User:Garvan/Project Proposal

Project Propsal & Thesis Outline 18/11/22

Michael Collins’ Flying Column (working title)

What do you want to make?

I plan to make a collection of short videos that explore Irish identity through a postcolonial lens. The short videos or sketches will predominantly feature myself as a performer. I will act out scenarios from various points in Irish history, some may be fictional but take place within specific historical contexts. These performances intend to tackle the Irish condition from different historical standpoints. It is satirical. It is vaudeville. While the sketches and characters take place at different points in history, a common theme throughout is media, iconography and national narratives. This work speaks to the visual and verbal language of Irish media and colonial media. The format is directly related to the sketch shows like Monty Python’s Flying Circus, hence the title. The sketch show format allows me to play with short, vignette-like videos.

How do you plan to make it? I plan to make the majority of this work independently i.e I will be the cameraperson, the performer and the writer. This is a method that suits my way of working and informs the materiality of the work. I have made test shots in my bedroom using simple costume and set design and the low tech nature of the work speaks to a broader media context.

The characters within the sketches are in the process of being designed and fleshed out already. I have been building a database of sorts that describes the characters, their contexts and their personalities. This character info then informs the script and the performance. You can see the character development and scripts here Character Traits & Scripts

What is your timetable? My plan is to amass this collection of sketches throughout the year building up a collection or archive that builds a wider world that my artwork exists in. I believe that I can make a lot of this work in the Netherlands. I am also considering shooting some scenarios in Ireland. Over the Christmas break I will be in Ireland and I hope to use that time to shoot site specific sketches.

Why do you want to make it? I have often been asked through the course tutors and through application forms What is at stake in this artwork? Or What is the Urgency?Currently I would struggle to describe these answers in a condensed and clarified way but I can undoubtedly say that there is a lot at stake and a specific urgency within this work for me as an artist. This work of dissecting and satirising Irish folklore / pop culture / iconography feels to me as a method of understanding the Irish psyche and how intertwined it is with colonialism. I am finally drawing the parallels between what I previously thought were unconnected nodes of interest. I am boiling down my memory and the narratives and myths that I have grown up with, into a base of wider understanding of Ireland. I don’t know how big this work will be, perhaps it will grow into many characters and timelines. There must be a greater question at stake, an Irish question. One pervasive question that I am interested in is about the Irish narrative, the narrative that makes up the Irish identity and state. Our events, our landmarks, our blunders, our disgraces and our martyrs. How have these been synthesised into the Irish psyche and lens. There is a large disparity between Irish revolutionary ideology and what The Republic of Ireland actually became. Within this negative space are the subjects that I want to unpack.

Who can help you and how? I am interested in exploring archive material and seeing how that can be sewn into the artwork. Dialogue will be an integral part of this artwork. I will be speaking to the camera in the majority of the sketches, and the audio is something I may need assistance with. Or at least I may need to consider it before I film rather than afterwards. Folklore and anecdotes will be used as a tool to introduce and engage with certain subjects and I may need to collect more of these stories from friends or strangers in Ireland.

Relation to previous practice The Property Ladder (2018) was a project made from the creative partnership of myself & friend Lorcan Rush. The project was a satirical reaction to the rapidly changing landscape of Dublin. We felt alienated by the massive developments of the city during an extreme housing crisis and hotelification. This work for me is the most comparable of my previous artworks. Though by contrast I think the research I am engaging now is more thorough and nuanced. The Property Ladder was born of reaction and of gut feeling towards a specific site. With this project I want to stop and investigate my reactions and gut feelings further, to deconstruct, to ask myself why do I feel this way and uncover the greater symbolism behind my points of interest. Relation to a larger context Iconography and Iconoclasm plays an important role in Ireland. We place much power upon the symbols that we surround ourselves with. The first act of the Irish Free State in 1922 was to repaint the post boxes or ‘red brit boxes’ to green.(Harrison, Irish Times, 2017) The Free State being the political equivalent of a premature infant could not afford to paint them all in one particular shade of green, so they were painted in a variety of shades, whatever was available.

Thesis Outline

My thesis will run parallel to my graduate project and research. In my artwork I am researching characters, icons and media. I am making a sketch show that satirises and speculates upon Ireland’s history and its potential future. Media and national narratives are themes I want to explore. How do Irish museums construct our collective identity? I want to place Irish history, folklore and art under a contemporary lens, finding specific nodes to unpack and creating new dialogues. My thesis shall have an essayistic mode of address.The tone will be personal and it is important that my voice come through the text. I am telling a story of my country, using the mythology and folklore that I have inherited from my friends, family and my own lived experience.

Here are some examples of the nodes that I would like to address and unpack within the thesis. Perhaps some of these examples will manifest into my practical artwork though I imagine not all will.

• Paddington 2 (2017) is a film much loved by critics and audiences. Its appeal is bolstered by its cutesy British tone. There is an arc in the plot, where Paddington finds himself in prison and it’s all very funny and light hearted. The filming location is Kilmainham Gaol, an historic prison in Dublin where several of our revolutionary leaders were executed by British soldiers after the Easter Rising of 1916. James Connolly was badly injured in the failed revolution and as a result he could not stand for his execution by firing squad. He was tied to a chair, blindfolded and shot in Kilmainham Gaol. Did he die so a cute CGI bear can dance with Hugh Grant?

• In Dublin Castle, a tourist attraction and landmark in the city centre is a very busy corner of the city. However in the basement of one of the old buildings is the little known Revenue Museum. The Revenue Museum has a collection ranging from postal stamps, bootleg football jerseys to a reproduction of the toilets used to examine the faeces of drug mules in Dublin Airport. Taxation, it’s an inevitability, what does The Revenue Museum omit in its collection if Ireland is a tax haven?

• Another Example: Across Ireland there are towns with grand Georgian era districts. Well preserved and handsome, they are often preserved by Georgian Historical Societies. Some of these societies even go so far as to reenact aristocratic life in the Georgian period. Is this love of the Georgian era a fetishisation of our colonisers?

I would like to get into contact with some of these organisations and institutions and create a dialogue, which would serve as primary research for the thesis. I do not know what the conclusion of this research will be. Though I think that the research may actually obfuscate rather than clarify, which, in a sense, illuminates how intricate and complex Britain’s colonisation of Ireland was and is.

Bibliography.

• Darran Anderson. “Body of Evidence: A History of Irish Iconoclasm.” Architectural Review, 28 June 2019, www.architectural-review.com/essays/body-of-evidence-a-history-of-irish-iconoclasm. Accessed 18 Nov. 2022.
• Fallon, Donal. “Dispelling the Myths about the Bombing of Nelson’s Pillar.” TheJournal.ie, 22 Dec. 2016, www.thejournal.ie/nelsons-pillar-destruction-myths-2647389-Dec2016/. Accessed 18 Nov. 2022.
• “Frank McCourt v Gerry Hannan | Late Late Show 1999.” Www.youtube.com, www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Mb8Mb0p808&list=PLAZX52kq5sYpN7AY1eN5u7ON11dOHLERv&index=2. Accessed 18 Nov. 2022.
• Harrison, Bernice. “Design Moment: Green Post Box, C1922.” The Irish Times, 18 Mar. 2017, www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/homes-and-property/interiors/design-moment-green-post-box-c1922-1.3004436.

Rough Drafts / Character Outlines/ Script & Notes =

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These performative sketches try to tackle the Irish condition from different historical standpoints. It is satirical. It is vaudeville. While the sketches and characters take place at different points in history, a common theme throughout is media. This work speaks to the visual and verbal language of Irish media and colonial media.

I don’t know how big this work will be, perhaps it will grow into many characters and timelines. There must be a greater question at stake, an Irish question. One train of thought that I am interested in is the Irish narrative, the narrative that makes up the Irish identity. Our events, our landmarks, our blunders, our disgraces. There is a disparity between Irish governmental policy and Ireland’s constructed identity. Ireland is meant to be a freedom loving, friendly, funny and artistic island, and sure these elements may be somewhat true but our governments waver between centre right and slightly more to right of centre. Perhaps through this work I am trying to create a muddier interpretation, to besmirch our national heritage. Sure we all tell ourselves that we had a family member who fought in the rising but I doubt many ever wanted to or would want to die for Ireland. Ireland’s collective consciousness is formed by colonial oppression. Terms like anti-treaty and pro-treaty created an Irish civil war but this division was created by our coloniser.

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• De Mimsey

De MImsey is a mid ranking noble, he is assigned by the crown to counsel and advise Earls and Barons on the island of Ireland. De Mimsey is a self serving tool, he rarely brings good news, his solutions often are to the detriment to the serfdom. He is highly educated and warns the nobles of rebellion, cholera outbreaks and famine.

Takes place in a nobel’s hall.

• Brother Eamon

Brother Eamon is a high ranking Monk in an early christian ireland monastery. He works mostly in the scriptorium, producing holy texts that fuse Irish mythology and paganism into a new hiberno-christian narrative. He is highly superstitious, concerned with omens and prophecies. He is a pseudo-scientist. A quack. He synthesises meaning and myth from the mundane. He creates monsters in the margins of his manuscripts. He devines the health of the land by picking at bog cotton, from smelling the autumnal mushrooms. Brother Eamon is worried about vikings or messengers from Rome and a brewing noise coming from the Normans in England. Brother Eamon dictates orders to an off screen monk (perhaps will be on screen) Brother Ignatious, a lower, younger monk. Ignatious fetches Eamon’s vellum, his spirits (whiskey) and listens to brother eamons complaints. Brother Eamon and Brother Ignatious sit together in a darkened room at the top of the round tower of their monastery. Vikings raid and pillage the monastery below. Eamon looks out the window on the violent scenes and describes them to ignatious who records them though Eamon’s meaning is lost in Ignatious’ interpretation.

• E: We hid in the tower as soon as we noticed the birds flying, and the plumes of smoke rising from the direction of the estuary. They are violent, foaming at the mouth, blond-haired giants. And they are Horny

• I: Horny, Brother?

• E: Yes! Horny! Make sure you write that down, and illustrate it too, if you please Iggy

• I: But Brother, em, I’m not quite sure what you…

• E: I said write it down! You oaf! I should feed you to the norsemen, they would make a hearty stew from you, boy

• E: Alright Brother

Scene ends with an illuminated manuscript with pictures of horned vikings

This will be shot in a room with one window. The window will be masked to look like the window of a round tower. The scene takes place in a round tower.

• Mr. McGuire

Mr.McGuire is a servant employed by the aristocratic father of young william. McGuire has lost his children to poverty and famine and despite him having every reason to detest the little lord, McGuire cannot but love the innocent little toff. This plot will unfold from the perspective of William. He is awoken in the night be McGuire, the towns-folk have conspired against the landed gentry, they believe that they have poisoned the towns well with cholera. The town is half dead and half infected, they are making their way to william’s manor to seek vengeance.

This video is shot at night , in candle light, creepy atmosphere, gothic. The scene takes place in a country manor house or on a darkened country road.

References: Bram Stoker / The Heroes Quest

• No Surrender Splendour

Craig is an amateur baker from belfast, he finds himself in the semi final of the Great British Bake Off. Craig makes a multi layered cake that resembles a belfast bonfire in July. It is made with ginger, marmalade and turmeric. To represent his orange tendencies. The cake is covered with miniature irish flags and loyalist slogans such as “Michelle O’ Neil : Catholic Slag”

• The Time Traveling Revolutionary

Commandant Boyle, a low ranking member of an irish paramilitary during the Irish Civil finds himself at a shrine in the middle of nowhere. He has become separated from his flying column, he sees candle light coming from the shrine and he walks toward it hoping to gain some sense of direction. As he walks towards the shrine the light grows bigger and bigger and it envelops him. He is transported a hundred years into the future and across the irish sea. He awakens on a welsh country road. He stumbles down the road until he comes upon the Fron Goch Garden centre. A cute garden centre just miles from the infamous internment camp that imprisoned irish revolutionaries after easter rising.

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• WHAT

a video work sketch show that discusses matters relating to Ireland and being Irish. Referenceing Irishi media and media about ireland. The sketch show will jump around history. Monks in early christian Ireland circa 500-800 a.d to 19th century protestant ruling class members to twentieth century revolutionaries and perhaps even further into the future. The work is both satirical and speculative. I want to play with nnational folk heroes. People like St.Patrick, William of Orange & Ned Kelly. The title is a reference to Monty Python's Flying Circus. The work will question national narratives, I will make some short sketches about museums in Ireland and how they construct a national narrative.

• How

Through short video sketches and simple sets & costume. Each sketch should not be more than five minutes and the entire exhibited body of work should not be more than 25 minutes. I need to write a script for each sketch, and design more sketches than I would actually need. I have written character outlines for several sketches and written the script for roughly two-three sketches. To develop the work I will engage in a process of improvisation as a for of character development. The process is based on play and having fun and letting my body loosen up and see where the character takes me.

• Why

This work was not a direction i intended to go but now that I have started the process I realise that this is perhaps the work I should have been making ages ago. It feels important and urgent to me and the process is rewarding and fun and I think there is great potential.

• 'Timetable
• Research more, it is an integral part of this artwork
• Write more scripts
• Low tech set and costume design
• Film Sketch - goal would be to have about three at least started before christmas
• Over the holidays I will be in ireland for 2 weeks I would like to do some filming there while I can. I am also considering going back in March for St.Patricks day

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Bibliography

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfbO4Peh5sg&list=PLAZX52kq5sYpN7AY1eN5u7ON11dOHLERv&index=15

Documentary about the crumbling leftovers of the protestant ascendancy class in Ireland

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Mb8Mb0p808&list=PLAZX52kq5sYpN7AY1eN5u7ON11dOHLERv&index=1

An Irish poverty apologist attacks Frank McCourt for telling lies about Ireland

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eP-pg8vOfM&list=PLAZX52kq5sYpN7AY1eN5u7ON11dOHLERv&index=13

In 1985 Ireland experienced three different accounts of holy apparitions

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSsy-nm-sRI&list=PLAZX52kq5sYpN7AY1eN5u7ON11dOHLERv&index=9

19th Century Peasant faction fighting reenactment, I am interested in historical reenactments as this is essentially what some of my performances will be

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8syaS2BJKHo&list=PLAZX52kq5sYpN7AY1eN5u7ON11dOHLERv&index=11

Bone Setter, a quack for physical bodily ailments

• https://www.seanlynchinfo.com/artworks.html

Sean Lycnh, an Irish artist whose work I find very inspiring, though I think his work is of a drier nature, it is still quite humorous

• https://www.eva.ie/artist/eimear-walshe/

highly inspirational piece. Walshe's research seems very thorough and they present their work in an amusing yet to the point manner. would be interested in creating a dialogue with them.

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HACKPACKT https://youtu.be/2tqfFAEKyco

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Tales of Iconoclasm

Tales of Iconoclasm

In 1999 on RTE’s The Late Late Show author Frank McCourt was interviewed by Pat Kenny. McCourt whose memoir Angela's Ashes describes the poverty of 1930’s Limerick. During the interview MCourt is interrupted by a member of the audience, Gerry Hannan. Hannan verbally attacks McCourt for ‘peddling lies about Limerick’ * ( Late Late, RTE, 1999). This video is a meme today in Irish internet culture and has been remixed multiple times. I find this moment particularly interesting when put under the decolonial lens. Hannan, 30ish years McCourt’s junior (i.e he did not live through the same limerick as McCourt) seems to think the tale of poverty and trauma reported in Angela's Ashes is untrue. That McCourt is tarnishing the reputation of Limerick, painting it, and Ireland as a backward, smutty hell-hole. Hannan cannot accept this. Hannan is a reverse iconoclast, attempting to preserve the veil of obfuscation built by the Irish free State in partnership with the Catholic Church. I find the stage setting for this encounter to be quite interesting as well. The Late Late is a cornerstone of Irish media, even today. And it’s long history is ornamented by a pantheon of audience members who have challenged or subverted the power structure of the show. In 1999, with Hannan, a decade later in 2009 after the crash.

On Dublin’s Brunswick street, a ten minute walk from the house where I grew up, is the Richmond Hospital. A grand Victorian redbrick building. Its roof is adorned with spirals and turrets and atop these are copper domes. They are akin to the onion domes of orthodox churches but they are even more similar to the domes of Indian palaces. My father once told me that this building was intended to be built in India by the British Empire. He went on to tell me that this building had been designed and planned in Britain and that the colonial bureaucracy had made a clerical error, mistaking the handwritten word India for Ireland. I have not been able to find any evidence to support this, but I think this myth tells a story about Ireland, and the empire that colonised it.

Iconography and Iconoclasm plays an important role in Ireland. We place much power upon the symbols that we surround ourselves with. The first act of the Irish Free State in 1922 was to repaint the post boxes or ‘red brit boxes’ to green.(Harrison, Irish Times, 2017) The Free State being the political equivalent of a premature infant could not afford to paint them all in one particular shade of green, so they were painted in a variety of shades, whatever was available.

In 1966, a republican splinter group bombed Nelson’s Pillar on O’ Connel Street. The statues' remains were carted off to ‘corpo’ lock -up. The lock up was burgled by art students of the same school that I studied at; NCAD. They stole Nelson’s head. The head appeared mysteriously in several locations afterwards including on stage during a performance by The Dubliners. Which is Ironic as now there is a statue of the head of Luke Kelly on Sheriff Street. The giant statue of the famed irish singer is a colossal sculpture. Oxidised and curled rebar steel makes Kelly’s curly hair. The sculpture by Vera Klute is regularly defaced most often by the process of having spray painted sunglasses thrown across the eyes of the giant head Citation needed

Nelson’s head is now on display at Pearse St. Library. As a child I remember my father taking me to see Nelson's head. I did not fully understand what we were about to see and I imagined a Dr. Frankenstein-esque vat with the preserved head of the lauded Briton bobbing listlessly in formaldehyde. I was disappointed to discover that it was simply the bust of a broken statue. Nelsons broken column has recently transformed again into an icon of irish civic nationalism, being remixed into tshirts and prints to be sold by designers and 'influencers' on instagram.

In the summer of 2016, I was twenty years old and unemployed and my girlfriend at the time managed to get me a nixer (irish slang for an odd job) working at The RDS (Royal Dublin Societty) Horse Show. The Horse Show has been running since the 19th century Citation needed The job I found myself doing was assisting a painter sell her equestrian paintings. A large wing of the RDS campus was dedicated to the sale of equestrian artworks. I handed out business cards and in general the job was not very tasking. The painter’s mother in-law came to see the Horse Show as I was working. Her name was Dorothea Findlater and she was perhaps the only person left in Ireland at that time who remembers the Easter Rising of 1916. She was 106 years old when I met her. Her father was Harry de Courcy Wheeler, an officer of the British Forces in Ireland during the Rising. He was there was rebels surrendered to the british, he accepted there defeat and I met his daughter 100 years after the rising.

The Shamrock may be a symbol synonymous with Ireland but within Ireland the weight and importance of the shamrock is not high upon our lists. My brother and I were in Eindhoven for a football match and we went into a pub with a guinness sign hung above the door. As the bartender poured our pints of plain and we noticed a stage swirling motion they were using while they poured our stout. When we received the drinks we saw that the bartender had drawn a shamrock into the foam of the pint. I have never come across this in ireland. The word shamrock reminds me instantly of McDonalds’ St.Patricks day special the shamrock shake.

I consider myself a civic nationalist and I think many others in Ireland do too* citation needed. Symbols that are of real importance to civic nationalism are perhaps less known abroad. St. Brigid’s Cross, Sheela Na Gig, The Lady on the Rocks. There is also a rising popularity with Irish Modernist design from the 50s/60s/70s. Some of these designs are reproduced and remixed to be sold as print drops on instagram, and in a way this remixing of state design seeks to celebrate it’s aesthetic while bringing it outside of Ireland in it’s infancy which was undoubtedly a turbulent, conservative and poverty stricken time.

The two most recognisable flags in the world are undoubtedly the stars and stripes of the United States and the Union Jack of the United Kingdom. These flags are relatives and they have a shared history. Both these flags easily end up being used within branding and especially clothing. Once upon a time I would have happily worn a tshirt with an american flag used as a motif but I would draw the line at the union jack. Reebok trainers, jack wills hoodies, certain outdoor rain jackets *citation needed all feature the Union Jack and it is now a trend for when Irish nationalists find themselves buying an item of clothing with our colonisers flag, to cover up the union jack, by simply painting over it or replacing it with the irish tricolour.

The guinness harp

References I need to gather some appropriate sources, ones that have similar post colonial approaches and alternative perspectives of irish statehood

Steve Notes

[Ahead of our meeting on Thursday. Rather than write notes I would prefer to discuss, what is already a strong proposal, in person. The thesis outline is also strong, and we can also discuss how that can be developed. There is a great documentary about LA locations: Los Angeles Plays Itself by Thom Andersen (2003), which follows a similar method to the one you follow in your thesis outline. I think you have enough to begin From Paddington to Kilmainham Gaol now. Aim for a 1000 word article-essay. Very rich territory you outline there.]