Ruth Niamh Clinton Moriarty

This deconstructed TV show hopes to answer the questions posed by the Gallery 3: Artists’ Eye programme: what are we doing, reading, listening to or looking forward to in our (suddenly remote) collaborative practice during the coronavirus pandemic. This project was released as pages of a script and 1 minute video ‘acts’ over 5 days.

By basing a story along the train-journey from Sligo to Dublin, we are attempting to collapse the distance between our respective homes. On board the train, a cast of characters forms a transient ‘Model Town’, to reflect the localised patterns of the lockdown, the role of the public services in the current moment, and the cooperation of individuals for the benefit of their community.

We are considering what it can mean to be a ‘model citizen’ at a time when we have a transitional government, police are granted extra powers, laws north and south of the border are at odds, and experiences of the pandemic are disproportionately affected by living situation, economic status, mental health and citizenship. Concurrently, we are thinking of the other kind of model life that is happening at home, in which members of a household now must come together as a family in isolation from the world outside, sometimes enacting the online performance of a 'model' life i.e. being productive, creative and healthy. Cliffhangers in the text acknowledge the serial format of our presentation (with a nod to TV cliffhangers) and reflect the state of suspense that we live in between public health briefings.

TunnelVision (2020) 5”5’, 4:3 HD Video Pilot

We are inventing new ways to present our ongoing research project on the Western Rail Corridor. Through this work, the railway acts as a line of thought, along which ideas of western identity, binary political thinking, power and complicity, and ‘Wild West’ film history intersect.

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To accompany this work, on the 25 June at 6pm, three archival videos and a music set list (linked below) were screened live on our TunnelVision TV channel: twitch.tv/rclinton_nmoriarty. This remote viewing and conversation hoped to foster a sense of camaraderie, with a tip jar for the Navajo & Hopi COVID-19 Relief Fund in solidarity with indigenous communities disproportionately affected by the pandemic in Utah (where the Transcontinental Railway was completed).

TunnelVision TV Music Set List:

1. Daphne Oram - Snow (1963)

2. Jamie Fox - Moccasin Shuffle and Saddle Old Paint (2019)

3. Sean Ryan & PJ Moloney - The Wheels of the World Tom Steel (1959)

4. Dom Flemons - Steel Pony Blues (2018)

5. Dom Flemons - Home on the Range (2018)

6. Sister Rosetta Tharpe - This Train (1939)

7. Gu-Achi Fiddlers - Cababie Two-Step (1997)

8. Elizabeth Cotten - Freight Train (1958)

9. Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard - No Telephone in Heaven (1965-69)

10. Buddy Red Bow - My Friend The Buffalo (1983)

11. Sister Rosetta Tharpe & Marie Knight - Royal Telephone (1951)

12. The Raineys - Reels (1956 - released by Pavee Point (2007)

13. Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard - Cannonball Blues (1965-69)

14. Our Native Daughters - Polly Ann's Hammer (2019)

15. Buffy Sainte Marie - It’s My Way (1964)

16. Woody Guthrie - All you Fascists Bound to Lose (1944)

17. Louis & Bebe Barron - Forbidden Planet (1956)

    
    

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Excerpts of this work were used in our instructional video for VISUAL Center for Contemporary Art, Carlow: How to make a collaborative exhibition at home, as part of the Cruinniú na nÓg programme in Summer 2020.

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A an experimental sequel titled ‘TunnelVision E02’ was commissioned for Spilt Milk Festival in November 2020 and can be viewed here. This was an audio-visual collaboration between Ruth Clinton, Aoife Hammond, Cormac MacDiarmada and Niamh Moriarty. Stills below—