I visited the bird santuary in Aliwee Caves outside Ballyvaughan recently. It was well worth the visit. Their are many types of birds of prey here, owls, buzzards and even a raven. The latter was my favourite he is a beautiful  black raven with darkk inky wings. He is clearly very clever and also cheeky. He has been known to steal his handlers mobile phone on more than one occasion and can be found accross the fields with the ringing mobile. 

The staff were all really helpful and open to my request for permission to film at a later date.

The visit that was most enjoyable and was followed by a guided tour of the cave and later a coffee in the sunshine overlooking the vista of the burren and the Ballyvaughen landscape

Old ideas and new projects

The video clips you see below were part of my Masters degree show in Limerick University last year. It was a project designed to allow an audience to engage with an art installation through play, gesture and movement. This means that the audience could change the direction of the film by simply moving in the space. This in turn triggered a set of camera sensors that them played a set of pre -programmed events.
It was good fun looking back at it now and the learning curve was huge I am dying to put the technology to use again and design a different installation. The ideas are there, now its the work and play that needs so. Its finding the the time with increasing teaching commitment and a young family.me attention
I am dying to star,t and am looking to buy a good second hand professional camera possibly a Panosonic.
If any one has any ideas or hears of anything keep me posted Your encouragement is much appreciated also it all adds up.

This is how the final installation looked like.

interactive art installation Swing

The Climb. Part of the same installation

This was part of an interactive art video installation from my MA Show last year

We ourselves and I.

What's your concept?

The photo 'Gallery Enthusiasts' (as seen in the picture below) leads me to another something that never fails to irk me and that is the holier than thou stance in the art world in relation to the art form "conceptualism". Take for example  'Gallery Enthusiasts', photographed in a converted space which housed a large/ international exhibition where the most interesting thing on display was the two spectators gazing out over the cityscape. Why was their attention averted from the work, in the vast room? Did it fail to capture their imagination? It seems so. Perhaps this is because it was so badly executed that one wondered was it a first year art college exercise.

The conceptual ideas for each piece were printed in type next to the exhibit. They were interesting in theory at least, but unfortunately the work didn't translate.

The reason for this is that too much emphasis is often placed on the idea or the concept when selecting work for a show. This process often fails to deliver. What about an artist’s ability to carry out a work regardless of style? It would seem that the problem for conceptualism is its lack of ability to show how an idea can be transformed in to an engaging work of art.

Gallery Enthusiasts

Champion swimmer

Hello is their anybody out there?

Hello and welcome to my new blog. This is my first post and it comes to you from my brown couch. It would seem as though the world is full of authors these days - everybody is writing, we are all photographers/artists, composers or creators of sorts. The world is full of content that is being created as we write. We are all mashing and mixing content and coming up with our own, but is anybody out there listening, watching or reading?