Title: Go South
1st Class Rail headrest covers, it turns out, function perfectly as langots or loincloths, as beachwear or underwear.
Location: Ballydehob, Co. Cork, Rep. of Ireland & Brighton, UK
Creative Experience
Creativity is an overused, and often lazily used word, and one which is not at all easy to define. Margaret Boden devoted much of her energies to addressing the question scientifically, but that too may be problematic. Creativity has now also become a corporate buzzword. Very limited ideas of what creativity means permits the notion to be instrumentalised, or sold back to those who presume that creativity is good for them. So, to begin with, I am very skeptical of the idea of creativity.
Biography and links
Appropriation and unearthing the absurd in everyday, often dysfunctional, technologies and systems are key activities of mine. Outcomes include photographic and video material, digital as well as substantial physical readymades, and there is a performative aspect to the interventions. Past work was presented in established locations - one early series Contra-Invention was part of the important Les Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie d’Arles, I have been consistently interested in project and off-site spaces, as well as thoughtful online sharing. An Arts Council (Ireland) Commissions Award facilitated the production of new work for a solo exhibition, System Interference, which is currently touring. Philosopher of Aesthetics John Roberts, completed a book in 2022 that riffs off the work: Art, Misuse, and Technology: Micheál O'Connell's 'System Interference'.
Photo credit: Richard Matthews ( @reeshards Instagram )