A Disentailing Deed is an ongoing exhibition series, initially commissioned for the 41st EVA International—Ireland's Biennial of Contemporary Art in 2025, expanded into a solo / collaborative exhibition for Project Arts Centre in 2026, and touring to venues in Ireland in 2027-28.
This project traces a particular line of reference– from the land disputes and defunct barytes mines of the Dartry Mountains in Co. Sligo, to the historic use of mineral barium in photographic paper, medical imaging, and as a combustion agent in green fireworks. Through a playful layering of historical references and the adoption of Edward Said’s idea of a ‘third nature’— an alternative to nostalgic ethnonationalism— two installations across two venues seek to present dramatic shows of patriotism as a mirror image of the state violence they commemorate.
Two video installations across two venues were originally commissioned for the 41st EVA International—Ireland’s Biennale of Contemporary Arts, curated by Eszter Szakács in collaboration with the EVA team.
Expanded as a solo/collaborative exhibition for Project Arts Centre in Dublin running from 7 August – 10 October 2026, curated by Marysia Więckiewicz.
images:
top-
indirect fire (2025)
2-channel video loop with sound
4K 17’ 10’’
mild steel reflecting pool
water and barium sulphate
bottom-
Táimse im’ chodladh is ná dúistear mé (2025)
video installation with sound
HD 10’ 32’’
fold-out song sheet
both images courtesy of EVA International and the artists
cover-
Táimse im’ chodladh is ná dúistear mé (2025)
cropped still image
press:
Exhibition Highlights, Aengus Woods recounts eight standout shows in Ireland this year, Visual Artists News Sheet, 10-11/2026:
“Building upon two video installations originally shown at the 41st EVA international, 'A Disentailing Deed' at Project Arts Centre amplified that initial presentation to deepen and expand Ruth Clinton and Niamh Moriarty's consideration of the legacies of nationalism and colonialism with regard to the nation's self-presentation and its post-independence relationships to England and America. Coming from a firm foundation of research and utilising a variety of strategies - from music composition and the display of artifacts to the replication of paintings arid objects - what elevated this show was the sense of pace, rhythm and choreography that unified each element into a complex dialectical weave, while rejecting overly simple narratives of nationhood. Controlled audio-visual timing and lighting led the viewer from piece to piece across two spaces: a chunk of scratched floorboard from a Cricklewood dancehall; bronze casts of bricks from a Tennessee plantation; and a JFK commemorative tea towel. However, the central work was undoubtedly indirect fire (2025-6), a powerful two-channel video installation depicting fireworks over the White House, their deep, ominous vibrations creating concentric explosions of barium sulphate in a steel reflecting pool below the monitor.”
Art Review: 41st EVA International Review: Come Together, Declan Long, 06.10.25
e-flux: 41st EVA International "It Takes a Village to Raise a Child", Isobel Harbison, 22.09.25
Art Basel: Is Ireland Becoming a Cultural Superpower?, Niamh Donnelly, 26.08.25
credits:
footage: Andrew “Drew” Geraci at District 7 Media, and Pond5 stock footage library
residency partners: Leitrim Sculpture Centre, TULCA Festival of Visual Arts, Centre for Creative Technologies at University of Galway, Galway Culture Company, Solas Nua, Virginia Tech New Music + Technology Festival, Askeaton Contemporary Arts
soundtrack: organ performed by Ruth Clinton at St. Mary’s Cathedral Limerick, recorded by Mícheál Keating
text: Atkinson Hyperlegible typeface by the Braille Institute of America
irish language translation: Saileog Ní Cheannabháin
songbook design: Padraig Cunningham
with thanks to: Francisco Jose Jimenez Alcarria, Geoff Armstrong, Liz Austin, Peter Barley, Alyssa Carpenter, Centre for Creative Technologies at University of Galway, Andrew Dolan, Aoife Hammond, Conn Holohan, Paddy Jackson, David Kelly, Joe McGowan
support from The Arts Council of Ireland and Fingal Arts Office
‘Dreamtime Ireland’, exhibition and research project by artist Sean Lynch at VISUAL Carlow Centre for Contemporary Arts and Carlow Arts Festival, Summer 2025
—
Exhibition Guide text:
A Collection of Disarticulated Bones, 2025
photographs
stone fragment of the Giant’s Causeway in the collection of Dr. Robert Raine and courtesy of the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland
Ruth Clinton and Niamh Moriarty question the constructions and complications of Irish heritage. Introducing the Giant’s Causeway, the island’s most famous rock formation and subject of their presentation in Dreamtime Ireland, they write:
‘Located in County Antrim on the northern coast of Northern Ireland, the Giant’s Causeway is approximately forty thousand interlocking basalt columns, the result of an ancient volcanic fissure eruption. According to legend, or its own “geomyth”, the Irish giant Fionn Mac Cumhaill was challenged to a fight by the Scottish giant Benandonner, which he accepted, and so he built the Causeway across the North Channel so that the two could meet. It is currently among the most popular attractions in Northern Ireland, receiving roughly one million visitors a year. The Crown Estate, a collection of lands held by the British monarchy, is its legal owner.’
Attracted more by the microhistories rather than the main touristic event, three large photographs show recent fieldwork by the artists, finding a replica Causeway in nearby Coleraine, plonked surreally in the car park of an ASDA superstore. An actual stone fragment from the Causeway sits on a plinth nearby, loaned from the collection of the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland, further confounds the situation. Stone has been extracted from the site for a multitude of more unexpected reasons, as the artists note:
‘Fragments of Giant’s Causeway rocks can be found in public, museum and private collections across the world. There is a small mounted column at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, presented to the President ‘from the people of Antrim’ upon his famed 1963 visit to Ireland. Seven enormous hexagonal basalt columns (reportedly once shielding Rathmore Golf Club in Portrush from IRA car bombs) went under the hammer at auction for over €20,000 in 2010.’
Clinton and Moriarty continue to chase – two columns from the Causeway once adorned the entranceway to the British Museum, as detailed in 1809’s catalogue of the museum’s contents. They have since been lost…
The artists thank Mark Patton of the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland, Aimee Smith of the Natural History Museum in London, Coleraine Historical Society and artist Matt Calderwood in the realisation of A Collection of Disarticulated Bones.
—
Frames and plinth painted ‘Giant’s Causeway Grey’.
Installation photographs by Ros Kavanagh.
—
This project was kindly supported by Fingal Arts Office.
A Collection of Disarticulated Bones is an ongoing body of video work, photographs and objects.
This presentation was made and assembled for TULCA Festival of Visual Arts, ‘The Salvage Agency’, curated by Michele Horrigan. The exhibition took place at Galway City Museum and toured to Solas Nua, Washington D.C. and The New Music + Technology Festival at the Moss Arts Centre at Virginia Technical University in 2024.
—
TULCA video series: exhibition overview; artists’ talk; interview
—
A Collection of Disarticulated Bones traverses centres of knowledge in the US, UK and Europe in order to unpick different foundation myths of the Global North: institutional, pop cultural and embodied. This long-term project examines how decisions relating to preservation and presentation of histories can shape national and individual identities, in the context of imperialism, late capitalism, rising ethnonationalism and polarised public debate on both sides of the Atlantic.
Three short films feature speakers from the north and west of Ireland, all sharing stories of community action, united vision and the struggle to authentically remember and commemorate past injustices. Full videos available to view on special request.
—
Image 1: Forty-Five Seconds (2024) 10’54” HD video
Image 2: Brick by Brick (2024) 12’17” HD video
Image 3: Stone by Stone II (2024), a 2’ video-loop, made guerrilla-style at the Irish Hunger Memorial in Battery Park, NYC, to accompany Brick by Brick.
Images 4 & 5: Part of the People (2024) 9’50” HD video
Images 6 - 8: Installation photographs from TULCA Festival of Visual Art at Galway City Museum by Ros Kavanagh and David Finn.
Images 9 & 10: TULCA presentation at Galway City Museum, photographs by Mary McGraw; including 3D printed bricks made in cooperation with National Museums NI and Galway University.
—
Our research in 2023-24 was supported by Askeaton Contemporary Arts, the Centre for Creative Technologies at University of Galway, Galway Culture Company, The Ulster American Folk Park and National Museums Northern Ireland, Project Arts Centre, Creative Heartlands in Leitrim, Galway City Museum and the Arts Council of Ireland.
—
exhibition tour:
TULCA Festival of Visual Arts, ‘The Salvage Agency’, curated by Michele Horrigan (Nov 2024)
Art X Residency:
Solas Nua, offsite exhibition and performance, Washington D.C. (Sept 2024)
Virginia Tech New Music + Technology Festival (Oct 2024)
University of Galway Centre for Creative Technologies, Masterclass (Feb 2025)
exhibition curated by Ruth Clinton & Niamh Moriarty
The Model, Sligo
2023
cover image: poster featuring Kent Monkman, Sisters & Brothers, 2015, still image. Courtesy of the National Film Board of Canada and Kent Monkman studio.
—
—
KEVIN JEROME EVERSON / GRACE HENRY / PAUL HENRY / SEÁN KEATING / MAURICE MACGONIGAL / EMILY MCFARLAND / KENT MONKMAN / WILLIAM ORPEN / NANO REID / GEORGE WILLIAM RUSSELL / TUQA AL SARRAJ / STEVEN YAZZIE / JACK B. YEATS
Taking the modern Irish painting canon as a popular imaginary for a rapidly changing new republic, Last of the Visioners considers how early 20th century representations of Ireland have come to shape our national and diasporic consciousness. Here, key romantic works by artists who were active during Ireland's revolutionary period, and formative early years of the Free State, are exhibited against contemporary works made in North America and Ireland. Documentary-style media by artists Kevin Jerome Everson, Emily McFarland, Tuqa Al-Sarraj, Kent Monkman and Steven Yazzie will commune with the visionary paintings of, among others, Seán Keating, Paul Henry, George William Russell and Jack B. Yeats.
Last of the Visioners presents these selected paintings from The Niland and Limerick City Gallery of Art Collections as a ‘promise’ to a burgeoning nation, and gives prominence to more recent depictions of the ecological realities, partisan violence and enduring colonial gaze that have affected ‘western’ landscapes in the ensuing years. Displayed through a nonchronological framework, works from the past two decades will give a sense of the present intruding upon and informing the past, including a range of alternative perspectives to unsettle the bucolic visions of yesterday. This exhibition hopes to tell a story of the Irish that acknowledges our struggles, admits our complicities and builds our capacity for solidarity.
Kindly supported by The Arts Council of Ireland; The Model Sligo, Home of The Niland Collection; Limerick City Gallery of Art; The Ulster American Folk Park (National Museums NI); The British Geological Survey; Sligo County Council; Fingal County Council, and the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.
Exhibition photographs by Maja Moser.
Last of the Visioners was featured in Mirror Lamp Press, with an original essay commission, as well as in the Sligo Champion and Leitrim Observer (09/23).
exhibition
Hyde Bridge Gallery, Sligo
as part of Sligo Cairde Arts Festival - 2022
Full video available to view on special request.
—
—
In a Contrary Place is a short film that explores the impact of colonisation and American culture on Irish national identity. Through this work, we are pursuing an ongoing inquiry into the construction of official and folk records, and how these can contribute to a collective sense of possibility or paralysis.
Here, scenes from the rural west of Ireland that have an affinity with the US follow a defunct train-line, from tourist sites to peat fields; a transatlantic airport to a basilica. A voiceover performed by Méabh Meir recounts the Voyage of Máel Dúin, a traditional imram or ‘hero’s journey’ that visits such places as the island of the ‘revolving beast’ (that twists horribly, contorting its bones inside its skin) and the island of lamenting men, where crewmembers who step ashore become mired in their own wailing sorrows.
*
Starting in 2019, we have been experimenting with constructing an alternative narrative identity for Ireland. I don't believe in ‘isms’, I just believe in me, is a 'directors' commentary performance delivered alongside In a Contrary Place, detailing our own stories of complacency and complicity in relation to the Irish State and America, ending in a karaoke-style rendition of an original song that follows an absurd epic journey.
Together these works comprise a series of cautionary tales set against the dominant myths we are led to believe about ourselves and our homeland.
—
Images (left):
In a Contrary Place (2022), 27’33’’ HD video excerpts and stills
Last of the Visioners (2018-2021), AV room
I don’t believe in ‘isms’ I just believe in me (2022) performance at the Top of the Town pub, Askeaton Contemporary Arts’ Welcome to the Neighbourhood programme and the Yeats Society building, Sligo Cairde Arts Festival.
—
Press for In a Contrary Place
Adrian Duncan ‘Best Art Books of the Year 2022’ The Irish Times, 26.11.22
Ruth Clinton & Niamh Moriarty ‘In a Contrary Place’, Visual Artists’ News Sheet, Sept-Oct 2022
—
This project was supported by the Arts Council of Ireland and Fingal County Council.
—
touring video/performance:
Welcome to the Neighbourhood, Askeaton Contemporary Art - 2022
Carlow Arts Festival, VISUAL Centre for Contemporary Art - 2023
Solas Nua, Washington D.C. - 2024
Virginia Tech New Music + Technology Festival, Moss Arts Centre, Blacksburg, Virginia - 2024
In a Contrary Place (2022) video excerpts
residency and exhibition at the Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh, Co. Cork
2016
curated by Miranda Driscoll
—
—
press release:
This year marks 100 years since Britain, and therefore Ireland, adopted Daylight Savings Time. The rearrangement of public timekeeping resulted in a sudden loss of twenty-five minutes and twenty-one seconds of Irish time. Taking this temporal elision as a starting point, Time (Ireland) Act tests the possibility of unfolding infinite moments of unrealised potential into the dramatic setting of Cobh.
Collaborative gestures, video and interactive fiction are used to present simultaneous, non-linear narratives of remote (mis)communication and to question the possibility of ownership over intangible forces. Whilst being influenced by the experience of undertaking a year-long residency in Cobh, Clinton and Moriarty look outward to create a temporary confluence of knowledges: distant and proximate.
Works in order of location:
- Cryptesthesia
interactive text adventure game
Cryptesthesia screensaver
Cryptesthesia is another word for paranormal perception or clairvoyance. It is also a play on words in this case, referring to underground caves, tunnels and crypts that can be found in the game as well as the act of testing out different routes.
The game contains much of our research gathered while on residency at Sirius and was the first work encountered by visitors to the exhibition. Players could take time to explore an abstracted seaside village with hundreds of different paths to choose. We compiled our research in this way in order to encourage close looking as well as telling the story of a place in a non-hierarchical order and with multiple vantage points. Here the viewer can act as an agent and uncover their own meaning by choosing their own path through the darkness.
- Flicker
25" 21' HD video
(stills from this video were exhibited as lenticular prints at ‘Historica – Republican Aesthetics’, IMMA 2016-17; Flicker was acquired by the Arts Council of Ireland Collection in 2020 and has subsequently been shown around Ireland, including at Shiftings, the 2021 Kilkenny Arts curator in residence programme with Aoife Banks).
A flickering refrain shows two hands of the artists navigate a circular board in order to evoke sea navigation, remote communication, psychic planchettes and TV noise. An Irish language voiceover, translated and recordedSaileog Ní Cheannabháin, is misinterpreted by automatically generated English subtitles. Videos available on special request.
- Optical Tower
mild steel, HD video, salt water
The tower is a functional sculpture designed to house a projector, modelled on the Spitbank Lighthouse, the former optical tower at Verolme Dockyard and the magic lanterns used by the 1870’s Young Men’s Society of Harbour Row, Cobh. The sculpture was designed in collaboration with and fabricated by Donal Dilworth (National Sculpture Factory and ex-Verolme Cork Dockyard worker) and built using mild steel, similar to that used in shipbuilding.
The piece points to the ingenuity of workers at the now closed Verolme Dockyard (Rushbrooke) and Irish Steel plant (Haulbowline), as well as the blind engineer who built the Spitbank Lighthouse across the bay.
The basin contains seawater and French chalk (used for marking steel to cut) and rusted over the course of the exhibition. The projected images are a sequence of shots taken from a navy boat trip around the Irish Steel slag heaps (piles of refuse, or the byproduct of the former steel industry). The saturated imagery nods to the introduction of technicolour also 100 years ago.
- Unaccountable Rhythms
an evening of site responsive performances by Rachel Ní Chuinn, Ruth Clinton, Isadora Epstein & Niamh Moriarty relating to Daylight Savings Time, Cork Medium Geraldine Cummins and the Old Yacht Club setting.
—
This project was kindly funded and supported by The Sirius Arts Centre, The Arts Council of Ireland, Temple Bar Gallery + Studios and The National Sculpture Factory.
offsite exhibition at Trinity College Dublin
August 2014
in association with The Douglas Hyde Gallery
curated by Michael Hill
—
Wound with a Tear centred around a series of interdepartmental memoranda exchanged between the Old Library at Trinity College and The Museum Building next door. The exhibition also included a map of the campus, directions for walking around and a series of site specific interventions. This work has since been adapted as an artists’ book with 100 Years Ago Today in 2016.
The Memoranda investigated the ongoing deterioration and renewal of the institution’s archives, its buildings and their inhabitants, acting as a guide for visitors, through a Wildean romance. Photographs, sound and sculptural interventions placed around the campus highlighted the growth, decay, patterning, chaos, dust, mould, and the expanse of knowledge embedded within this historical setting.
—
This work was kindly supported by the Arts Council of Ireland.
residency and exhibition at Pallas Projects/Studios
March 2013
—
(collaborative response by Ruth Clinton, Niamh Moriarty, Michael O'Rourke and Jeffrey Jerome Cohen performed on 22 March 2013).
—
Press Release:
A lake formed from an abandoned, water-filled excavation, and the underground course of the river Poddle meet under the pull of the moon in Ruth Clinton & Niamh Moriarty’s first large-scale presentation of their collaborative practice. ROTATOR – an exhibition of video works, sculptural interventions and series of performances and events.
ROTATOR emerged from Clinton and Moriarty’s collaborative investigation of the architecture and surroundings of Pallas Projects/Studios. The works will connect the gallery to the city and emphasise the physical and historical depth of place through engagement with some of Dublin’s hidden topographies. The site is located on an island that is perched between two strands of the living, breathing waterway: the river Poddle. Here, viewers are invited to steal a glance at an otherwise hidden artificial lake, a disembodied tour (transported from the crypt of St. Michan’s Church) and an endlessly descending red-brick wall.
The programmed events will weave together a narrative of local history, folklore and traditional myths. For example, the Giant Balor, whose eye was catapulted from his skull to burn a gaping hole in the earth where it fell; the river Poddle rising to flood St. Patrick’s Cathedral where it flows directly along the aisle; and the Pallas crater that lies south of the Sea of Vapours on the moon, once thought to be a vast ocean.
The site of Pallas Projects/Studios and its environs are the protagonist in this exhibition, as the artists peer through walls, under floors and along pipes into Dublin’s gloomy depths. Storytelling, alongside a detailed research process, attempt to convey the viewer along Clinton and Moriarty’s visions of eternity. Through fanatic acts of resurrection and preservation, they enact humanity’s struggle against overwhelming natural forces, asking how we can look beyond our limited perceptions of endurance. This question is approached in ROTATOR through a mimetic play between artists, medium and subject: signs of perpetuity recur at each level of apprehension of the work.
—
Works:
- Poddle
photograph, fountain
- Lacuna
projection, felt, water
- ROTATOR (.-. --- - .- - --- )
hacked siren light, visual palindrome
- Wormhole
drainpipe periscope
- Spool-loops
2-channel video installation, 2 dv camcorders, 2 x dv tapes each with 2h continuous footage
- Tour(-2)
projection and custom-made screen under a staircase
exhibition at Broadstone Studios
May 2014
curated by Lily Cahill & Rob Murphy
—
—
Territory of Strangers was a solo/collaborative exhibition sited throughout the Arts & Crafts era former aged governess’ home, that also once housed Broadstone Studios. The exhibition was concerned with invasive species and the dichotomy of decay and profusion of life left after a catastrophe. Alongside a collection of photographic, sculptural and installation works was a cumulitive verse poem, projected as an infinite scrolling text crawl into a bathtub coloured with milk.
Press Release:
Territory of Strangers is the opening chapter of a long-term engagement with the Howth Peninsula by Niamh Moriarty and Ruth Clinton. Jutting out into the Irish Sea, at the northernmost end of the DART line, Howth evokes romantic visions of retreat, isolation and melancholy endings. Stories of shipwrecks, pirate queens, secret societies and murder mysteries coalesce with latter-day tales of wildfires, rat invasions and poisonous floral sprawl. Join the artists as they willingly surrender themselves to the fog that lingers over the hill, bringing with it a heavy miasma of associations and references, and inducing a kind of seasick nostalgia. They seek to articulate the contradictory and unstable atmosphere found within Howth’s microclimate through an intense exploration of its myriad hidden paths. Investigation, for example, of the grounds of Howth Castle: home to a failed luxury hotel and suspended between faded aristocratic order and unruly, teeming nature. Clinton and Moriarty are interested in loss of self and withdrawal, and are listening for a weak signal of resistance that could be broadcast from within the thicket. As though from the castle of Sleeping Beauty, its inhabitants alive but imprisoned in a deep sleep behind a sprawling tangle of briars, there comes a stirring; an invitation to come and visit.
On the first weekend in May, the artists will inhabit various corners of Broadstone Studios– a beautiful Arts and Crafts era, former ‘Aged Governess’ Home. Visitors are encouraged to sneak around corridors to find the interventions that permeate the building, filling it with an ‘epidemic distemper... caused by a certain ill constitution of air’ ( 1). Coupled with an off-site event that will coincide with the full moon (details to follow), the artists hope to begin to tell a story that follows countless parallel, diverging and converging paths.
(1) The cause, according to Dr. Thomas Molyneux writing in 1697, of the demise of the Giant Irish Deer, specimens of which have been found on Howth Head.
—
Works in order of location (all titled: Territory of Strangers):
- labyrinth
2,000 individually painted phosphorescent beach stones
2-channel video
- unnamed scrolling cumulative verse text
bath, projection, milk
this work toured to ‘House Party’, a group show at Ladette Space in Peckham, London in summer 2014.
- photo series
photos of fog and landscapes engulfed by invasive creepers
- projection
projected photograph, fog machine, fruit flies
site-specific group exhibition at the Deer Park Hotel, Howth
October 2014
initiated & curated by Ruth Clinton & Niamh Moriarty
*
The Deer Park Hotel closed for business on April Fool's Day in 2014. In October, we organised a group exhibition, a film screening of Francis Ford Coppola's first feature film (a horror b-movie called Dementia 13 shot around the grounds of Howth Castle), and Falling Backwards, an experimental music event inside the hotel swimming pool with Rachel Ní Chuinn and mvestle (photograph below by Hugh McCabe).
Artists:
1. Andy Fitz
2. Daniel Tuomey
3. Sally-Anne Kelly
4. mvestle
5. Rachel Ní Chuinn
6. Ella de Burca
7. Lily Cahill & Rob Murphy
8. Ruth Clinton & Niamh Moriarty (see below)
9. Matthew Slack
*
Our work comprised three short video installations made for the changing room, steam room and car park.
Works by Ruth & Niamh:
- Fog Detector
photograph, projection, mirror, dry shampoo
installed in a changing-room booth, comprising an infinite video-loop of a rotating lighthouse bulb (projected onto a mirror using dry shampoo); and two photographs affixed to a pin board.
- The Bloody Steamroom
5’ video tape loop, hotel kettle, plug timer
5-minute video tape loop (the amount of time it takes to boil a small hotel kettle) installed on a box TV inside a poolside steam room, accompanied by a kettle boiling on a timer. The video was made around the grounds of the hotel, where the underground Bloody Stream appears above ground briefly in an untended patch of land taken over by exotic creepers and teenage graffiti artists.
- Storm-chasers
2’ 47” digital video loop, mini tv/radio receiver, parked car (hotel car park)
2 minute video-loop of lightning striking Howth head, was installed on a small camping television in the back window of a car in the hotel car park.
—
This project was kindly funded and supported by Fingal Arts Office.
installation as part of ‘Amharc Fhine Gall X: Transhistorical Terrain’
joint exhibition with Ella de Burca
Draíocht, Blanchardstown, 2015-2016
—
—
Works:
- setting
250 x 300 digital c-type prints on dibond
(series of 3 - sold in aid of the Coalition to Repeal the 8th Amendment to the Irish Constitution (The Right to Bodily Autonomy) and the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre).
- Frances in the Basement with the Revolver (Spoiler)
2' 32" digital video & photo montage (variable), found script pages
—
accompanying text:
Instead of the cross, the Albatross / about my neck was hung
We all walked across the bridge and when we came to the end everybody clapped. Then we turned around and went back the way we came: through the elevated tunnel, down the pristine wainscoted staircase, across the parquet floor of the hallway and out, emerging beneath an imposing neoclassical portico. Upon exiting the building we felt unsure of ourselves. Should we go for another round of applause? This seemed excessive so instead we just smiled, nodded and shook hands. The thrill of the crossing had begun to wear off and we were left with the sobering sight of a suburban housing estate and a damp November afternoon.
That was our first crossing. We had procured, from a sympathetic insider, the code to the gate that guards the entrance to the bridge—a closely kept secret—and this served as a basis for our calculations.
1+9+4+5=19
1+9=10
1+0=1
1 for the first crossing; 1 for the letters A, J and S. This meant that it should be a Saturday Afternoon in January. Unfortunately, it was October when we made this plan and we were anxious to get going so a Saturday Afternoon in November would have to suffice. Looking back, this was probably a mistake.
The day of the second crossing was to be determined by the building’s postal code: D20 N207.
D=4, N=5
4+2+0+5+2+0+7=20
2+0=2
2 for the second crossing; 2 for the letters B, K and T. We were unsure of the meaning of this new set of letters. T could be a Thursday, but more likely would be Tuesday because it is the second day of the week. Tuesday Bridge Krossing? In the end we decided to just repeat the Saturday Afternoon in November formula, as there were still three of them left that year. There was some debate about whether to continue as planned: not everybody was comfortable with so flippantly ignoring the numbers. But it was agreed that we should waste no time in returning. The next stage of the crossing was to move further in, beyond the first step of the far side of the bridge—the point at which we had politely applauded ourselves.
There was a rumour that they kept the clocks running twenty-five minutes late on the other side; some people thought that explained the faint sensation of jet lag that crossers experience upon their return. Supposedly the circadian rhythm of your body is thrown by the short jolt back and then forward again before your mind has time to adjust to the shift. But this was perceived as a minor side-effect and could be easily prevented given the correct mental preparation. It certainly did not deter us as we once again passed beneath the great portico, crossed the hall, ascended the stairs and paused momentarily at the entrance to the tunnel. With little hesitation we all trotted across to the other side. No time for celebrations as everybody jostled through the door at the end of the short flight of steps leading away from the bridge. We stood silently on the dim landing, uncomfortably close together, but nobody was willing to stray. As before there was a sense of haplessness in the group once we had reached our objective. What now? In our haste to return we had not thought to consult the numbers about how to proceed from here.
There were murmurings of discomfort. A faint, yet undeniable sensation of slow, gnawing bone-wetness began to rise up through the soles of our feet, along our shins and around our kneecaps. Simultaneously, a subtle weight leaned against each chest, causing everybody’s breathing to become shallow and unsatisfying. A dark damp permeated the air. We had not expected this and it was clear that the initial excitement of the second crossing had slowly transformed into a feeling of dejected, nauseous dread. Nobody wanted to be the first to turn back. Feeling dizzy then the group began to sway on the too-small landing, teetering over the edge of the steps and then back towards the way we came in. Of course the question on everyone’s mind was whether this awful discomfort was to do with the clocks. “B, K, T!” someone shouted hysterically, “Bridges Kill Time!” This was too much to bear and as one mass we scrambled for the door, ran back across the bridge, down the stairs, across the hall and out, panting, beneath the portico. Nobody shook hands.
There are various theories about what went wrong on the second crossing. The one we have come to accept is the following: the human heart beats eighty times per minute, or one hundred and fifteen thousand two hundred times a day. Our day was temporarily shortened to twenty-three hours thirty-five minutes, or one thousand four hundred and fifteen minutes, when we crossed over. Our hearts have become stuck in this time lapse and now try to beat the usual number of beats but in less time, meaning of course that they all move slightly faster than before. Our bodies belong to the past, creating a disjuncture in our souls from the here and now. We will never escape the low-level anxiety to which we condemned ourselves; we have the numbers to thank for that.
1440 X 80= 115200
1415 X 80= 113200
115200-113200= 2000
2+0+0+0= 2= B, K, T.
exhibition, Roscommon Arts Centre,
Autumn 2013
curated by Miranda Driscoll
—
- Leaflet
—
Press Release:
‘Crannogs are like black holes in time. They do not share the same limited temporality as us humans, and they have had relevance during longer periods of time.’
- Christina Fredengren, “Crannogs: a Study of People’s Interaction with Lakes”
Hill of Bones is an exercise in cross- dimensional movement that employs video as a means of attempting the translation of this world onto another wavelength. The artists use the camera to trace passages through space that then become folded into the video image, suggesting perhaps the transference elsewhere of both place and body.
With the sincere curiosity of tourists, Clinton and Moriarty investigate Roscommon’s real and apocryphal histories and endeavour to create a reflective response to its landscape. Starting with a retreat to an unassuming crannog, the artists perform an escape to and from nature. These manmade islands, once used as places of refuge, rebellion and revelry, now lie quiet and still. However, the word ‘crannog’, literally meaning ‘young tree’, describes their potential for reactivation as well as their timeless perpetuity.
Two video pieces in the gallery, composed from unfamiliar representations of the island and beyond, will be accompanied on Culture Night by a walking tour of Loughnaneane Park. Using simple techniques during filming to achieve different effects, the artists have not manipulated the footage or sounds in any way during post production. These works will attempt to connect the gallery and Roscommon town, emphasising the physical and historical depth of place through evocative images and mesmeric noise.
—
Works:
- Hill of Bones
18’ 35” Video (compressed)
- reifier
13' 16'' mini digital video tape (silent)
—
Hill of Bones is part of the MexIndex digital repository for experimental video. Videos available by special request.
