Aisling O Connell: The Films of Reason - An Occupation

Aisling O Connell: The Films of Reason - An Occupation

February 8th – 15th 2021, The Crypt, St. Luke’s Hall, Cork (online exhibition only)

Curated by Maximilian Le Cain

Presented by LUX Critical Forum Cork & Cork Film Centre

Aisling O Connell will stage a week long occupation of the Crypt at St. Lukes Hall. She will inhabit the space alongside The Films of Reason, her latest body of work.

The Films of Reason exist in paint, film and performance. During the occupation, the artist will put herself and the work ‘on trial’. In the absence of live spectators, the work will be the only audience and the camera the only witness. The exhibition will be immediate and shifting, subjected to various live processes. Ultimately, The Films of Reason will be pushed over the boundaries of exhibition, and this process will result in three new film works, episodes, that will be released online as they are completed.

The Films of Reason came about from O Connell recording her dreams over many years, marrying the imagery with classical, biblical mythology, ancient symbolism and Mircea Eliade’s The Forge and the Crucible. 

The exploration of occupancy, reason and transformation in the work interrogates this imagery and utilises it to channel the concerns of the body and its relationship to its surroundings, its state.  

The body occupied, radicalised. The dependent body, the loyal and the guilty. 

Bodies performing rituals, rites and absurdities, chasing reason and recognition.

External conditions coerce or electrify.

https://thefilmsofreason.studio/

https://www.instagram.com/thefilmsofreason/

Aisling O Connell is a visual artist based in Cork City who primarily works with film, performance, paint and text. Her studio practice includes research into experimental film and the development of a distinctively personal visual language. She embraces a punk ethos and is deeply connected to the materials she uses. She works to force this materiality out through the medium of film, developing personal symbols, referencing literature, paintings and mythology, and drawing parallels with her experience of contemporary society.  Her recent films include Water or Milk and 121, a collaboration with Maximilian Le Cain that was recently premiered as part of a Triskel Arts Centre online film programme. She is currently completing an MA in Film and Screen Media in UCC. She graduated in 2019 from the Crawford College of Art and Design, with a BA in Fine Art.

LUX Critical Forum Cork is a discussion group for artists, critics and curators who have an investment in the future of the moving image.

Cork Film Centre is an organization focused on developing, promoting and facilitating the art of creative film making and moving image art. corkfilmcentre.com