Matterflow 00-SNS - ‘Haptic Oscillations’ merges two practices developed during this summer’s Collaborative Exchange Residency supported by the LSC and The Glens Centre. The works include sound, performance, projection and kinetic reel to reel works developed together over conversations and field recordings by installation artist, Gail Mahon and sound artist, Aengus Friel.
New experimental works, amplify the material, animist and ecological conditions responding to cave ecology and sensory feedback from Pollnagollum and Boho cave recordings. Touch and sound become a central focus, where unseen bio-ecological narratives touch upon the Pythagorean four becomings; mineral, vegetable, animal and human, are subject to balance, discord within somatic space. The works activate primal breathing, repetitive movement, reboots our nervous system and amplifies the silences arising from the centre of our bones. The works are fragmented, they are soundscapes with industrialist rhythms, a suspension of temporal pasts. Durational elements remain as afterimages of a post-psychedelic fade. Cave archaeology suggests we evolved with darkness; we seek darkness and that it is part of our nature, our make-up. In our technological epoch, we ask if an earth reboot will lead to new sensory priorities, realigning towards our need for growth without light.
During Culture Night, 2021, there took place a live and improvised performance between the artists. A sound-object interaction table with Playtronicia device and the reel-to-reel audio-visual installation captured the many beginnings, looping conversations and new creative potentials between the artists.
Gail Mahon
Gail Mahon is an artist, research practitioner and educator; who works from a studio in Causeway Coast of Northern Ireland. Mahon holds a Master’s degree from the Royal College of Art, London and visiting lecturer at Ulster University. Her practice extends the notion of materiality through the body via installation, performance, photography collaborations and time-based processes often wider practice conversations through interdisciplinary collaborations.
Shortlisted for the V&A ceramics residency 2016. Recipient of Arts Council Northern Ireland SIAP Award 2015, 2012 and 2009. Founder of CAAKE (Collaborative Art and Kinetic Environments), that develops public interventions, exhibitions and active research activities in expanded Art, Material and Performance practice and residencies in Northern Ireland
Her works have been exhibited in Ireland, Italy, U.K, and China. Recent shows include Litumustone InVit(r)o at Verbal Arts Centre, Derry-Londonderry, In Search of the Vernacular, Thameside Studios Gallery, London, and Dissolving Histories: New Narratives, Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast and performances during ECHO ECHO Dance Theatre Festival, 2019.
Aengus Friel
Aengus Friel is an Electronic/Ambient music producer and artist under the alias 'Shammen Delly', from deep within the hills of Co.Donegal. Performs and produces live events throughout Ireland. Recent events have included the addition of film and reworked found imagery along with experimental live performances, at ‘220 Volts’ event curated by Northern Lights Project, Cultúrlann Uí Chanáin, Derry City 2019.
Friel also works site specifically and collaboratively to create unique immersive experiences. 2017 Friel collaborated in live event in Templebawn Cave. Aengus Friel worked with Tim Holehouse who performed - dressed as a druid - throat singing to accompany the natural acoustics of the cave. Friel used a series of ambient loops and rhythms emitting sound from a battery powered amp to produce densely hypnotic, ambient soundscapes for an invited amount of people to witness this event in Fermanagh.
The residency was also supported by Arts Council of Ireland and Leitrim County Council.
Matterflow 00-SNS - ‘Haptic Oscillations’ Curator, Sean O’Reilly 2021