[-empyre-] Artwork #9: Ciarán Ó Dochartaigh - Donkey rhubarb (speculative massage tools for a family of donkeys)

[Lee Tusman]

The name Donkey Rhubarb was familiar to me as the name of Aphex Twin's 1995
album (featuring a track by Philip Glass). Further wikipedia research
reveals its English familiar name for Fallopia Japonica, an asian knotweed.
The second part of the video title, "(speculative massage tools for a
family of donkeys)" indicates what is to be found when viewing the video. A
family of donkeys, on and around carved blocks with glyphs. A number of
stone, electric, clay, (et cetera) materials are used to massage and
possibly provoke the donkeys, while Aphex-y music plays. It is unclear if
the sound is diegetic. It is also unclear whether the massage is
therapeutic for the donkeys, though they do appear to enjoy it. More
unclear is the use of instruments to massage rocks, but I guess, why not?



On Mon, Jul 16, 2018 at 12:14 PM, Robert R <robertrapoport at gmail.com> wrote:

> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>
> Ciarán Ó Dochartaigh - Donkey rhubarb (speculative massage tools for a
> family of donkeys)
>
> --A rough draft. A draft animal.
>
> Maybe start: How is the conceit of speculative design rendered lame by the
> blank gaze of a donkey? Innovation, no matter how luminous, reduced to a
> simple question of whether or not to bear it. Donkey Massage--  How is that
> bearing out for you? has it already borne itself out?
>
> Pro Forma: Au Hazard Balthazar (1966), Robert Bresson’s meditation on the
> possibility of a perfectly indexical performance. Truth in the indifference
> of the draft animal to his narratives. The method actor can not, in the
> end, prepare.
>
> And now here, with some of Bressons's austerity Ciarán throws opacity of
> sensors into relief against the image of donkey. Speculative designs’s
> beast of burden?
>
> Ceramic, primal shapes enter the frame to do something for these animals,
> but,  ‘massage’...?
>
> The POV shot- The sad quality of the ego shooter/ point of view shot as it
> attempts to become our perception--to tell us that we are massaging a beast
> of burden. And then is gets light, at 2:27, soundtrack syncopates, comes
> clean to itself.
>
> The giddiness with which the film recruits /renders this 'family' in a
> narrative? The hands of a mickey mouse- druid, plugging hole in a rock/
> holes in the cosmos.
>
> And then (duh): redemption. The donkey finally turns away from this slight
> of hand. The hand asks the beast of burden to out it as disingenuous. Or
> wait, is the filmmaker just as much a draft animal-- bearing our
> projections one mise en abyme?
>
> Au Hazard Balthazar- ly
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 16, 2018 at 11:40 AM Daniel Lichtman <danielp73 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>> Ciarán Ó Dochartaigh
>> Donkey rhubarb (speculative massage tools for a family of donkeys)
>>
>> Video Link: https://vimeo.com/258391233
>>
>> Ciarán Ó Dochartaigh is an interdisciplinary visual artist with an
>> interest in materiality and material and immaterial processes. Ciarán is a
>> PhD researcher in the art department at Goldsmiths. His research explores
>> complexities inherent within rurality and regionalism and in particular
>> investigates the hidden epidemic of Lyme disease and its relationship to
>> late stage capitalism. Ó Dochartaigh has an ongoing research relationship
>> with a family of donkeys, exploring interspecies relationships and kinship.
>>
>> Ciarán Ó Dochartaigh is currently undertaking an art practice Ph.D. at
>> Goldsmiths and graduated with an MFA in Goldsmiths in 2013. Recent shows
>> include They Call Us the Screamers, Tulca international festival (2017);
>> Vanishing Futures: Collective Histories of Northern Irish Art, Golden
>> Thread Gallery, Belfast, (2015); Lofoten International Art Festival (LIAF),
>> Norway, (2015). Ó Dochartaigh was awarded a residency at Residency
>> Programme / curated by CCA at CIAP, Ile de Vassivie re, France, (2016). He
>> received an Artists International Development Fund, Arts Council England /
>> British Council, (2015).
>> _______________________________________________
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>> empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
>> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
>
>
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