(RE)writing (Hi)story (A Sonic Opera)

Triskel Arts Centre presents (RE)writing (Hi)story (A Sonic Opera) as part of their Centenary programme ‘After the Rising’. Pioneering sound artist Danny McCarthy takes over the Christchurch space for a two month audio installation as well as select collages and paintings made as a contemporary response to the wording of the 1916 proclamation. McCarthy developed this body of work while on residency at the prestigious Rauschenberg Foundation in USA in early 2016. Located at Captiva Florida, McCarthy has the use of artist Robert Rauschenberg’s studios and facilities which immersed him in legacy of Rauschenberg’s practise and led to his use or erasure as a tool of engagement with the Irish Proclamation in the collage and paintings presented at this exhibition. Mesostics are another motif used by McCarthy to deconstruct the proclamation. Using the names of all seven of the 1916 leaders and the Proclamation as the main text he has reconfigured the writing to form these mesostics which are intersections of vertical and horizontal texts forming complex and visually striking poetry. The sound installation is an all-encompassing aural experience in the church space. McCarthy has recorded nine voices reading the proclamation representing its seven signatories. The readers are: three women: Vicky Langan, Joan McCarthy, Irene Murphy, three men: Bernard Clarke, Ronan McCarthy, Tony Sheehan and representing the seventh voice, that of the future of the nation – three children: Arthur Crawford Clarke. Sophie Kelleher, Sionnach Langan. These readings are broken up and reconfigured so that the voices interrupt each other offering the question of what the proclamation stands for in the here and now.