T say it while smiling. I'm all for bastardisation of the language, but with lol, that thing you thought was rubbish really is rubbish".

Wags point out that "LOL" is almost always disingenuous. "How many people are actually laughing out loud when they say LOL?" asks David Crystal, author of Language and the Internet.

But those laughing least of all are the language purists, who lament "LOL" as a hallmark of creeping illiteracy.

"There is a worrying trend of adults mimicking teen-speak," says Marie Clair of the Plain English Campaign, in the Daily Mail.

"They [adults] are using slang words and ignoring grammar. Their language is deteriorating."

But is "LOL" really a lazy, childish concoction?

When the OED traced the origins of the acronym, they discovered 1980s computer fanatics were responsible.

The oldest written records of "LOL" (used to mean laughing out loud) are in the archives of Usenet, an early internet discussion forum.

And the original use was typed by Wayne Pearson, in Calgary, who says he wrote the first ever LOL in reply to a gag by someone called "Sprout".

"LOL" was "geek-speak that filtered through to the mainstream", says Manuel.

"I first saw it in the 1990s - at the end of emails. Then it got picked up by the young kids. Then it went naff. But it came back ironically - with people saying things like 'megalolz'."

Grandparents, for example, often adopt "LOL" as one of their first "internet words", says Huh. "'LOL' and 'OMG' are like momma and dada."

But many mistake "LOL" for "lots of love", leading to some unintended "LOLs", such as the infamous tale of the mother who wrote: "Your grandmother has just passed away. LOL."

It has also lent its name to some wildly popular internet crazes, like Lolcats, whose appeal spread far beyond the realms of cyber-geeks.

More than funny

So why has "LOL", above all other web phrases, become such a phenomenon?

Because it's simple and multipurpose, says Tim Hwang, founder of ROFLCon, a whole festival dedicated to "internet awesome".

"The magic of LOL is that it's both exclusive and inclusive," he says. "On one level, it's simple to understand.

"But it also conveys something subtle - depending on the situation. It means more than just 'funny'. For example, if I had my bike stolen, my friend might reply 'LOL'. It helps overcome an awkward moment."

For school kids, acronyms like "LOL" and "KMT" (kiss my teeth) are a kind of secret code, a badge of belonging, says Tony Thorne, author of the Dictionary of Contemporary Slang.

"I go into schools and record slang words - all the new terms kids are saying - words like 'lolcano'. And if you talk to kids they will say this is our language - this is what identifies us."

But aren't these slang words also harmful to children's vocabulary? Not at all, says Thorne.

"Government educationalists get all worked up about words like LOL - they see them as substandard and unorthodox.

"But the small amount of research on this issue shows that kids who use slang abbreviations are the more articulate ones. It's called code switching."

If we have a literacy crisis, it's among adults as well as children, says Thorne. And slang is not the culprit. In fact, it is enriching the language.

Diamond agrees: "There will always be a minority who want the English language to remain as a frozen beast, that doesn't admit changes," he says.

"But language is a vibrant, evolving animal."

SOURCE: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12893416