Thoughts on Making Games

I was considering keeping this one a little quieter, but I’m very excited to have started work on a classic point & click adventure game. It’s an amalgamation of a few ideas I’ve had for various games, set in something of an alternative 19th Century rural Ireland. Think maybe Monkey Island, Fate of Atlantis or Broken Sword meets Flann O’Brien and Father Ted. I’ve coined the working title of ‘Monkey Ireland’ as a bit of a laugh.

I think it’s safe to say I have a problem with finishing projects, especially when it moves from the exhilarating beginning stage of planning, conceptualisation and exploration, to the more tedious refinement, polish, and eventual release.

I recently revamped my website, moving from Squarespace to Google Sites. When I was doing my undergrad, I made a quick little website using Indexhibit, a free online portfolio creator with a bit of back end coding. Back in those days I was a bit more savvy with doing some web dev stuff, CSS and HTML, having cut my teeth on early internet, Flash, Geocites and Myspace. I switched to Squarespace around 2014, and only recently dropped it as it was becoming increasingly expensive, nearly £200 a year to maintain what is essentially an online business card. I was thrilled at Google Sites and would 100% recommend it to any other artist looking for an online portfolio. Thanks to the wayback machine, there is an archive of my old website, if anyone is interested. 

This was a big deal for me, not only having ticked off one of my big ‘to do’ items for this year, allowing me a bit more financial freedom, and also to reflect on all the weird projects and things that I’ve made over the years. So it turns out that I’ve actually worked on, and more importantly finished, quite a number of projects. And there are still more that I need to add to the website still.

One of the biggest problems indie game developers have is starting a project with too much ambition. Over lockdown I began work on making a new Mod for Half-Life, Valve’s 1998 classic first person shooter. I wanted to recapture some of the feeling of playing that game that I had back in 1998 and worked on a few levels sketching out some ideas and basic geometry. I was happy with the results but I’ve decided to put that project on the back burner for now. I’m a little sad to see that mod languish on the depths of my hard drive, but I might return to it eventually. That said, I am happy with my contribution to that side of gaming, with a number of maps made that gained popularity and are still enjoyed to this day.

On reflection, I have a few other games that never quite made it. I developed a short game about being stranded on a small boat during a flood, having to fish for supplies and befriend a small bird, a Flashback style game where you are a robot trying to return to your factory to be dismantled, a game where you control a hermit, scanning a beach for items to reveal more information about your past, and a Duke Nukem 2 inspired platformer where you play as an older, fat, bald and grumpy version of the classic 90’s action hero. All these titles are on hold, incomplete, and maybe never see the light of day. But theres something about making them that thrills me, I think I’m drawn to the process of development more than creating something to release. 

I often think about these abandoned games, and consider maybe revisiting them and taking them to the final stages of polish, but I’m very happy with what I’ve achieved and what they’ve taught me about making things. Every aspect of the creative process offers something different to me. When I look back on these games I don’t see them as failed projects, but more as experiments that helped me learn a little more about my own creative practices. 

Referring back to the abundance of completed projects on my recent website revamp has allowed me to reflect on my actual achievements, on what I’ve taken from start to finish, and what I can do when I put my mind to it. These finalised works are the results of years and years of those experiments, and I’m very grateful to have the ability and opportunity to take these risks.

The new game that I’m working on is another passion project. Like a lot of my work, I don’t exactly plan on making something with wide appeal. Point and click adventure games are a serious niche, with a very small market, but I think if I release the first act of the game, perhaps some interest will allow me to finish it off. I’ve written the script for it, developed the puzzles and locations. On paper, it works, which is good. But now I need to get into the nitty gritty of developing the actual game. I’m confident I can do it, despite not created a point and click game since I was in high school, The wealth of knowledge and experience in the other ‘paused’ projects gives me something to build on. 

By the big mirror in my bedroom, I’ve stuck a few postit notes, detailing things that I need to do. Not exactly Trello, but I’ve found this method to be really useful in helping me manage my projects. Being the first thing I see when I wake up in the morning is so helpful in keeping me on track. Removing the’ ‘Squarespace’ item from this list was very satisfying, much more than ticking a box on a spreadsheet. I’m hoping to knock a few more things off this list, hopefully including one for this new adventure game. 

IRL BALACLAVA

About a year ago I spent some time doing a residency in SHIFT in Cardiff. SHIFT was a brand new and exciting art space in the centre of Cardiff, supported by the arts organisation & charity Axis. The space was absolutely huge, having been an underground Virgin Megastore back in the day. I instantly wanted to make use of the environment to make some large scale works, but it took me a little while to actually make any. I focused on smaller works and using the size to better understand my subject matter and composition before eventually sizing up to larger pieces. I’m happy with how that body of work turned out, and how it helped me realise what I wanted to get out of landscape painting.

During this time I experimented with an idea that I had left simmering on the back burner. I’d always been interested in the unusual (and disturbing) crossover of violent materials and children. I’ve written about this quite a bit, particularly regarding The Troubles in Northern Ireland and the freshly apparent glorification of ‘the good old days’ by kids. It’s something that has always been a big part of my work, and when exploring the historic violence in Northern Ireland using video game software, I found there was an inherent link between simulated online violence by kids and the real-life violence that influenced so many.

With this small project, I want to make something that bridged that link whilst also using new technology. I had a few ideas from before about using the idea of a balaclava in my work after seeing a piece by Paul Granjon–that had absolutely nothing to do with paramilitary activity in Northern Ireland–but it inspired me to use it as an object because it's such an iconic and thought evoking symbol.

I actually don’t like using Snapchat, but it has featured in my work and influenced my practice a fair bit. I suppose I referenced it most directly in a project emulating Willie Doherty in a lighthearted series of live online ‘performative’ pieces, and there is some similarity with the work I did with #rambo. I did personally use Snapchat for a few months when it came out but pretty soon after I gave up and stopped updating or checking it. I know it's super popular with kids, I imagine in part due to the 100% inaccessible UI that makes it inoperable to the boomer generation, a bit of an ‘anti-Facebook’. I thought it might be interesting to create something along the lines of a face filter that used a balaclava, and Snapchat’s relatively simple filter-making software allowed me to do this.

When starting this project I found it drew out some parallels between IRL activism, online anonymity, gaming culture, privacy, oversharing and illegal activities. Why not use a balaclava to hide your identity for online activities? I suppose the V for Vendetta Guy Fawkes mask would be more appropriate when referencing these issues, but as someone from Northern Ireland, it's hard to move past the image of a balaclava and its inherent implication.

As it stands, I might break this work out for an exhibition some time. I understand it is possible to use geofencing to localise a Snapchat filter for events and such, or do I have a device in the exhibition with Snapchat locked in for people to post their own balaclava photos? Or why not both? Maybe a running feed on a display of people’s filtered faces when posted on social media and tagged with a specific hashtag. The balaclava model might need a little more fine-tuning and tweaking but the overall concept and execution is solid. Now to work on a face mask & ventilator filter for this COVID-19 pandemic…

George Glen Uilleann Pipes

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

I often write about music and instruments here, but this is going to be a very special post about a new set of uilleann pipes I have come to acquire. A month ago I bought a set of pipes from nonother than the caretaker of my old school in Omagh. The instrument was found in the attic of his house by the previous occupant (who had left them there). Considering the caretaker had been in the house for some thirty-odd years, it's safe to assume the set hasn't seen any action in a long time.

Having just seen grainy potato-phone photos of the pipes online, I was able to assume the components were mostly original, and that the maker was George Glen. Finally viewing the set in person confirmed my assumptions. Below are some of my initial thoughts on the instrument.

Glen made pipes in Edinburgh from approx 1900-1920. They match up with the set in the National Museum it Scotland, although this set has folded regulator keys, rather than the standard keys on the museum set. The most obvious comparisons are the highland style combing on the main stock and the bass drone. I haven't found a stamp as of yet.

George Glen also made great highland bagpipes, and there are some surviving examples of these too. He was related to a few other makers (Alexander Glen, David Glen & more) who were into all kinds of pipes and owned a music shop in Edinburgh.

The set seems to be mostly original, just missing the chanter and baritone drone.

On initial inspection, the regulator keys look like they could be aftermarket additions, perhaps from a broken keyblock repair. I reckon the consistency across the keys and lack of spring channels in the wood suggest they are original. The popularity of this type of key among Glen's contemporaries O'Mealy and Hamilton, etc. may help support this. Then again, the big D baritone key looks particularly like the work of McFadden, but I imagine the extra fold at the bottom of the key was made to accommodate a redrilling of the tone hole.

The turning on the drones and regulators suggest that the same maker made them.

The keys are pin mounted by a most unusual method: the pins are made out of a long thin strip of metal that has been folded against itself and made into a 'T' shape.  The only key that is missing this pin is the long D key, further supporting the idea that is was moved aftermarket (perhaps a C# to D?).

The bass drone puck looks like it is made out of two-part ivory and joined together. It is unusual as there is a folded rush from the puck into the connection brass tubing, perhaps to flatten the tone or dampen the sound.

The bag looks to be of good quality leather and ties the chanter stock in at the top. The velvet cover could have been blue but is now mostly discoloured. The main stock has the highland style combing as seen on the other Glen set in the National Museum in Edinburgh. The outer silver ferrule looks like it could be aftermarket, and has been held in place with paper.  The bellows stock appears to be original but missing the ferrule. The turnings match up with the other parts of this set. Somewhere along the line, the connection has been poorly whittled away, perhaps to suit a smaller piper.

The bellows are in good condition, with a very O'Mealy-like appearance. The leather is tacked to the sides of the pipes, with a shallow channel for the leather. There are remains of a decorative green fabric. The inner belt is screwed to the paddle, and the outer one is attached to the back of the paddle at one end. There is a hook at the top of the paddle, after the inlet, where the belt can be attached, allowing for greater access to the regulators.

The box is nicely made with dovetail joints and a red lining. I can make out the name Galloway written in pencil on the inside.

My first investigations into disassembling the set have brought up new questions: how are some of the regulator keys are squared off at the pads and some are not?  The G note on the tenor regulator appears to have been sharpened twice with a plugged & drilled tone hole. The ivory mount on the tenor drone seems to be threaded like a screw–is this a replacement from a highland set? So many questions.

I'm looking forward to new insights revealing themselves with this instrument over the next few years. Once it's up and running, I have a few chanters that might suit it. Watch this space.

Links:

A few more photos: https://imgur.com/gallery/4Fkbu1M

Museum instrumet:
http://nms.scran.ac.uk/database/record.php?usi=000-000-579-941-C&scache=1l8ax8gxmn&searchdb=scran

Info on Glen: http://www.thebagpipemuseum.com/Glen_George.html

Banning r/me_ira: What happens when you drop the /s?

Reddit occasionally bans controversial subreddits, chiefly based on moral decisions. A few examples would be digital cesspits such as r/beatingwomen, r/incels and more recently r/watchpeopledie.

r/watchpeopledie was removed the day following the horrific 2019 New Zealand mosque mass shooting, where it had posted videos glorifying the violent event. There is a similar thread to last week's banning of r/me_ira.

r/me_ira was a place for witty user created content about The Troubles in Northern Ireland. The name comes from r/meirl, a popular subreddit with self-deprecating memes, looking at the funny side of being a depressed millennial. r/me_ira was followed the same concept, with the same grisly humour managing to dovetail perfectly with the Northern Ireland mentality.

I must admit, I have enjoyed and laughed many times at the memes, with razor-sharp critical commentary and political satire on the events in Northern Ireland. However, the 'Irish' sections on Reddit have always been populated with Irish-Americans, and this is where the problems started with me_ira.

I've written about how our native gallows humour predates The Troubles, citing Flan O'Brien as an example with his seminal masterpiece, The Third Policeman. I wonder if this humour can be interpreted as some kind of coping mechanism? Either way, it's clear that this particular subreddit was misunderstood by many Irish-American posters.

The sarcasm of this parody subreddit was utterly lost on these trolls, and their ridiculous pro-IRA contributions were largely ignored and downvoted. As people from Northern Ireland, we like to laugh at ourselves. r/me_ira offered a Hole in the Wall Gang approach to the historic conflict issues for the post-Good Friday Agreement generation. By contrast, the pro-IRA posting from mostly American Redditors failed to embrace the self-deprecating nature of the subreddit, attempting to stir up Republican action from across the water in some kind of self-righteous Hollywood crusade.

There is a lot to unpack with this kind of internet behaviour. We see a common theme run through all right-wing/nihilist/extremist/alienated cesspools across the Internet. The predominant use of memes is perhaps one of the weirdest things to investigate. Easily sharable and instantly recognisable, they offer simple punchline opinions with often funny or cartoonish imagery, disguising their actual negative implications. It's easy to understand how the humour in a subreddit like r/me_ira would be misinterpreted as one that glorifies violence and nationalism, as opposed to one which condemns it. In the end, it appeared that few could distinguish between this fine line, and an ever-increasing controversial contribution from right-wing 'plastic paddy' America led to a full ban.

Like most subreddit bans, the ban on r/me_ira was triggered by the reaction to a horrific event: the murder of Lyra McKee. One of the few moderators of the subreddit commented:

'…it is good it came to an end. It was filed with yanks as many others mentioned and trying to ban all the ignorant folk was hard. The jokes got repetitive, and it went from okay to dog shit when Lyra McKee died (rip).'

'Parody turns to support when the educated craic dealers are switched with ignorant yanks. Fun while it lasted, but I guess that's another Irish sub freed of yanks.'

They are referring to the harsh criticism of McKee and the glorification of the idiot children who shot her. One American 'Fenian' commented 'No one should care about a Fag Journalist'. It's so strange to witness a comedy subreddit evolve into the very thing it tried to parody. We are surely better off without it.

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.

Thoughts on new paintings in SHIFT

This residency started with two projects in mind: to develop new 2D for a show in Waterloo Tea and to make a single image as a run of prints to be my contribution to the SWAP Edition 4: BREX-Kit. 

With my 2D work, I wanted to delve deeper into a long-term project about contemporary landscapes in Northern Ireland. I had already amassed an extensive collection of source imagery and preparatory studies and wanted to take this project to the next level within this residency. 

Before starting, I had some vague ideas about producing landscape paintings based on images taken from locations around the border. I had made some attempts at gathering pictures and videos in preparation for my work on Digital Border, last year, and I understand my recent developments as something of a continuation of this project, with the introduction of painting and drawing as a means of communicating my thoughts around this subject.

Throughout the residency, I have produced numerous works in different media. These have helped me in considering what tools I wanted to use to realise the new work fully. I have settled on striking a balance between the traditional painting of the Tory Island artists and the shiny mini-screen aesthetic of my previous Digital Border works.

I feel like I have indeed developed my concepts and understanding of what I want to do with the subject matter, and now I can focus on producing more pieces like this within these confines.

My experiences with revisiting Digital Border for the SWAP Editions: BREX-Kit has been explained here.

NEIL SHAWCROSS

40 YEARS OF PORTRAIT PAINTING

I think I was living in Bath at the time, when Shane, an artist friend of mine, went to an exhibition opening with my brother. The exhibition was in a small gallery in rural Donegal, and I was familiar with it having been asked to play music there on a few occasions. The exhibiting artist was Neil Shawcross, a Lancashire native who had been living in Northern Ireland since the 1960s. Shane had the opportunity to speak with Mr Shawcross, who kindly offered a private tour of his new retrospective in The Ulster Museum. They arranged a date for the meeting, and Shane asked if I wanted to go up with him as I was to be back home that week.

So we both hopped on the Goldline 273 to Belfast and walked out from the Europa bus depot to meet Neil at the Ulster Museum. We picked up a bottle of Rioja on the way, to say thanks (Neil took great pleasure in informing us that the opening night of his exhibition had the most wine ever drank at the Ulster Museum and that they even had to go out for more when the supplies ran out). When we arrived Neil was great to chat with, we talked about art and the Tory Island painters as I had recently come back from a painting scholarship on the island. One of Neil’s friends and their daughter joined us, and we went off on the tour of the exhibition.

The show was a retrospect of his portraiture entitled 40 Years of Portrait Painting, with 34 life-sized oil on canvas pieces, displayed in chronological order. I was fascinated by his approach and the choices he made. I loved his use of pencil, charcoal and loosely applied oil paint to create these fantastic large-scale works. In one of the first in the series, he explained to us how he was experimenting with drawing a line along the bottom of the canvas to serve as the ground, his inspiration comes from observing how children paint pictures and also from outsider art (such as the previously mentioned Tory Island artists). I found this approach fascinating, and much of this has gone on to influence my own work in concept, technique and composition.

As we walked through the large rooms of the exhibition, a Primary School group was busy milling about. Each kid had a pencil and paper and was trying to recreate their favourite works for a class project. Neil walked up to one of the children, looked at their reproduction, and then signed it ‘Shawcross’. He then remarked ‘that's more like it now’. I doubt the child knew he was, but it was a genuinely nice gesture.

We finished up the tour and moved across the street to the William Conor Cafe, where I was completely astounded as to how many espresso shots Neil had in such short succession. Artist Clement McAleer joined us, offering myself and Shane up to attend a private view of his work in the Gordon Gallery in Derry. Before we parted, Neil offered to send us some books, which arrived a few weeks later, again, signed like he had done with the kids drawing.

PATSY DAN RODGERS: KING

When I was in school and starting my A-Levels my art teacher, Declan Forde, recommended I apply for a scholarship to Tory Island to spend some time with the local painters. To apply, I had to make a piece of art about the island. Having never been, I asked my father for some information about it and he pulled out an old RTÉ  documentary about Derek Hill on VHS. Hill was an English painter who frequented the Donegal island on long painting trips and encouraged the locals to take up painting themselves. With this newfound interest, I searched 2002 google for some images of Tory Island. I settled on painting from a striking photograph of the famous 'T' stone cross. If I recall correctly it was an acrylic painting on that strange canvas board stuff, slightly abstract and expressive but enough detail to know it was Tory Island. I submitted this for the scholarship and was successful.

Tory Island is perhaps the most remote island off the coast of Ireland that is still inhabited. Lying some 10 miles into the Atlantic Ocean and measuring approx 3 miles long and 1 mile wide, it is a desolate and barren island of great beauty and isolation. No trees grow on Tory, for the wind is too strong, and the great high cliffs make for outstanding vistas. Derek Hill was known to have said that every rock on Tory was worthy of painting, and when he first starting making work there in the late 1950's he was approached by James Dixon, a local fisherman. Dixon, of no formal training or understanding of art, argued he could do better. Hill gave him some paints and, thus, the Tory Island School was born. Dixon went on to influence a number of locals to take up painting, including Anton Meenan, Ruairí Rodgers, and Patsy Dan Rogers (King of the Island).

The school of art can be typified as naive or outsider paintings, with a focus on local happenings, landscapes or mythologies. The execution is often simplistic, with perspective and orientation not commonly found in the regular art canon. For example, important historical events are often painted to mimic a bird's eye view of the scene. Like many other artists before me, I was fascinated by the approach to the work, the use of text in the image, the different tools utilised in the mark-making process and the need to fill the entire composition with detail.

In the Summer of 2003, I made the journey out to Tory Island for a week of painting and playing music on this scholarship. I was accompanied on the ferry across by a few other eager teenagers and Jim Hunter of the University of Ulster. The King of the Island, Patsy Dan Rodgers, met us as we landed and welcomed us to his island. Over the following days, I spent some time learning about the local island, the legends and about the art community. Patsy Dan took me out to do some painting on the coast. He told stories about how he used to add little things to his compositions and didn't mind if it was 100% authentic so long as it suited the painting, which now seems like an obvious idea but had never occurred to me as a teenager. He was also willing to bend the rules, unafraid to use unorthodox materials such as boot polish in his paint for 'a blacker black'.

In the following years, I often returned to Tory in the summer, camping there with my friends for weeks at a time. No internet, no phones, just time to reflect, paint, write, play music or drink beer. When it was sunny it was the best thing ever. When it rained it was a different story. I got to know the locals pretty well, and always looked forward to getting back over. The last time I went was to play a gig with my rock band. There was a mini-festival on the island called 'Rock on the Rock' and somehow we got asked to come and play. I'm not totally sure our weird brand of blues & metal went down so well but we at least had fun. I haven't been back since.

I'd always wanted to own one of Patsy Dan's paintings, as they are both amazing little pieces of art, full of his idiosyncratic approach to painting and his outlook on the world, and also to remind me of those amazing summers on the island. My journey to obtaining on was not easy. Having not been able to get back to Tory Island for many many years, I looked to see if I could get some online, perhaps through Ross's auctioneers or somewhere else. I eventually found a website selling a painting, but after attempting to complete the purchase, nothing happened and it fell through. It wasn't until a year or so later that I stumbled across the website again, and noticed that the payment method was PayPal. I pressed 'buy' again but immediately cancelled the order. In doing this, I managed to see the email address associated with the online gallery selling the painting. I contacted them about buying some work, and after a few months, I actually got a reply.

It wasn't from anyone on the island but luckily enough it was from someone who had a direct contact with the King. I eventually received some photos of Patsy Dan's most recent work, which had been shown in Dungloe, and asked to have one of his paintings sent over to me in Wales. This took another few months but by the end, I finally received my very own Patsy Dan Rodger's painting of Tory Island, complete with boot polish black.

A few weeks ago, I, like many, was deeply saddened to hear of the passing away of Patsy Dan. He was a completely unique individual and I never underestimated how much he influenced my work as a young artist.

Bonus Content- short 1992 documentary about Tory Island painters with some amazing flute by Matt Molloy

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.

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.

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.

UILLEANN PIPING & UNESCO

There are two things regarding uilleann piping that has happened this week:

UNESCO has recognised Uilleann piping as being representative of the 'Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity'. Excellent news! This result is a testament to the continued hard work and dedication of Na Píobairí Uilleann to the promotion of playing, learning and manufacture of the instrument.

In a particularly insightful message, President Michael D Higgins remarked that the uilleann pipes "connect us in profound ways, weaving together cultural memory and contemporary vision".

Somewhat along those lines, and in much less important news, is that have I gotten a new chanter. I've been looking for a suitable chanter to match my old set of pipes, and the opportunity came for me to acquire this 19th-century instrument which I believed to be the same maker as my own set.

It appears to be related to the Eighteen Moloney, which is in my opinion, one of the best sounding instruments ever (see recordings by David Power and Willie Clancy). Supposedly, the Eighteen Moloney was made by the Moloney brothers of Co. Clare around 1830-40. Both the Eighteen Moloney and my new chanter very much resemble the work Michael Egan of Liverpool and not really like the most famous instrument of the Moloney brothers (The Vandeleur set, pictured below).

Either way, the chanter is an exquisite example of a pre-famine instrument, and I look forward to getting a good reed going (below) for it and marrying it up to my main set of pipes.

DUBLIN TRIP

EXHIBITION RECAP

About a week ago I made a quick trip over to Dublin and visited a few exhibitions. In the intervening days I’ve managed to pick up some abhorrent stomach virus so for my own clarity I think I’ll discuss only two of the exhibits here:

IMMA Collection Freud Project
Irish Museum of Modern Art
http://www.imma.ie/en/page_237084.htm

I find it sometimes takes the sustained experience of multiple pieces to partially comprehend an artist’s work, and I certainly left this exhibition (of 50 pieces) with a newfound appreciation and something of a more profound understanding for Lucian Freud.

The content was quite mixed, with both paintings and etchings represented and various subject matter across the mediums.

Reflection (Self Portrait), 1985, Oil on Canvas

Included in the exhibit were one unfinished painting and an etching plate. As an artist, I feel preconditioned to place value and intrigue on medium and process, and seeing these objects, along with some telling descriptions regarding certain paint colours, is truly fascinating. Much has already been written about Freud’s long and labour intensive live sittings, but seeing behind the scenes is always inspiring to me. The collection spanned three floors of the outer building at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, one of my all time favourite galleries.

Eithne Jordan: Tableau
Hugh Lane Gallery
https://www.hughlane.ie/past/1667-eithne-jordan-tableau

Before this exhibition, I was unaware of the work of Irish artist Eithne Jordan. Her work consisted of mostly small paintings of uninhabited interiors. I’ve had my paintings described as having ‘Irish colours’ quite a few times, and, looking at Jordan’s work I can say the same. The subject matter is often functional rooms. The image included here is one that caught my attention, some part due to the projector displaying a little error message to the bottom right and also due to my fondness for the desktop as a great revelator.

Conference Room II, 2017, 50 X 65cm, Oil On Linen

Although you lose the sense of ‘scale’ of the objects in the painting, something about removing people from the composition has always felt important to me. In an article in the latest Irish Arts journal, Jordan explains:

‘…if I introduced [a figure] then the painting became about the figure, not the space or the structures’

Personally, much of my work has evolved from painting gamescapes typically devoid of figures. This aspect of my own work has always been important. Like I’m capturing a moment before something wild and unknown going to happen as it typically does in such games. Perhaps I’ll write a little more on this in a future post as I have some thoughts evolving on the subject.

Elsewhere in the article, I read that work for another exhibition was explicitly completed for Butler Gallery in Kilkenny. This work focused on random findings while walking around a small town in rural Ireland. This resounded with me as I had dabbled with this in the past, and I am looking to develop a series of paintings about small town life to compliment a larger 3D game piece.

Watertower II, 2017, Oil On Linen, 50 X 65cm