2020

Oilean AiR - Cape Clear artist-in-residence (Sept - Nov 2020)

 

Cónaitheacht Ealaíontóirí / Artist Residency

Oileán Chléire / Cape Clear Island

www.oileanair.com

le tacaíocht ó / proudly supported by Engaging Communities Grant - Cork County Council Arts Office, Comharchumann Chleire Teo, Ealaín na Gaeltachta and CREATE.

Is ealaíontóir í Vicky Langan atá lonnaithe i gCorcaigh a bhfuil a soláthar ag trasnú réimsí éagsúla a bhíonn ag forluí go minic, le fuaim, taibhiú, agus scannánaíocht ina measc. Scrúdaítear dlúththaifeadtaí den domhan nádúrtha, fuaimeanna pearsanta ón saol laethúil, agus dianghníomhartha fisiciúla mar spás ama ina ndéanann an corp ábhartha agus an domhan istigh céadfach mogalra. Mar thoradh ar a comhpháirtíocht scannánaíochta deich mbliana leis an scannánóir agus an criticeoir Maximilian Le Cain, taispeánadh scagthástáil agus cúlghabhálacha dá gcuid oibre ar fud an domhain. I measc na ngradam a bronnadh ar Vicky tá Gradam Ealaíontóra na Chéad Ghlúine Eile sa Cheol 2019/20 (Comhairle Ealaíon na hÉireann), chomh maith le sparánachtaí ó Chomhairle Ealaíon na hÉireann, Comhairle Cathrach Chorcaí agus Líonra Ceoil.

Caithfidh Vicky dhá mhí inleabaithe ar Oileán Chléire, ag taifeadadh agus ag doiciméadú na n-éiceachóras ilchultúrtha ar an taobh thoir-thuaidh den oileán. Ag obair go dlúth leis an éiceolaí fónta agus le ball de phobal an oileáin Michael Prime, fiosróidh Vicky an áit a dtrasnaíonn an fiantacht ar an oileán leis na flóra coimhthíocha atá ag fás ar ghairdín luibheolaíoch príobháideach Michael atá 14 acra i méid. Trí mhachnamh a dhéanamh ar dhíchoilíniú luibheolaíoch, ar chomhoibriú idir-speicis agus ar éifeachtaí an athraithe aeráide ar Oileán Chléire, oibreoidh Vicky i dtreo cur i láthair / ceardlann a fhorbairt bunaithe ar obair shaol Michael, a chuirfear i láthair go príomha ias Gaeilge, le gur féidir le muintir an oileáin Gaeltachta tuiscint níos doimhne a fháil ar a gcomharsa príobháideach ach neamhghnách.

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Vicky Langan is a Cork-based artist whose practice operates across several often overlapping fields, chiefly sound, performance, and film. Close recordings of the natural world, intimate sounds from daily life, and intense physical actions are explored as a temporal space where the material body and sensual inner worlds mesh. Her decade-long filmmaking partnership with filmmaker and critic Maximilian Le Cain has resulted in screenings and retrospectives of their work having been shown throughout the world. She is a recipient of the Arts Council of Ireland’s Next Generation Artist Award for Music 2019/20, as well as bursary awards from the Arts Council of Ireland, Cork City Council and Music Network. 

Vicky will spend two months embedded on Cape Clear, recording and documenting the multicultural ecosystems on the north-eastern side of the island. Working closely with sound ecologist and island resident Michael Prime, Vicky will explore the intersection of the exotic flora growing on Michael’s 14 acre private botanical garden and nature reserve and the wildness of Cape Clear. Through reflection on botanical decolonisation, interspecies collaboration and the effects of climate change on Cape Clear, Vicky will work towards developing a presentation/workshop based on Michael’s life’s work, delivered in the Irish language, so that residents of this Gaeltacht island can have a better understanding of their private but extraordinary neighbour.

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Guerrilla Live

The team behind Guerrilla Recording Studios, a studio under a bridged railway close to Dublin City Centre have launched a new alternative music series called Live From Guerrilla Studios.

The team previously put together The Parlour Sessions which broadcast live from Whelan’s and with restrictions still in place due to COVID-19, they have turned their hand to this once again.

Involved are music nut and media presenter Ray Wingnut, Lankum producer and musician with Percolator John ‘Spud’ Murphy, writer Zara Hedderman on production, sound engineers Stephen Dunne and Ian Chestnut and film crew Thom McDermott, Sean Zissou and David Knox. With design by Gavin O’Brien.

The focus is on alternative music which largely has been neglected by other live streams series to date.

Live From Guerrilla Studios launched on Thursday, July 9th from 10pm. Episode one featured The Bonk, John Francis Flynn and Vicky Langan. 

INSIDE on Triskel Cork's VOD

The Langan / Le Cain film Inside is available to stream on Triskel Arts Centre's VOD platform until July 22nd. 
https://triskelartscentre.ie/events/inside/

Triskel’s latest video-on-demand offer is Inside (2017), the feature debut by Cork-based filmmaking duo Vicky Langan and Maximilian Le Cain. This film is selected as Triskel’s salute to Experimental Film Society (EFS), the noted Irish avant-garde production company, on the twentieth anniversary of its founding. Langan and Le Cain have been closely associated with EFS for all of their decade-long collaboration and Inside is one of the most widely acclaimed films to have been produced under its banner.

Inside is a visually entrancing experimental feature film that excavates the sensations, desires and elusive chimeras of one woman’s inner life. Taking place in the isolated setting of a remote country cottage, it summons a haunting portrait of a woman adrift in a personal reality formed of her domestic rituals and frustrations. For Aidan Dunne writing in The Irish Times, it “occupies an indeterminate space that includes aspects of film, from fiction to essay film, and performance art… largely static but hypnotically watchable.” Critic Nikola Gocić describes it as a “dissonant, wordless and deeply melancholic lullaby in equal measures evocative and alienating, its echoes entangled in dewy spider webs, glued to window glasses and absorbed by lush vegetation surrounding the home of an unnamed, isolated and perturbed heroine (portrayed with quirky, magnetic intensity by Langan herself)… Think Tarkovsky or Sokurov by way of Garrel or Duras with hints of self-denying performance art and you might get a slight idea of what to expect from it.”

Over the course of their decade-long filmmaking collaboration, Langan and Le Cain have created an intimate, distinctive universe built on a striking match between Langanʼs magnetic, often troubling and intense presence as a performer and Le Cainʼs hypnotically disruptive visual rhythms. They have made sixteen moving image works together so far. Langan’s work operates across several overlapping fields, chiefly performance, sound, and film. She both embraces and projects vulnerability, offering an intimate territory loaded with personal symbolism and unguarded emotion. In opening herself emotionally, she creates warm yet discomforting rituals that at once embrace the viewer and remain resolutely private, exploring the limits of what can be shared between people and what must remain mysterious. Le Cainʼs filmmaking proposes a personal relationship with cinema as a site of haunting. Accepted visual and storytelling codes are encouraged to collapse into a more personalised system that approaches moving imagery as an experiential construct open to possession by multiple claims of memory and interpretation. Inside is the product of this ever-developing creative partnership.

Experimental filmmaker Dean Kavanagh brings a unique visual sensitivity to his role as cinematographer on Inside. The film’s soundscape is based on the tension between the intimacy of Langan’s bodily-inflected field recordings and Cork-based musician Declan Synnott’s atmospheric and otherworldly modular synthesiser compositions.

Experimental Film Society (EFS) is an Irish company dedicated to the production and screening of formally radical experimental cinema. It has been called “the most active, prolific and intrepid group of experimental filmmakers working in Ireland today” (aemi) and produces films that are distinguished by an uncompromising devotion to personal, experimental cinema. These films adopt an exploratory, often lyrical approach to filmmaking and foreground mood, atmosphere, visual rhythms, and the sensory interplay of sound and image. EFS was founded in 2000 in Tehran by filmmaker Rouzbeh Rashidi who remains at its head. It has been based in Dublin since 2004 where it has been at the centre of a new energy in Irish alternative cinema. EFS has produced, co-produced, or otherwise assisted in the production of over fifty no-budget or very low-budget feature-length films and 500 shorts. If you enjoy Inside, we strongly recommend that you explore this extraordinary cinematic legacy by visiting the EFS video on demand page where more than fifty features can be rented, and the EFS Vimeo page where dozens of shorts can be viewed for free.

Inside is available to rent for €4 and the proceeds will be split between the filmmakers and ourselves. To view, simply click on the ‘Rent’ button. The rental period is for 72 hours.

NB: For best enjoyment, please watch Inside either with good speakers or headphones. The soundtrack contains unusual bass frequencies that might not come over on inbuilt laptop speakers.

This Rental Package is Available Worldwide

TUSK Virtual 2020 - 10th edition from Sept 28th

TUSK Virtual 2020 - a 2-week online version of the festival’s 10th edition - coming from Sept 28th!

Very excited to be a special guest host for this year’s Tusk festival (virtual edition!!) alongside David Liebe Hart, Rock'n'Roll Jackie Stewart, the cardboard prince Robert Ridley Shackleton.

https://sagegateshead.com/seasons/tusk-festival-2020/

The 343 Vol 1 compilation

Contribution to a digital fundraiser for the 343 Gallery, Belfast.

>> https://the343.bandcamp.com/album/the-343-vol-i <<

All the proceeds from further sales as of 4/6/20 will be split between MASI (Movement of Asylum Seekers Ireland) and BTFA (Black Trans Femmes In The Arts)

released April 30, 2020 

Artwork created by Jennifer Mehigan

Recorded face-down in a lake in Co. Monaghan in 2019

Recorded face-down in a lake in Co. Monaghan in 2019

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Winter Papers at Engage Studios, Galway - w/ Atoosa Pour Hosseini

On January 11th 6pm Vicky Langan and Atoosa Pour Hosseini are welcomed to Engage Art Studios.

These artists are developing a one-off live performance of film and sound for the exhibition. Their collaboration is an encounter between two defiantly personal practices. Both artists intuitively explore the often mysterious relationships between materiality and the psyche. For Langan, this involves the amplified body coming into contact with simple raw materials and rough sound. Pour Hosseini sets the material supports of imagery, such as 8mm and 16mm film, adrift on an ineffable current of memory. Both artists are affiliated with the Dublin-based Experimental Film Society, an Irish company dedicated to the production and screening of experimental cinema. This is their debut collaborative performance and not to be missed.

Engage Art Studios | Churchfields | Lower Salthill | Galway | H91 YCW9
Open Thurs to Sat 11 to 4pm or by appointment engageartstudios.com

Winter Papers at Engage Studios, Galway (performance)

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In association with Galway City Arts Office, Engage Art Studios brings an exciting programme for these cold months ahead - WINTER PAPERS - This season the new gallery in Salthill showcases visual artists featured in Ireland’s leading arts anthology, Winter Papers. The programme presents an exhibition, workshops, in-conversation events and live film and sound performances. The opening event at Engage Art Studios in Churchfields, Lower Salthill is on November 29th 6-8pm with experimental artwork by artists Suzanne Walsh and Jonathan Brennan.

The guest speaker is the multi-award winning and Booker Prize nominated author, Kevin Barry. Refreshments by Cava Bodega. All are welcome.

Suzanne Walsh uses performative lectures, audio/musical performances and text to query ideas around human/non-human relationships and consensus reality, often drawing on the scientific world as well as more esoteric sources. Walsh’s starting point for this exhibition is her personal experience with bird rescue.

Jonathan Brennan is preoccupied with the relationship between digital and traditional techniques, and the values we impose on them. He is drawn to nature and landscape as subject matter and is fascinated by how urban and rural rub against each other in our cities. Memory and place always play a significant role in his work and we see this clearly in his cyanotype and screenprints that he has created for this exhibition from found 1950s film bought on the internet and overlaid with fossil drawings.

On December 14th at 2pm, Engage Art Studios hosts an in-conversation event between Suzanne Walsh and Ian Maleney, author of Minor Monuments, shortlisted for this year’s An Post Irish Book Awards.

On January 11th at 6pm Vicky Langan and Atoosa Pour Hosseini are welcomed to Engage Art Studios. These artists are developing a one-off live performance of film and sound for the exhibition. Their collaboration is an encounter between two defiantly personal practices. Both artists intuitively explore the often mysterious relationships between materiality and the psyche. For Langan, this involves the amplified body coming into contact with simple raw materials and rough sound. Pour Hosseini sets the material supports of imagery, such as 8mm and 16mm film, adrift on an ineffable current of memory. Both artists are affiliated with the Dublin-based Experimental Film Society, an Irish company dedicated to the production and screening of experimental cinema. This is their debut collaborative performance and not to be missed.

On February 15th, Jonathan Brennan will join our Engage Arts Studios Educational Programme and deliver a linocut workshop. More details and booking information for workshops will be available at www.engageartstudios/classes.com

Winter Papers, Ireland’s annual anthology for the arts, is published by Curlew Editions and edited by Kevin Barry and Olivia Smith. It offers fiction, non-fiction, poetry, photography, visual arts, along with craft interviews and in-conversation pieces on writing, film, theatre, photography and music. It will be available for sale at the events at Engage Art Studios and in all good bookshops.

Exhibition Opens Friday November 29 until Saturday February 15.
Admission is free for all events and all are welcome.

Engage Art Studios | Churchfields | Lower Salthill | Galway | H91 YCW9
Open Thurs to Sat 11 to 4pm or by appointment engageartstudios.com