Lyra McKee

Journalist Lyra McKee was a massive influence on the development of my art practice over the past two years. She was sadly shot last week at a riot in the Creggan area in Derry. Police have since arrested an 18 and 17-year-old concerning the murder. I thought I'd dig up some writing I'd made about the subject.

Here are three extracts from some pieces of writing from last year, where Lyra McKee's journalism had influenced my decisions about how to progress with my practice. I was trying to boil down the essence of her article on post-Good Friday Agreement depression and her report on the subject gave me a bird's eye view and the clarity to tackle it head-on.

I’d like to try and convey an auto-ethnographic sentiment somehow via interactive & narrative work and feel that manipulating game engines as a medium will allow for a wide net of scope and execution. 

I made the decision to create work about the border situation in Northern Ireland, shifting from purely implied and understated narrative to using some specific anecdotal tools such as interview recordings or text, in conjunction with my more traditional landscape approach.

There is an excellent article by journalist Lyra McKee entitled Suicide of the Ceasefire Babies, which delves into post-war intergenerational depression in Northern Ireland, and I’d like to dig a little deeper into this specific area myself through such conversational interviews.

In previous works, I have experimented with the introduction of human figures with simple artificial intelligence, exploring their virtual environments autonomously. I found that in doing this, the overall concept suffered by having scores of digital men running around and killing each other randomly. Although this method is more faithful to the in-game online confrontations that I had been investigating, I felt that it had undermined the feeling of foreboding and the tension inherent in my other works, in particular, the project Digital Border.

Much later, following a long period of experimentation, I decided that my work would switch back to an implied narrative, with the preparatory work I'd made in recording stories etc. to go toward a critical paper exploring the relationship between post-GFA tales (such as McKee's) and the morbid eccentrics of Flann O'Brien.

My interest in this subject came after reading an article that helped to clarify my own experiences with growing up in Northern Ireland after the majority of the ethno-political conflict (The Troubles) had ended. Suicide of the Ceasefire Babies, written by Lyra McKee, outlined mental health issues experienced by people who came of age after the Good Friday Agreement.

The Good Friday Agreement was seen as a significant political development during the peace process in Northern Ireland, signed on the tenth of April, 1998. It was marked as both an agreement between the Irish and British governments, and between the majority of the political parties in Northern Ireland. It is understood by most as the unofficial end of The Troubles. By this time, most of the bloodshed had happened, and any post-GFA incidents were more widely condemned and typically seen as attempts from the lunatic fringes of paramilitary groups. Life in Northern Ireland after the Good Friday Agreement was about optimistically rebuilding the country and vast amounts of government and EU development money was introduced to bring both sides of the community divide together.

For people growing up in this time of ill-placed optimism, it appeared that there was little to worry about. Unfortunately, it only took 16 years for the number of post-Good Friday Agreement suicides to overtake the total number of conflict-related deaths during 40 years of The Troubles. Where it is clear that a period of community and mental healing was necessary, it appears that much of the mental health issues of living in a war zone have permeated from one generation to the next. Northern Ireland is unique in this respect, in that the conflict has been relatively recent, the location was in a first world country, and that there has already been an extended period of healing. Additionally, Northern Ireland was revealed to have the highest level of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, beating current live conflict locations such as Lebanon and Israel.

Much research has been done in this area, most notable by Queens University Belfast lecturer Mike Tomlinson. It was not my objective to reinterpret or improve upon Tomlinson’s work, but to try to document and explore these experiences in some small local way.

This led me to try and understand this kind of intergenerational trauma through family (folk) stories. I collected a number of these via both audio recordings and written means from friends and family, and read up on articles posted by people in similar situations. My initial thoughts were to try and use my artistic practice to open a dialogue about these stories, including creating a self-playing game with some of the stories as both backdrop and direct narrative tool. I am ultimately happy with the work, but I feel that instead, my strengths in this area lie in using less direct methods of storytelling.

And a little on rising paramilitary glorification amongst the youth. I've written about Paul Donnelly and his interview on the Blindboy Podcast. Note that the following piece was written pre-Cambridge Analytica yet it is somehow strangely foreboding.

Part of the retelling of these stories is to indicate the idiocy of youth and for the future generations to attempt no such objectives/idiocies/follies. There is a worrying trend amongst the younger generation today, notably in areas of Belfast but easily imaginable in other locations around the country. The glorification of The Troubles for young people seems to be a growing problem. Belfast historian Paul Donnelly describes working with support groups for young people and how in some situations there is an uneasy reverence for people who have experienced The Troubles first hand. ‘It must have been class’. This is why we need stories like these, not only to show the flawed nature of these acts but also to re-contextualise this in an understandable modern day situation. 

I estimate that part of the rise in popularity of this problem might be from the use of social media and the internet amongst the younger generation. This ‘echo chamber’ allows people with dangerous fringe ideas such as nihilism, fanaticism, and sectarianism to find solace and blossom in these online communities. This runs in parallel to the rise in online countercultures such as Incels, 4chan and the_donald. 

Powerful algorithms on websites such as Twitter, Facebook and Reddit actively redirect your own ideologies back into your timeline daily. This is dangerous in this context in that it allows for deeper separation and less critical debate, but in the context of blooming online sectarianism in the youth of Northern Ireland, it is suddenly much more severe. 

On the flip side, it cannot be under-appreciated what role the internet played in this healing process. Early internet days of fastfude, etc. was an online forum for people from Northern Ireland’s two communities to come together and discuss music. This was much in the way that the Belfast/Derry punk movement in the 1970s allowed both Catholic and Protestants to mix freely. Although fastfude is no longer functioning, those music driven communities have branched out into a healthy discussion into other areas of the internet and social media platforms. 

I feel this highlights a significant diversion between the storytelling of Flann O’Brien and modern internet communications. In each of my stories, the hero is ultimately an anti-hero, providing life-lessons through their own mistakes. It’s difficult to imagine anyone sympathising with the unnamed narrator or his murdering accomplice in The Third Policeman, but it is possible that if the murders in the book had a sectarian edge that it might be read differently, or perhaps even glorified.

I'm not sure I'll post the rest of the paper on Flann O'Brien. Maybe someday it will make an appearance.

INTERACTIVITY AND EXPERIENCE

This past year I have been thinking about the role of interactivity in my work. Typically, my digitally produced work compromises of two parts: the exhibited piece, and a digital download. To give two examples–Clifton & Postcards from Ankara.

Clifton was a reimagining of the Avon Gorge created for the Bristol Photography Festival back in 2010 via the popular multiplayer game Worms. A video capture of one CPU controlled match was displayed via a data projector in the gallery. With Postcards from Ankara, physical postcards were produced of five scenes taken from a game that I had created and exhibited as such.

When exhibited, my work regularly opts for a more curated experience. By that, I mean the work typically consists of either screenshot or video, within which I have personally constructed the path of the viewer. This could be through a screen capture of a playable scenario (which I have acted out) or using some software to generate a specific still image from the game. Each of these methods allows for a work that is non-interactive and exists in the traditional gallery space to be viewed, as one might consider a painting, photograph or video piece.

The interactive element has always been via an external download. In Clifton, the map I made for the work was available, via my website, to be downloaded and implemented with the user’s own copy of the game. In work where I have created my own games (such as Postcards from Ankara, etc.), copies of the game are also available to download in Mac & PC formats. Part of the attraction from this method of production & distribution is the running parallel with the nature of gaming in the internet age. People make things and post them on the internet, often for free (or at least pirated for free). I wanted to try and tap into this with my own work, as I believe that it's deeply ingrained in both the medium and culture.

I found this dual method of curation and exploration to be beneficial. Being able to dictate someone’s experience of my work in a gallery setting allows me to set the boundaries, to let as much or as little to be shown, and also to create limitations within the work. This entirely suits the work and the environment. When exhibiting digital work, or more specifically Game Art, there is inherent difficulty in how to go about it. There can be problems with computers, Game Art can be made from badly hacked together mods and glitches, how to introduce interactivity in a meaningful way? I have experienced some good and bad examples of this, the worst perhaps being a sign apologising as the work was unable to function. There are many benefits to showing a non-interactive piece, especially with Game Art.

In some ways, allowing a digital download of the work is somewhat similar to a magician revealing their tricks, or, in traditional art terms, a painter exhibiting their sketches and studies. I’ve always been fascinated by the processes of artists, and especially love when galleries and museums curate both finished pieces with unfinished or preparatory works. Indeed, in many of my created gamescapes, it is possible to move the camera around and find mistakes, optical illusions and tricks, or to simply walk off of the edge of the playing area and fall endlessly.

The idea of a self-playing game was something I had been investigating. This started with changing my once interactive Schooldays Over into one that could simply be left and watched. I read an article (tongue in cheek) describing how people would soon no longer have time to dedicate to playing video games, and that a self-playing game would solve this conundrum. There are further examples of self-playing games exhibited in the traditional white cube space.

I’ve felt that my digital work is very much implicative of my paintings. It is perhaps through this lens that I am drawn to the non-interactive method of exhibition. I like to think of my digital pieces as ‘living landscapes’, and plan on proceeding with this duality of exhibition and download.

BORDER PHOTOGRAPHS, 25th MAY 2018

On the 25th of May, 2018, Ireland voted to Repeal the 8th Amendment. As the votes were being cast, I decided to take some photographs on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, along the Strabane/Lifford bridge.

The landslide victory for the Yes vote, one which shows how Ireland is finally ready to dump its image as a bastion of the Catholic church, also signifies just how backwards Northern Ireland is on this (and other) matters amidst extensive religious influence.

It’s difficult to discuss these images without taking into consideration the implication of religion as a political tool, one that now sees the ultra-rightwing party DUP now stubbornly at odds with both Ireland and the rest of the UK. I find this is particularly damning concerning the immediacy of Brexit: we currently have two weeks with no solution in sight. One can only hope that the current debacle will shine new light on the political darkness of Northern Ireland (on both sides of the religious divide) that was very much lacking in the run-up to the Brexit vote a few years ago.

THINGS I WISH I'D KNOW RECAP

 I exhibited some new work in Bristol’s The Island gallery as part of the third group show from the MFA in Cardiff School of Art & Design. This show was entitled Things I Wish I’d Known, and I think having a title and theme for this show helped us to bring it together a bit more than what we’d been previously doing.

The blurb for the show was as follows:

'Things I Wish I’d Known is an art exhibition featuring current Master of Fine Art students from Cardiff School of Art and Design. The group show brings an honest exposure of things we wish we’d known; exploring the often eschewed aspect of development and personal growth as an artist. Within the show, there will be a variety of works in different media from both local and international artists.'

My statement responded:

'This show marks a departure from my usual practice of work based on 3D computer games. It is the first exhibit of my exploration into both sculptures, via 3D scanning/printing, and into photography with the accompanying supporting image.

As an artist who typically utilises and manipulates software for developing games, I imagined that transitioning to 3D model software would be somewhat similar and easy to pick up. I was very wrong. My prior experiences creating digital worlds did not prepare me for the inherent difficulties with this new toolset. Ultimately, I went through 7 different pieces of software until I found one that was both easy to use and had enough complexity for what I needed to achieve.

The end result is a number of printed copies of a shell casing. The original object was a friend’s family heirloom; a relic from the 1970’s conflict in Northern Ireland, fired from a paramilitary weapon. The act of duplication is to try and describe the importance of passing on family stories, but also how intergenerational trauma is still an issue in these post-conflict communities. There are a few copies that I have modified to try and point towards what it means to have an unfaithful copy, referring to misinformation and especially important regarding the conflict in Northern Ireland.

A recent photograph from the area is adjacent to reference the graffiti sloganeering of kids contextualised via post-conflict paramilitary glorification.'

Overall, I’m relatively happy with how my work holds up in the context of the space. I arrived to set up the show with two images on paper and a box full of 3D printed replica shell casings. It wasn’t until a few of the other pieces had been displayed in the space that I decided to use a plinth against the wall for my tiny sculptures. My initial thought was to present these on the floor, but the floor was pretty messy, and I felt that they might get lost amongst the splashes of white paint down there. Perhaps if I had more of the shells produced (like 200 or so), it would have worked better. But elevating them on this plinth worked well, and brought them nearer to the double image I had included.

I had the photograph printed off and tacked to the wall via map pins. The image itself was on a standard A3 portrait page, with the image composed towards the top of the page. I intentionally used this typical format and wanted the white space to draw the attention down towards the 3D printed pieces. In retrospect, this was probably too much, and somewhat unnecessary. Perhaps even the image as a whole was superfluous, but at least this was a good experiment to do.

In the future, I’m not sure if I will do much more 3D printing, with a new focus on reinterpreting 3D topographies as before, but I think documentary photography or video might play more of a part in contextualising my scenarios. The next group show is in Penarth Pier Pavillion and will be followed by the MFA show in Cardiff School of Art & Design in September.

Included below are a few more images I took at the exhibition.

Half-Life: 2018

Working with a 19-year-old game engine

For a recent project, I’ve decided to make a change from using the game development tool Unity and begun producing some work using the original Half-Life Goldsrc engine. I did this because I felt that there could be a much easier setup of a server (using a deathmatch/bot driven system), familiarity with the tools and knowledge of its limitations. There is also a definite history of artists using this engine for game art such as Tobias Bernstrup, Aram Bartholl and projects like Velvet Strike. I’ve also made some stuff with it in the past.

Valve Hammer Editor

During development for Schooldays End, I wanted to move away from interactive work to creating self-playing work. This would be easier to display in a gallery setting, require less setup, and avoid the immediate problems inherent in typical interactive art (of any kind). I piggybacked a version of Jumbot, and, with some modifications, I was able to get relatively close to an autonomous first-person deathmatch game with on-screen narrative elements. The prototype worked well enough for me to invest more time in creating the map for the scenario.

Simplified prototype game

This proved to be quite the problem. Although I had some experience in the past working with Valve Hammer Editor, I found it somewhat clunky to set up from scratch (via Steam on a boot camped Mac), and once I got into the swing of things, there was seemingly no end of errors and issues. Finding fixes to problems was also tricky, often encountering dead links on old forum posts. Very different from my experiences with the most positive and supportive community with Unity.

In-game screenshot

Currently, I’m trying to find a way to record a video of my game in action for exhibiting, but I’m now having trouble with the game quitting after 5 or so minutes.

Part of me is strongly considering switching back to using Unity after completion of this project as I’m not entirely happy with the text-based narrative and the other aesthetic compromises.

BLINDBOY PODCAST AND POST-TROUBLES INTER-GENERATIONAL TRAUMA

Graffiti in Strabane, 2018

I’ve started listening to the Blindboy podcast, a fascinating weekly programme by popular Limerick comedian/musician from The Rubberbandits that tackles issues such as mental health, Irish culture, Marxism and philosophy. The podcast is fantastic, and I recommend everyone subscribe and listen.

One of the more recent episodes was a live recording from Duncairn Arts Centre in Belfast, where Blindboy interviewed Donzo, an award-winning tour guide from DC Walking Tours. Donzo takes people around the historically significant parts of Belfast that had been affected by the troubles. In this episode, they discussed many aspects of the civil conflict in Belfast, but what interested me, in particular, was a segment about how modern day post-troubles children were getting involved with continuing the violence and contributing to the perpetual feedback loop of sectarianism in Northern Ireland.

Now, this is a subject I am trying to tackle, explore and contextualise with my own practice.

In the discussion, Donzo and Blindboy offered one example each: The first was about how during a particularly politically heated time of year, groups of children from rival Catholic and Protestant communities attempted to meet up for a large-scale pre-organised fight. When the police approached one child before the riot, they discovered that both groups were in communication via text message, and were currently conversing to find a better location for the fight to occur, away from the police.

The second story was from Blindboy's southern Irish perspective. When he was a child, his own experiences of the troubles in the North were simply via the news. Blindboy’s childhood concept of masculinity was that to be a ‘hard lad’ you had to smoke hash and support the IRA. This concept physically materialised not through organised altercations as above, but through graffiti of Bob Marley with accompanying IRA glorification writing.

What is specifically interesting from each of these anecdotes is the idea that the children were using the historic sectarianism as merely a backdrop to manifest an example of hypermasculinity. It could be argued that this is exasperated somewhat by growing up in a post-trauma community, but what is of more importance is whether or not the sectarianism vein extends past its beginnings as simple childish behaviour to more sinister and deeply understood bigotry later in life. Again, the perpetual feedback loop.

French philosopher Jean Baudrillard popularised the idea of Simulation, that events understood via the TV screen or newspaper are merely copies of the original even. I am interested in how children who have only lived in what might be considered peacetime (post-Good Friday Agreement) can still be influenced and subverted by old events through inter-generational stories. I understood such stories as unfaithful copies; perversions of reality and sometimes very dangerously sectarian.

There is undoubtedly something of a crossover between children, ultraviolence in video gaming and ultra-violence in real life. I am making my own simulations using such stories as foundation and subject matter. The results seem to dovetail very well and perhaps too easily. More to follow.


You can find a link to the specific podcast episode here.

THREE DOORS UP EXHIBITION RECAP

Just some immediate thoughts and reflection from our recent group show in Three Doors Up. The show was called Who Me? and was the collective work of the 2017/2018 Fine Art Masters group from Cardiff School of Art and Design. While not a traditional exhibition, the space was presented as more of a working environment with a relaxed attitude. We were encouraged to drop in and produce work, change up the pieces and evolve the show over the period.

For this show, I chose to exhibit my Schoolday’s End self-playing game. I had initial thoughts to have the piece projected onto a wall, but it eventually worked out better to display via an old CRT TV on a plinth. A requirement of the space was to have a sofa for people who wanted to come and chat. I positioned my work adjacent the couch, something which I felt added a little to the overall feeling of my work and suited the nature of the exhibition.

I was able to change up my game throughout the show, adding different things, correcting errors, adding a new level and overhauling the colour. Other artists produced works on paper in the space, adding to the exhibition throughout the fortnight.

Some commented on the ramshackle appearance of the show, and I do indeed agree that we could have taken a more refined approach. Overall it wasn’t particularly bad considering it was the first time we had all exhibited together and also that we had all mostly different work. Part of my idea for at least one of our future exhibitions is to have a theme to glue our works together. It can be a loose theme, perhaps just a word or phrase, but something to help make it feel like a curated show and not just a collection of works produced by people studying together.

As far as paperwork was concerned, we had a printout of artist statements. There were no other materials, and some artists and visitors expressed that we should label the work, perhaps also including a visible price. It would probably have been useful to some extent, but I did enjoy approaching the public and explaining the works and artists, often giving much more insight than a simple title or printed piece while allowing for further conversation and discussion.

Thanks to Rob, Richard and Ronnie for their parts in the organisation of this show.

THOUGHTS ON REVISITING OLD IDEAS

I’ve started noticing a pattern in my recent projects: that I’ve been revisiting old ideas and reworking them, trying different approaches, techniques and developments.

Typically, I work quite quickly with ideas. They are executed as close to conception as possible. This is not to say that these ideas don’t develop over time, or develop through iteration, often I can build and change out as I go. This lets me see if something is working or not if I am achieving what is intended.

Examples of this are in the Emoji Morandi project, which originated as a collection of eBay images, followed by paintings, and now as a series of emoji paintings (above). See also my latest game about mining, which was prototyped a few years ago as a proof of concept for a game about mining lyrics. When trying to create work in response to Bitcoin, it was the perfect opportunity to hang that idea on.

Much of what I have produced over the past few years is site or project specific, which I think lends itself quite well to this approach. More recently, I’ve been able to make explorative work in the process of my Masters. Perhaps this has allowed me to revise old ideas without the limitations inherent making something for a specific exhibition. It might also be understood that the safe framework of the academic environment allows me to revisit these concepts and further develop them. Either way, I’m enjoying this new approach of revisiting older work.

ADDITION AND SUBTRACTION PROCESS

WORK IN PROGRESS

I thought I’d like to show a little bit of work in progress and also talk a little about my processes for this latest project.

For this piece, I’ve used a Unity plugin to create some Perlin noise generated landscapes. These landscapes were randomly generated again and again, until something that might work as a naturally occurring border appeared. To this, I first add a body of water, a skybox, lighting, weather, and flora. I then use a first-person controller to explore my environment, adding in downloaded 3D objects from found sources via the Unity store.

Within the play-throughs, I try and find little scenarios that might work with implicit narratives, perhaps items that might be identified as relating to an imagined border situation while simultaneously referencing gaming semiotics.

Above is one finished image. Throughout the development of this project, I have taken 100+ of such screenshots. Below, are a few examples of my different attempts, showing my exploration with adding and subtracting objects this screenshot. Unity allows me to work in a painterly kind of way, building up composition via this process until I have something with which I am happy.

Incidentally, this particular shot was inspired by a painting I had completed many years ago, taken from a Google Street View trip around Northern Ireland.