Interference

O’Brien’s immersive installations are a combination of sculpture, live sound, light, moving image and kinetics. Each configuration is the result of material experiments that often operate within a live state of malfunction or instability. Underpinning the precarious nature of these works is an exploration of the concept of failure, what its parameters are, and its psychological and emotional values. This often translates to an exploration of material possibility and impossibility through scale, engineering, process, and site. Because of this there must always be some element of discovery for O’Brien in the concept and creation of the works and the possibility of using ‘failure’ as a positive and critical space of trial and endeavor that reflects a human drive to discover.

For her exhibition at Leitrim Sculpture Centre O’Brien will present four installations that each in their own way explore the concept of failure and the impossible. These range from the generation of electricity, sound, and even music from living soil sediment, to the use of sunlight to change the morphology of metal. All the works are built around the translation of energy from one material to another, demonstrating the interconnection between things and the impact of the environment on the subject. Using this approach, O’Brien builds a psychological charge into the experience of the artwork, through relationships between the physics of the material and the space of its installation. Although her perspective is dystopian, it is not without humor.

Exhibition curated by Séan O'Reilly.