A rave to the end of the world
Arts
Where do you start?
Aideen Barry’s epic arts installation brings together so many strands of thought and creative minds that singling out just one is tricky.
Ahead of the show - titled Oblivion - opening in Cavan Town this week Aideen is chatting on the phone from her home in Tipp, and even she finds it tricky to explain to the uninitiated.
“I could be here all day explaining it,” she concedes as the end approaches to a lengthy, absorbing chat, and suggests sending on a video link so I can see it for myself.
The 15 minute video that forms the centre of the installation is visually ominous, laden with black holes, neon lit Aillwee Caves and deserted settings overrun by spikey globes which echo a virus you may have heard of. At one point the spikes mechanically rotate and begins to devour all round. Shot in “poisoned landscapes” (the water table at her home has been compromised by heavy mining) it features Aideen as an otherworldy figure (pictured above) with giant unyielding geometric shards skewering the surface.
The musical soundtrack - which Aideen composed with Cathal Murphy and Stephen Shannon - has passages of fragile beauty, with a menacing undertone and culminates with a thrilling denouement. She accurately describes it as “an apocalyptic gothic dance anthem”.
This was watched on the phone - how it will appear on a mammoth screen of dimensions befitting the scale of the work, in the main theatre of Townhall Cavan is tantalising.
Aideen’s Oblivion process started with her work on the ‘Bunting Archives’, a digital treasure trove containing folk music collected by renowned musicologist Edward Bunting, and originally published in 1797.
“He wrote down the last lilts and airs of Irish harp because Irish harp was on the way out – there were only 11 harpers left in the world,” says Aideen. “The artform was about to die – and this guy was a Protestant musicologist, so had no real interest in it at all, but had this epiphany of: what are you going to do if you face this artform that’s going to die?”
Bunting transcribed the music he heard and rather than him recording the last will and testament of the Irish harp, he preserved a tradition which survives today in relatively rude health.
“We are facing a similar dilemma as artists now of, what if we are the last generation of artists? And who in the contemporary world is doing what Bunting was doing – processing the idea of being the last?”
Her concerns are informed by environmental destruction and climate catastrophe. Is Aideen simply an observer of the end of the world, or is ‘Oblivion’ a positive contribution to environmentalism?
“In a way art is just a different language. It’s a language that’s talking about all of these issues that we’re facing and I really hope I’m wrong. I really hope we aren’t the last generation of artists, but the environment that we are living in right now, where there is no accountability - thinking about consequences in realistic ways - has me very concerned.”
“The role of artists is to present these ideas of dilemma in that language of visual art – it’s not our responsibility to change the world, but certainly it is our responsibility to mark this as one of the greatest dilemmas and anxieties of our time,” she says giving the example of Picasso’s Guernica as one of the greatest ever works of arts.
One of the many tunes Bunting preserved was Turlough O’Carolan’s Lamentations for Owen Roe O’Neill, which Aideen borrows for Oblivion. She is fascinated by the Nobber polymath O’Carolan who lost his eyesight due to smallpox.
“I chose him because of him losing his sight during another pandemic and surviving it. I’ve been really thinking of that - him as an icon of hope when I was doing this project, he really spoke to me, and his music is absolutely beautiful.”
Incidentally she gets a kick out of hearing Irish rebel O’Neill’s reputed resting place is in Abbey Park, and vows to make a pilgrimage when she arrives for Thursday’s launch.
A mesmerising dimension of Oblivion is the contribution of Inuit Canadian pop singer RIIT. She speaks Aideen’s lyrics translated into Inuktitut, and also performs throat singing, an indigenous artform which, like harp music in Ireland for a period, was oppressed by the authorities.
How Aideen linked up with a throat singer is typically Irish: “Her father’s from Mullingar and she’s my partner’s first cousin.”
Oblivion has a life outside of the exhibitions, as Aideen had it pressed into a limited edition record, proceeds of which are going into planting 8,000 trees to offset the carbon footprint of the entire artwork.
“It was an ethical and important thing for me to do, rather than making more f*cking stuff.”
Oblivion opens at Townhall Cavan on Thursday, August 4, 7pm and will be opened by Dr. Laura O’Connor of the Turner Prize winning Array Collective. Harpist Eilís Lavelle will also perform. ‘Oblivion’ runs from Friday, August 5 to Thursday, September 15, 10am-4pm Tuesday to Friday and 11am-4pm on Saturdays.
“Full permission from me to have a rave - because it’s a rave to the end of the world!”