Working across technology and environmental contexts, Shane Finan considers how nonhuman entities such as animals, plants and geologies might contribute to a technological artistic process. This interest has led him to develop relationships with sheep and fungi as part of an interactive process of ‘making-with’ and collaborating ‘in’ a more-than-human art process. As the artist states:
‘Researchers, artists, farmers, technologists and designers have already considered this type of more-than-human making-with…….To reconnect, we need to cross both human and more-than-human boundaries. The textureless sheen of an LCD screen or the smooth surface of a contactless plastic card both only offer a “detached touch”. We don't recognise the work in a single item - the thousands of years of geological evolution that led to this transistor being built, or the thousands of critters involved in its construction.’
For the exhibition at Leitrim Sculpture Centre Finan has constructed three installation (Titles Here?) each using technology in a different way to explore the complex relationships between place, networks, technologies, critters and human activity, and how all these things are linked together.
Exhibition curated by Séan O'Reilly.
Shane Finan
Shane Finan assembles things together into art. His media include electronics, painting, computer programs, film, web art, writing and interactive digital media installation. From Glencar in Sligo, he is currently based in Wicklow. He holds a BA in Fine Art (IT Sligo, 2008) and an MSc in Interactive Digital Media (Trinity College Dublin, 2013). Shane's work includes research and artwork. He collaborates on all projects, most recently working in tandem with foresters, fungi, farmers, epidemiologists, ecologists, sheep, astrophysicists, and trees. He has received awards from The Arts Council of Ireland (2021, 2020, 2012), Wicklow Arts Office (2021), Creative Ireland Sligo (2020), Trinity College Dublin Visual and Performing Arts Fund (2019) and Culture Ireland (2018).