Aileen Drohan

I.I.L.I

aileenphoto — Tue, 19 Jun 2018 16:10:50 +0000

I.I.L.I. was a collaboration with members of South East Makerspace to create an Immersive Interactive Light Installation that responded to the physical presence and movement of people through the exhibition space. In bringing the walls to life ephemeral visual compositions of light affected and altered the mood and experience of the surrounding space. This installation took place at 16/18 O’Connell Street, Waterford, during Imagine Arts Festival 2017.

The technical expertise for this installation was worked on by a small group of members of South East Makerspace. A kinect camera with custom made motion tracking software picks up the location and movement of people in a gameplay space within the exhibition area. The physical movements of those present cause subtle shifts or directional changes to beams of light. As the light changes, it catches fragments of reflective and translucent materials fixed within the installation area.

Digistreets

aileenphoto — Mon, 16 Jan 2017 15:04:38 +0000

Digistreets was a collaboration with fellow members of South East Makerspace (SEMS) which took place during Imagine Arts Festival 2016. In creating temporary urban interventions, we aimed to re-imagine the urban spaces of Waterford city as playful. Our ‘Magical Mushrooms’ cropped up nightly in green spaces of the city while ‘Talking Rubbish’ offered temporary distractions to city centre pedestrians. The work grew from playful experimentation and from combining creativity and technology in a multi-disciplinary environment. Embracing our DIY maker culture, the work utilises both new and old technologies: analog and digital circuits, defunct and new materials.

5715

aileenphoto — Thu, 07 Jul 2016 19:00:26 +0000

A collaboration by Aileen Drohan and Sinead McDonald for /Glitch Festival 2016

The artwork title, 5715, refers to the number of homeless people in Ireland as of January 2016, according to the Department of the Environment, of which 1830 were children. By April of 2016 those numbers had risen to 6189 and 2121 respectively. Rents are projected to rise a further 12% this year, placing an even greater number of families and individuals at risk. In many places across the country, availability is minimal and stock is priced far above the maximum limits set for Rent Supplement payments. Many families have been forced into emergency accommodation due to soaring rental prices, locking them into a cycle of increasing poverty.

5715 uses Arduino and piezo disks to track this risk. The installation outputs a range of sound frequencies derived from the ratio of the average rental prices for a 3 bedroom family home in each county in Ireland, versus the maximum rental price allowed for a family with three children under the government’s Rent Supplement scheme. This data is outputted to frequencies fed from Arduino microcomputers to 26 wall mounted piezoelectric disks. The result is a range of pitches from just above audible for lower risk areas, to squealing high-pitch where families are most in danger. The cacophony of sounds produced can be difficult to engage with for any length of time. Disturbingly, in no county in Ireland was the average rental price equal to or under the maximum allowed under the scheme.

Piezoelectric disks, wire, Arduinos, mini-amps, galvanised steel wall supports

Infused by Nature

aileenphoto — Wed, 08 Jun 2016 12:34:12 +0000

A small mixed woodland stands near my home. It is a place I frequent. My familiarity with this landscape allows my mind to wander freely as I physically move through its’ hillside of tall pines, sheltered river walks and tangled laurels. Its’ environment, affecting my mood and thoughts, often brings my mind to a state of daydreaming which evokes a sense of calm. The images, captured while in motion, are a direct response to my external senses, inner feelings and meandering thoughts, which result in painterly impressions caught somewhere between reality and a wandering dreamlike state.

Slices of Time

aileenphoto — Fri, 02 Oct 2015 22:08:07 +0000

This short webcam recording, filmed in ‘real time’, is the result of exploring alternative ways to capture video imagery outside of the default recording modes of the camera. This particular clip uses some processing code. The results are rearranged ‘slices of time’.

Open Lenses

aileenphoto — Fri, 04 Jul 2014 09:55:28 +0000

Openly available live streaming webcams, usually place promotion cams or traffic cams, are a frequent part of our urban infrastructures. Investigating the boundaries between the ‘physical’ world and its’ ‘virtual’ representation and in the translation from one to the other, what can be revealed or concealed? Through a series of webcam interventions questionable realities are presented. In a video of nondescript traffic cams a world of strange phenomena unfolds.

SEE THE FUTURE: A written response by Barry Kehoe
“The impossible measurement of time becomes central in the work of Aileen Drohan. Her work in the exhibition is developed from performances involving CCTV footage that is streamed and accessible on the internet. By placing herself intentionally in the images she is actively creating a situation that interferes with the automated gathering of observational data. Through the process of making and gathering the records of her interferences she has discovered something peculiar about the spatialisation of time, the scientific recording of time in precise units of measurement. The problem with time is one of relativity. Henri-Louis Bergson (1859 –1941) redefined the modern conceptions of time, space, and causality in his theory of “Duration.” For Bergson, time as it is experienced cannot be measured by science or mathematics. In looking at the experience of time versus the recording of time he states: “We give a mechanical explanation of a fact and then substitute the explanation for the fact itself.” What becomes fascinating in the artist’s photo stills and the systemic recording of the world through surveillance is how it reveals that each camera and data recording device are not synchronized. Each one records time differently with incorrect hours, days, dates. As an attempt at representing reality or recoding a truthful interpretation of the world the system is flawed. In the video work that presents a bank of images from a non-descript set of motorway traffic cameras she has removed the specific data of the time codes, unconcerned in this instance with this documentation, she allows the time-lapse footage to play out, simply revealing a world of strange phenomena. As rain descends and cars drive by during the night only the glow of the lights are visible like spectres moving through the darkness. Silent and eerie this strange behaviour is being recorded and broadcast continually by an automated system. Why and for whom? The CCTV presents an immanence of an ever present, a timeless, ahistorical place where the idea of a future is perhaps unknowable if not impossible. ”
Full article available here

Open Lenses in ‘See the Future’ NCAD Masters Show, Thomas St., Dublin

‘Open Lenses’, Video installation still, 6:39min

‘Open Lenses’, Lambda Print, 23 x 212 cm

‘Open Lenses’, Lambda Print, 23 x 382 cm

Elementary Moraility

aileenphoto — Tue, 15 Apr 2014 21:09:19 +0000

The red phone has been used in a multitude of films, advertisements and political campaigns which all seem to play on this idea of the ‘red phone’ and its’ association with responsibility. The original ‘red phone’ or ‘hot line’ allowed immediate communication on a secure line between the White House and the Kremlin during the cold war. It was was established in 1963 when direct communications between the two nuclear powers were deemed necessary following the cuban missile crisis.

‘Elementary Morality’ is an interactive automated installation that incorporates the red phone, an old method of secure communication, to relay a message from the recent past that is relevant today. The phone rings when it senses a passer-by. Whoever picks up the handset will hear a message from Noam Chomsky which was taken from a 2002 interview in Japan during which Chomsky speaks openly about his views on terrorism, war aims and the lack of elementary morality. Chomsky speaks of the hypocrite and the basic principle of doing unto others as you would like done unto you. He calls the so called war on terror a ‘pure hypocrisy’. Would anybody listen?

Promise of reality

aileenphoto — Thu, 20 Mar 2014 23:03:28 +0000

In this photographic series the artist presents herself as different individuals who once had fleeting encounters with live streaming webcams in Dublin. The process began, months before, by watching people through city webcams and screen capturing their images. In deciding to re-stage some of the images captured, she scoured clothing to match the attire of those captured. Positioning herself in front of the same webcams, dressed and posed as those previously captured, she becomes a trace of older images that were once streamed. In using her physical presence to hack the web streams the artist endeavours to interrupt the system’s integrity and obstruct the webcam’s promise of reality.

Promise of reality, Lambda Prints, Images 1-6, 10x10inches

Friend me

aileenphoto — Wed, 19 Mar 2014 21:37:19 +0000

As a society we have embraced the internet and its’ data sharing opportunities. Behind our uploads and mouse clicks, algorithmic processes take place to data mine and track our activity. ‘Friend me’ was born out of an investigation into these processes. Each image, representing a facebook friend, is a visual montaged record of my browsing activity through friends’ photo uploads on facebook. The montages are determined not only by my friends’ image uploads and the order of their uploads, but also by my personal browsing activity and the patterns of selectivity that arose in following one important rule – the resulting montages must not clearly reveal any individual’s identity. Adhering to this rule by following a strict set of parameters, a paradox of observation begins to emerge in that the production of observations also produces concealments.

“In order for something to be made observable at all, other things – certain fields that are ambiguously linked to observation and organize it in a certain way – drop out of the same observation. In brief, the paradox emerges that by means of producing something (an observation), we unwillingly also produce it’s opposite (concealing).” (Katti, 1975)

‘Friend me’, lambda prints, 2012.

Public notice

aileenphoto — Wed, 19 Mar 2014 20:46:43 +0000

‘Public notice’ comments on the recently introduced playground by-law brought in by Cork and Kerry County Councils which states that only family members may use image recording devices. In controlling who has the right to use image recording devices in playgrounds this new bye-law sets a precedent in relation to the right to privacy in a public place. The artist encourages the viewer to question this right to privacy and the authorization afforded to some camera operators (i.e family members) and not others. In ‘Public Notice’ Aileen Drohan uses YouTube clips filmed in irish playgrounds and uploaded by the general public.

‘Public Notice’, 2012, screen projection still

‘Public Notice’, 2012, sign