Digital Hub, Dublin. (9th June - 17th June 2006)
In November 2005 I was in Athens to make an extensive study of the Acropolis and its surrounding area. Overwhelmed by the number of tourists on and around the site, I decided to abandon my intended work schedule, and myself become a tourist for a day. I used a video camera to document the location viewing everything, as it were, through the eyes of a tourist.
Prompted by a question raised by Mick Wilson* relating to the role of the tourist and identity in my work, the footage from this one-day exercise, became the starting point for my installation.
To date my work has sought to visually explore spaces or locations from a distinctly social, historical or personal perspective. The installation here presented attempts to read and interpret a space under all of these headings, simultaneously.
It attempts to unravel the layered interpretations and multiple readings of a given place in an attempt to reveal its hidden spirit, the genius loci .
My project emerges from a two-year investigation into Topophilia . Images of topophilia are derived from the surrounding reality: people pay attention to those aspects of the environment that command awe, promise support or fulfillment in the context of their lives' purpose...
Two monolith-like structures stand like sentinels or witnesses conveying a sense of threshold, entering inwards through the mind's eye. The moving images projected onto either pillar act on each other evoking by calculated and chance juxtapositions, paradoxes intended and paradoxes that take us by surprise. The social, historical and personal viewpoints take on a new identity that exist in a space and in a time, both real and virtual.
