Fionnáin @ephemeral@mograph.social

From November 2021 to February 2022, I have been working on a project about the nonhuman voices that were uprooted from Poulaphuca in Wicklow, Ireland, when the valley was flooded to create a hydroelectric power station.

My work is using philosophy (Simone Weil, Vinciane Despret, Donna Haraway) to look at the unintended consequences of technological development on nonhuman critters in the area.

'it seemed like we were moving closer together' is a 2021 interactive art installation about contact, technology, transistors and critters.

Short video documentation:

https://tube.tchncs.de/w/jqC96Yxu3CnAEx6LqT4vTo

Updated #introduction (2021):

I make art.

Sometimes I write.

My work is about #networks , including technology systems and complex more-than-human relationships.

I create interactive art installations using wood, paint, drawings, light, electronics, code, sensors, film & sound.

I always collaborate, including with animals, fungi, humans, trees, mould & birds.

I try to make my work accessible and with low environmental impact (please tell me if I fail).

My body is in Ireland.

I'm hopeful.

@Mayana Please add me to Art, Described Media, Digital Rights, Distributed Networks, Electronics, Feminism, Nature, Philosophy, Programming, Python, Sustainability, Technology, Video Art, Writing. #Trunk

This leads to installations. I am creating a painting and an underwater system of fibre-optic lights that will be controlled by an Arduino. This ties together the passage of time, uprootedness, mythology (which will feature in the painting) and technology.

With four weeks to go, this is the first piece coming together.

Thinking about erasure and uprootedness, I have been making objects related to this for an exhibition in Blessington, Wicklow, in February 2022.

My process begins with sketches and quick paintings, getting an understanding of the objects.

While I do this, I continue to read. I took a deep interest in the poems "Ozymendias" by Shelley and Smith from the early 19th Century, about time's way of erasing civilisations.

#mastoart #art

Within this area are some extraordinary remnants of the valley from before it was flooded.

Probably most striking of all are the creatures that I call "Snámhaire" (the Irish for a "crawler" or creeping thing). These monstrous objects are the result of trees that have been cut down to avoid snagging boats on the newly formed lake. Their roots have been exposed by the erosion of the flood water.

I learned that the Púca, a trickster figure from Irish mythology, was fabled to live in the King's River, one of those rivers that was dammed. He takes many forms, but in this story he was in the form of a metre long pike, a fish that is still found in the river and reservoir.

I am arguing that this mischievous critter was given free reign to swim out into the world via the electrical system that was established in the 1940s.

From November 2021 to February 2022, I have been working on a project about the nonhuman voices that were uprooted from Poulaphuca in Wicklow, Ireland, when the valley was flooded to create a hydroelectric power station.

My work is using philosophy (Simone Weil, Vinciane Despret, Donna Haraway) to look at the unintended consequences of technological development on nonhuman critters in the area.

After years of working with timber I finally have the technique down.

Measure twice.
Cut once.

...

Curse loudly.

...

Measure fifteen times.
Cut once.

Perfect.

"The need of truth is more sacred than any other need. Yet it is never mentioned. One feels afraid to read when once one has realized the quantity and the monstrousness of the material falsehoods shamelessly paraded, even in the books of the most reputable authors. Thereafter one reads as though one were drinking from a contaminated well."

Simone Weil, writing in 1943, from "The Need For Roots" (p35)