Category: Video

03:58 digital and transferred 16mm film, 2021

Positing a moment of flux where identity and form can undergo a shift is the theme of this short film, incorporating sculptural installation, wearables and performance. The film alludes to an engineered environment in which the subject undergoes a physical and/or imaginative metamorphosis.

Inspired by the self-healing capability of snails and their hermaphroditic character the protagonist collects their mucus to fashion a cape. The much sought after secretion is highly prized for its restorative qualities enabling the snail to repair cracks in its fragile armour and is increasingly being harvested to treat damaged human skin, membrane and tissue. While faith is fundamental to protect its transformative power, the act of hand sewing the protective shell is in itself a form of trial, a test of dedication. Considered abject by some, a desire to become snail-like is to defy sexual categorisation and to acknowledge the importance of self-determination. 

While human to snail transferrals are the subject of fantasy, the energy required as catalyst to make the leap is garnered from Wilhelm Reich’s experiments in the 1950s and the enclosures reference his Orgone Accumulator. Playing with scale, the snails charge the accumulator which transfers this biological energy to its occupant providing the potential for an activated experience.

Please contact me to request links to videos at nmcguinne@gmail.com

Peripheral, 2019, 03:23, music by Lisa O’Neill and Christophe Capewell 

Peripheral refers to a nebulous entity, a phantom presence just out of vision, a form which defies capture. The protagonist in Peripheral is the artist who is continually searching for a sense of place, physically and metaphorically, often on the fringes of society. Being of no perceived economic value or use to the majority, but instead considered surplus to requirement, the artist abides. The film was made in response to the diminishing availability of studio resources for visual artists. Combining analogue Super8 footage and digital capture of a set constructed in printed film and metal, the focus is on the artist’s everyday struggle to maintain a practice while showing that creativity does prevail in a bleak situation.

Please contact me to request links to videos at nmcguinne@gmail.com

Shadowlight

Animation by Svetlana Sobchenko
Music by Lisa O’Neill
Production by George Brennan

In Shadowlight themes of watching and being watched are presented to the spectator through a non-narrative sequence which hints at the private ethereal existence of spaces independent of us. How does the feeling or knowledge of being watched distort how we behave? Light and shadow play, pattern and effects on glass create an additional visual plane for the viewer sometimes at harmony with the images in the shots and at other times in conflict. The intent is to blur the lines between apparent reality and created fantasy, to look further into what appears straightforward at first glance. 

Please contact me to request links to videos at nmcguinne@gmail.com