ciara Killalea

Untitled

2011-08-23T12:13:00.000-07:00

Bar-Tur Award 2011

2011-08-18T13:16:00.000-07:00

I was lucky enough to be shortlisted for the Lifestyle category of the 2011 Bar-Tur Award. Alas the competition was stiff and I did not win.

Check out the winners.

Sunday

2011-07-24T13:44:00.000-07:00

Portraits

2011-06-30T12:07:00.000-07:00

Loving Teddy

2011-06-24T06:57:00.000-07:00

Untitled

2011-06-19T06:46:00.000-07:00

"Memory is not an instrument for exploring the past but its theatre. It is the medium of past experience, as the ground is the medium in which dead cities lie interred."

-Walter Benjamin

Untitled

2011-06-18T14:20:00.000-07:00

Magic Tricks

2011-06-18T12:31:00.000-07:00

I've always thought that photography showing light sources, are like a magician revealing how his illusions work. Once you know the trick some of the magic disappears.

A little while ago . .

2011-06-10T08:48:00.000-07:00

A Discovery:

2011-05-05T07:01:00.000-07:00

From the Primary Planet

Untitled

2011-03-12T08:24:00.000-08:00

Unknown Lady with Flowers

2011-03-07T06:42:00.000-08:00

La Mort Des Papillons

2011-03-07T06:31:00.000-08:00

C'est un bel endroit pour mourir dans la lumière du soleil.

To Write Love on her Arm 2011

2011-02-14T10:24:00.000-08:00

Derridas Photography Prohibition

2011-02-09T10:28:00.000-08:00

'I thought it was very important to exclude all forms of photography'

Burning Bog

2011-01-07T07:40:00.000-08:00

Remember last summer when it was really hot and the bogs went on fire, no?

Joyeux Noel

2011-01-06T07:44:00.000-08:00

The Duke

2011-01-06T07:35:00.000-08:00

Hello Sleepy Head

2011-01-06T07:27:00.000-08:00

Shooting Declan

2010-12-01T18:25:00.000-08:00

My very talented friend Declan Guckian usually strategically plans his performances to coincide with tube strikes, riots, and protests (and other things that might make it difficult for me to attend). I think he used to call the cinema to make sure I was rostered when he was gigging. He also tries to make sure the venue is not in easy reach of my geographical knowledge. Maybe I'm paranoid? But tonight I snook to one of his performances in Notting Hill sliding through the ice and the snow, camera in tow of course. Unsurprisingly the gig was awesome. If you get the chance, go and see him before he is very famous and playing huge venues. Find him on facebook here for upcoming gigs.

Discarded Couch

2010-11-23T07:42:00.000-08:00

Local Refuse

2010-11-17T06:11:00.000-08:00

Found Photographs

2010-11-09T08:53:00.001-08:00

Found this morning whilst looking for a blank CD in a pile a former housemate left for me. Entitled three peaks the CD contained three folders named Annabel, Marc and Richard. I guess they climbed three peaks?! I had a good old look through them this evening and I'm really taken by some of them particularly the first one.

I love the anonymity and veiled atmosphere here. Lovely.

Snowy

2010-11-05T12:09:00.000-07:00

Sleeping teddy

2010-10-25T05:14:00.000-07:00

Bear

2010-10-21T08:02:00.000-07:00

A shed

2010-10-18T08:49:00.000-07:00

Where are the good drawings?

2010-10-15T10:59:00.000-07:00

Battered Research Journal

2010-10-09T09:33:00.001-07:00

Here is the book I produced as part of my MA work. It was quite big 30cm x 30cm and consisted of 120 pages. It has gotten slightly worse for ware through the duration of the show. I should have provided gloves and scolded anyone who hadn't washed their hands.

Things are nicer when you can hold them

2010-10-09T09:20:00.000-07:00

Some of the spreads from a book I had been working on during the year, I posted these images a couple of month ago, but they are completely different when compiled and placed in a book context. The cover is a hand cut silhouette from one of the original photographs.

Chelsea Show Catalogue

2010-10-09T09:01:00.000-07:00

Our lovely catalogue, each student got a page where they could include some information about their project and images, the catalogue also contained an editorial section where most courses wrote an article and some former students also contributed. The catalogue was designed by Eka, Henry and Seyit.

A hat and shoes on the chair

2010-08-10T12:48:00.000-07:00

Another day another . . . . . .

2010-08-09T12:19:00.000-07:00

I've been looking at houses that are not occupied due to the death of the inhabitant. These houses are left intact with the traces of the deceased very evident. There is an eeriness of possessions laid as they were, slippers under the bed, hat on the wall, dishes in the sink. This house made me sad.

Beauty in breakdown

2010-08-09T11:49:00.000-07:00

This is the upstairs of the first house that I visited, I thought that I would fall through the ceiling if I went up but there was just one area of it gone rotten . . . . so I took my chances.

Abandonment and living

2010-08-08T13:08:00.000-07:00

Entering

2010-08-07T13:21:00.000-07:00

. . . The door was open . . .

I came across this amazing house my parents knew the old woman who lived there, Mary. She was married to a builder who had seven daughters and a husband called Tom. After her husband died she lived on her own for a short time then moved into another house with a friend. She moved out and left the house with all possessions in it . . . to rot basically. The house has eroded and broken down around furniture and possessions that are still visible there. Traces of habitation are very evident even though it has been vacant around twenty years. She died about twelve years ago and the house is owned by her daughter who has left it to continue to rot. It is said that her son wanted to buy it from her to restore it but she refused to sell it thus leaving it to degrade. Its really incredibly beautiful. The wallpaper has peeled off revealing layers of re-papering. Her glasses are still there, a bowl of buttons on the table, kettle on the stove, shoes and handbags, cutlery in the press. Unfortunately the the stairs and upper floor are completely rotten so I can't get up there. I really like that it was just left to time to break down, and also the fact that that all her possessions are still there possibly as she left them, it has left this incredible beauty not just the beauty of deconstruction but also a more melancholy note it has a poetic sense of stillness, of time passing.

This is common in Ireland that when someone dies the house will fall dormant and into disrepair. They can be left for years.

The last two photos are another house I visited , also beautiful.

Bush and Ghandi

2010-08-05T10:29:00.000-07:00

Shelving sculpture

2010-07-30T03:13:00.000-07:00

An Idea I had for an installation piece, which would be a shelving unit, that would be displayed on the wall. The unit was inspired by architectural plans. The unit would contain an installation of objects from the studies I have been doing; organised very specifically so that the items take on a path through the shelving. The items would move through the piece eliminating space by being placed perfectly in the shelving. I was testing out in the final photograph possible objects.

Macro Film Clip

2010-07-28T09:09:00.000-07:00

For high def version watch on youtube

As part of my research I have been looking at the macro aspects of habitation and zooming in on specific areas. Focusing on the areas that I have found interesting to create a slightly abstract series of shots. I had been using the sound of conversation with the images but I think that it was distracting and the shots can stand on their own without sound. So maybe I will have a series of these shots put together in a very simple way.

Sound test

2010-07-27T13:10:00.000-07:00

Here is an experiment I did with sound combining jewellery box sounds, the introduction is just one single box, then they are layered up.

2010-07-09T05:39:00.000-07:00

Part of a series looking at people within their own space. Some of the spaces are transient others are permanent. It is interesting to see inside peoples homes and see how they create order within their private space. I prefer the ones which are not 'staged' looking - the more natural ordinary interaction are more interesting. I wanted to create an atmosphere of curiosity and looking at photographs like this makes me think about how my own space is ordered and how I apply order onto my own transient space.

Clutter

2010-07-08T11:38:00.000-07:00

In looking at alternative engagements within the domestic domain, i've really been inspired by the way things can be organised and find a path to the space they are occupying. Objects are subject to various practises of dispersal, divestment and displacement in the gaps between consumption and acquisition, use and their eventual disposal or lack of as the case may be. They could be thought of as a gluttonous metaphor for excessive consumption. Clutter needs to be understood not merely as the underside of storage but also as part of an ordering of the home and identity that follows the traces left behind by the dynamic of storage. Storage and consumption are processes of living with things without being stored or displayed, but just put down, piled up around the paths of daily routine, where things fall out of use and out of awareness.

Clutter is not simply that which accumulates as a result of lack of shelving or cupboard space but is better understood as an almost inevitable result of consumption. These materialities and ecologies create yet disrupt order, thus marking the gap between presence and absence. As things mark the trails of peoples lives through the home, they become traces of peoples lives.

Lost in Space

2010-07-08T11:23:00.000-07:00

Here are some thoughts I had.

Royal Wedding

2010-06-18T05:58:00.000-07:00

My current research is regarding domestic spacial habitation and particularly alternative engagements within domestic space. I had previously been looking at power relations and iconization, but my work started to take me in other directions and the best thing to do is to follow in the direction my practice was going.

I had been looking at the farcical aspects of iconization in portraits of the Queen, Charles and Diana and Simon Cowell that you have seen on this blog previously.

‘we know that a picture is but a space in which a variety of images, none of them original, blend and clash . . . A photographs meaning lies not in its origin but its destination’ - adapted from Roland Barthes “The Death of the Author”

I moved into looking at invading private space. I came across a book printed in 1947 called ‘Royal Wedding’, it documented the life of Queen Elizabeth and her wedding to Albert. I was interested in the details contained in the book. Some of the content was quite invasive.

Heres some quotes of the text I found interesting, ‘Should the Princess’s wedding day be selected as the first post-war occasion to restore to Britain the traditional gaiety of a gala public event’

‘The queer thing about ‘public figures’ is the more fiercely the light beats upon them the less ‘real’ they become to those who read about them and see their photographs almost daily in the newspapers’

I have ‘stolen’ the images from the book and obscured them. In being rephotographed, they are removed from their context and given the potential for virtually unlimited displacement. They are rephotographed at awkward angles, the result is at times are disorienting. A new image is created distinct from the original. The subject in the photograph (some) have been given anonymity through the process of rephotographing. By being taken the image becomes similar to an anonymous memory. The characters are removed from the context they are intended and in effect are making a refusal to conform to the purpose they were originally intended. They have been stripped away from the text that surrounded them.

The Show Must Go On

2010-06-15T09:09:00.000-07:00

Above is artwork for a book I'm involved in entitled 'The Show Must Go On', it is a retrospective of exhibitions featured in some UAL libraries over the last few years. It also contains essays writing by students and staff of the colleges.

The Queen

2010-05-29T10:38:00.000-07:00

Can't stay still?

2010-05-25T15:01:00.000-07:00

I've been exploring this idea of repetition, i've done this through GIF making. It's experimenting with the possibility of endlessness. I'm not really sure if this plays any role in my practise, maybe from the point of space occupation- would this be a way of occupying space for a potentially infinite amount of time?

untitled

2010-05-14T12:22:00.000-07:00

book workshop

2010-05-14T12:10:00.000-07:00

A book made during a workshop with Ben the theme was sequence. I chose to re-sequence a passage of text thereby creating new narrative and alternative interpretations of the text.

Surprise!

2010-05-08T13:02:00.000-07:00

I was out during the good weather doing some painting and I didn't have my glasses on, so I saw something furry running past behind me and I thought it was a cat so I ran after it, 'here kitty come say hello,' but it was no cat . . . . . but a giant very well fed rat.

Pick me up at Somerset House

2010-05-04T15:01:00.000-07:00

Images from Pick Me Up, an exhibition of illustration and graphic art at Somerset House. Paper Artist Rob Ryan transferred his studio to the venue for the duration of the show, which i particularly enjoyed. It was really great to see how he works and experience just how much work goes into what he makes, although I think he has other people to do the laborious cutting now. He has lots of interesting bits and pieces up on his walls from embroidery to family photographs. The show also had a cinema area showcasing some great animation, music videos and other moving image pieces.

Other Spaces

2010-04-21T17:54:00.000-07:00

I was waiting for the tube one day and looked at the wall across from me, it was a dilapidated wall with the remnants of posters past peeling off. It reminded me of an abstract painting, not formed consciously by any artist. It also by its nature had neither a sense of authorship nor ownership. I've since been thinking of creating a book that photographically documents examples of this in seemingly ordinary areas of London. Emphasising and bringing a sense of power to the ordinary.

A Little Postcard Inspiration

2010-03-28T09:59:00.000-07:00

I found this postcard collection in a charity shop in Brixton. They are lovingly arranged into photo album and mostly date from 1910. They are from Germany, France and Belgium and in total there are 39 cards.

2010-03-26T13:02:00.000-07:00

Another addition to the celebrity series still working on it, this was a little harder than with the Charles and Diana, Hitler and Cowells faces are quite different. Cowells face is much longer than Hitlers.

Smocking with Lizzie Finn

2010-03-25T18:19:00.000-07:00

My craft to work with for the project was smocking which I was awarded randomly. We were required to make two pieces of typography using out craft. The model above is a fine example of how to wear a smock. Smocking is an embroidery technique used to gather fabric so that it can stretch. Before elastic, smocking was commonly used in cuffs, bodices, and necklines in garments where buttons were undesirable. Smocking developed in England and has been practiced since the Middle Ages and is unusual among embroidery methods in that it was often worn by laborers. Other major embroidery styles are purely decorative and represented status symbols. Smocking was practical for garments to be both form fitting and flexible, hence its name derives from smock — a farmer's work shirt. Smocking was used most extensively in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Inspired by two smocking books I got form the Chelsea library I got smocking . . .

Step one was to pleat a very long piece of calico fabric.

Then came the needle and thread.

Paper Curating

2010-03-25T14:46:00.000-07:00

In collaboration with MA's on ISD and CPCW we created a proposal for an exhibition entitled "The Banality of Everyday".

"‘Small gestures in specific places’ – this could be the coda for the time when the place for art is on the move. Today the form of art bends to the circumstance, and the boundary with the everyday blurs. The placement of small gestures in specific places can at first glance be continuous with our daily stride, sight, breath, touch and reach.”
- Nikos Papastergiadis, Spatial Aesthetics (2006) p.138

The Banality of Everyday examines not only the invasion of the private territory, where the basic and monotonous gestures of “way of operating” are practiced and repeated everyday, but also potentiality of generating personal history and narrative under the certain rules and systems of the space. As the platform of this in-progress project, the flat room will be inhabited by solitary participants for a certain duration based on provided objects which have particular functions. Everyday life seems banal, quotidian and ordinary within generic socio-cultural codes. However, it is continuity of the uncanniness as being familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. Every time confronting a basic demand for safety, security and comfort, we are constructing everyday activities through various tactics. The project intends to bring an artist, Alison Balance, as the last visitor of the room. To terminate the project, having the creative freedom to the space, Balance will explore performative reactions in response to the space that have been constructed by audiences.

Within the multiple trajectories and the distinction between the foreign and the common, this site-specific practice will be a globally ongoing project which investigates the space’s potential with the diverse cultural production in everyday surroundings.

Working with my fellow GDC student Jane we brainstormed ideas of promoting and discussed the practicalities of the project. We needed to have a website for prospective participants to get information and book their time in the room. The website would act as an archive where documentation of the exhibition would be available. It would also allow us to stream the closing performance by artist Alison Balance. High-lighting the ordinary became the aspect of the project we would use in our work. The initial idea was to create a viewing apparatus in the from of a postcard with the image of two hands creating a viewfinder. The holder is free to create compositions and look at things carefully in a manner which maybe they wouldn't normally. Taking this apparatus we made a viral video following the use of the postcard. As we envisaged the exhibition as one which would travel to several cities, the viral would be one of a series made in each city. We also created posters which feature the postcard.

View the website here

Fanzine with Ben

2010-03-12T14:44:00.000-08:00

The brief entailed creating a fanzine on our research topic. I am currently reading the work of Michael Foucault on power. The effect of a tendency to disindividualise power is the perception that power resides in the machine itself rather than in its operator. Power has its principle not so much in a person as in a certain concerted distribution of bodies, surfaces, lights, gazes; in an arrangement whose internal mechanisms produce the relation in which individuals are caught up. This theory can be applied to relationships also and if we consider the relationship/marriage as the institution/machine. Prince Charles and Lady Diana is the first of a celebrity series I intend on doing on the subject.

Workshop with Mary and Asli

2010-02-03T14:45:00.000-08:00

As part of our work shop Mary and Asli gave us a list of tasks of which we had to complete at least three.

Ask the first stranger you see outside the building what she/he is feeling: I asked a girl coming from the Tate toward the college how she what she was thinking 'i'm thinking about my work' she said.

Sit on a bench and write on a piece of paper as many different words as you can. red, space, drip, cold, breeze, ocean, air, smoke, stone, squeek, spray, stride, square, open, time, birds, thought, crown, two, runners, light, beard, umbrella, fabric, lyric, presence, isolation, company (I sat on a bench looking out on the courtyard of the college)

Follow someone until you learn something about them/her: I followed a man wearing a peak hat and a stripy blue scarf into the Chelsea cafe - he takes his coffee with milk and no sugar.

Leave a note for someone: I left a note in the canteen saying 'To whoever sits hereDear Diner, I hope you enjoy your meal today and you have a prosperous day ahead, lots of love xxx.' I don't think anybody actually read the note, I watched for quite a while and people looked a intimidated by the thought that maybe they were under surveillance so I got out from under the table I was hiding under and put away my binoculars feeling a little defeated!

The Solution

I thought that the answers would lend themselves to a narrative so I decided to combine two of the answers to create a spontaneous narrative. So using the man that I followed into the coffe shop as a main character, I built a small story incorporating the words I had written down whilst on the bench. I laid this out in a simple typographical form that enhanced the content of the composed story.

Influences with Anna Gerber

2010-01-22T07:27:00.001-08:00

Our third project named influences required me to explore my influences, look at who or what provokes, inspires and informs my working methods and research processes. The point was to to raise my awareness about my own influences. To look beyond myself and draw from experiences, contexts, impressions outside of myself. We were encouraged to explore and investigate those influences in different ways. We were required to create a list of five of our influences and mine are as follows:

The work of visual artist Gorden Young
Africa : the colour, vibrance and beautiful hand-rendered signage
Film director Ed Wood: hailed as the worst director of all time
The Arts and Crafts Ideal
The work of Steve Mc Queen

I then chose one of my influences to create work that expressed how my influence made me feel. I chose Gordon Young. He is a visual artist who focuses on creating art for the public domain. His work ranges from sculptures to typographic pavements for places as disrelated as government headquarters and village squares. The common denominator for all projects is the basis of relevance to the surroundings.

Examples of the work of Gorden Young

I thought about what it was about his work that attracted me to it and asked myself how the work made me feel as a viewer. As I am interested in typography, I enjoy the way Young creates public art using typography. He captures the essence of his subject, and creates a beautiful relationship between the art and the environment it is placed in. He embraces his environment and uses it to his advantage. I also enjoy the tactility of his work.

In creating my own piece of work I endeavored to create the same feelings. My criteria were, the item should be sensitive to its environment - it should look like it belongs, plain and simple, and it should evoke a feeling of beauty. I decided to make an installation in our classroom. By using sheets of clear plastic and super-glue I created a rain effect on the window of out classroom. I feel this was a subtle and successful solution that fulfilled the criteria I set myself.

Walter Benjamin Project with Jonathan Griffin

2010-01-19T09:50:00.000-08:00

‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ (1935) by Walter Benjamin remains one of the most influential cultural texts of the modern era.
The text, although written more than 70 years ago, is still relevant today, and contains a wealth of ideas and reflections on the modern era that continue to inspire and excite new generations of readers. The text is particularly relevant in the fields of graphic design, moving image and digital media.

"The project will require you to interpret the text and

develop a personal response using a blend of visual,

analytical and communication skills. There are no

limits to the media you may choose to use."

Benjamin used the word "aura" to refer to the sense of awe and reverence experienced by a viewer when in the presence of unique works of art. Benjamin believed that this aura lies not in the object itself but rather in external attributes such as its known line of ownership, its restricted exhibition, its publicised authenticity, or its cultural value. With the advent of art's mechanical reproducibility, and the development of forms of art (such as film) in which there is no actual original, the art is to a mass audience, leading to a shattering of the aura.

One part of the essay that particularly appealed to me was a passage about acting. Where the actors attainment of aura is discussed. Benjamin also believed that the same principal of aura applied to acting - if you are in the audience of a theatre you are in the presence of the actors aura but that the same aura could not be transfered onto film. For aura is tied to his presence; there can be no replica of it. The aura which, on the stage, emanates from the actor and cannot be separated for the spectators from that of the actor. He quotes Pirandello:

“The film actor,” wrote Pirandello, “feels as if in exile – exiled not only from the stage but also from himself. With a vague sense of discomfort he feels inexplicable emptiness: his body loses its corporeality, it evaporates, it is deprived of reality, life, voice, and the noises caused by his moving about, in order to be changed into a mute image, flickering an instant on the screen, then vanishing into silence .... The projector will play with his shadow before the public, and he himself must be content to play before the camera.”

This is the area of the text I decided to pursue. I wanted to make a documentary (of sorts!) of the struggle that an actor has with himself. The Actor changes during the piece morphing into entirely different species, before returning to himself. The set was created using mundane household items. The lighting is quite dark in places as I wanted to create a tense atmosphere. I also chose music that created tension, Ensurance Trap by Michael Andrews and recorded Ulrick reciting an edited version of the All the Worlds a Stage speech from As You Like It. It was then edited so it would not be recognisable to the viewer. I used dominoes to represent ritual but also the unpredictable nature of acting, they are spontaneously arranged without effort but with the same ease they are knocked down by the Actor at the end of the piece.

Stills from the stop-motion animation

The finished piece

(the sound exported out of sync with the film - im still trying to fix it!)

The Triangle Project in conjunction with MA FIne Art

2010-01-18T16:01:00.000-08:00

Work previously produced by members of our group

Five days to work with strangers. Create works based upon another person’s practice. Produce a catalogue. Assemble an exhibition by the end of that week. Being thrown into unfamiliar territory forced the team to work within a framework that challenged us to step outside our comfort zones, in a limited amount of time. Our group had an interesting dynamic as everyone was exploring different themes seemingly worlds apart from each other, but by spending time discussing our practice, we were able to find traits or themes that we could explore within this project. Whilst working on our interpretations and concepts of our partner’s work, we discovered that we were all using similar organic materials eg. wood, apple, food. Through discussion and debate we decided that a common structure could link all our projects into a whole -a space for our work to challenge the viewer by having a large physical presence through its display and presentation. This structure not only allows this, but at the same time offers the segregation of each solo piece to be interpreted as individual. There were a lot of challenges and a sense of frustration working within a group, but we all enjoyed the experimental aspect of it. Some of us were trying to create works which could render our understanding both in the practical and theoretical way. It is interesting how interpreting someone else’s practice for a week has opened up our eyes and it would be great to try and bring these new ideas to further our own practice. As a whole, we all agreed that this triangle project was an experiment that pushes us to do things that we would not have done otherwise. The experience has been a rewarding one that has opened doors, not only for our own individual practice but also for future collaborative projects within the groups.

I was lucky to have gotten an excellent partner with a very interesting body of work. When exploring Josh’s work the themes that interested me most were his experimentations with imperfection, coincidence and human interaction. In reponse to his work I allowed paint to flow freely and mix organically down an 8ft by 8ft board as an expression of an undetermined journey. I then placed at random painted apples which represent human role in the journey. I chose the apple as they will change in this piece over time and eventually shrivel up and fall off the board, they have a limited life span and had no choice in the path they were put on. The apples are painted white so they are not initally recognisable as fragile fruit but as objects. As part of the brief it was also necessary for each group to create a run of ten catalogues. Rather than assign this task to one person we created the catalogue as a group and passed a file from person to person. Each person contributed to its production. I enjoyed the project and hope to use what I have learned to inform my own practice.

My Final Piece