Meanwhile, back at the ranch

I've been lucky enough the last few weeks to have too much to do to work so much as I'd have liked on my drawings and texts for August's show in The Market Studios. A few weeks ago, I took part in The Last Arty Party with an A Room For Improvement sound set set to visuals. Aside from a few minor technical difficulties, it went well and was well recieved. I was happy with this piece (Senryu #4 - theMarriageOfTheSerf) and will have to come up with something extraordinary before I endevour to perform another of these sets. On the other hand, I've sent an A Room For Improvement video/sound piece for consideration for installation at the Hilltown New Music Festivalin July. This piece is composed entirely of clips and sound samples taken from the enchanting site of the festival itself. So here's hoping I get in there!

Arty Party was well attended and just as well - there was a lot of great work on show. The musicians from KnockanStockan were good fun, apart from the guy who stropped off. And Hugh Cooney's performance will not be forgotten by anyone in attendance. Funny motherfucker! Heaps of good stuff on the walls too. One paper cut out structural thing was particularly charming (got to get the name of the artist and then I got it - Wendy Stephens, who I'm informed can be found selling such wares in Cows Lane of a Sunday). Thank you to Mia Marshmallow for providing that name and oh yeah, for organising the entire thing. I reckon it was a hit with all in attendance and that was quite a few - nice one.

The same weekend, I performed as Icarus Crane in The Forger Of The String at the same venue (the Back Loft) for La Cat Salon. A fine evening's entertainment it was too.

I was supposed to perform the same piece this weekend at The Shed but owing to equipment failure it didn't happen. Not to worry - had an enjoyable evening all the same, chilling to some rockabilly.

For the last few weeks I've also been doing some live video mixing of old public domain exploitation, documentary and advertising to the funky turntable stylings of Mongoman Steve, Sundays in the Thomas House. This week we also watched the Goonies and I did a video remix. Which was fun. Next week it's The Big Lebowski at 6 oclock and White Russians on special!

Last Monday, I took a step in the direction of August's exhibition by performing a few short spoken word pieces at Stephen James Smith's reinvigourated Open Mic Night at the International Bar. One piece was the abreviated third part of The Forger and the other was a meadering text experiment of intensly mundane qualities. The absolutely impressive Dublin poet Colm Keegan wrote a great review of the night here http://theblogsthejob.blogspot.com/2009/06/stephen-james-smith-and-international.html . Have a look at this guys blog anyway - its quality. For those who don't click that link, I will repeat his mentioning of Marcas Carcas, who was I also saw at Arty Party. He's a sight and sound to see and hear... there's a video of that on YouTube actually and there it was - this video belongs to the afore mentioned Ms Mallow

Class, isn't he?

The above pictures are a little sample of the research I've been doing for my current project. Doesn't look like much and it isn't much but there's been a lot of reading and writing going on and much more drawing to come this week. I look forward to having the time now to get stuck into this work and withdraw further from the real world. I'll be recording my endevours more closely right here and I'll eventually get around to publishing some samples of the video work I've been doing too.