You're Doing It Wrong

Download: ‘The Killer Podcast’

Every few years hollywood is shocked by an utterly predictable success. Some startling maverick producer actually markets a movie to an underserved audience. The flick makes major bank, and a mad scramble begins, as studios line up to cash in. Five years ago it was the grey dollar, as the critically acclaimed Kings Speech dragged … Continue reading Meeting Jesus at the Movies – Culture File →

  The ‘Death Cafe‘ movement invites us to discuss death over tea and cakes. For Culture File, I visited the death cafe at The Irish Hospice Foundations’ Forum on End of Life. Chatting with people approaching the end of life, and others working to make its passing less painful, inevitably made death for a moment … Continue reading Death Cafe – Culture File →

A few months ago, Irish company Immersive VR education ran a successful kickstarter to create a virtual reality simulation of the Apollo 11 journey to the moon. Put like that it sound kind unbelievable – we actually built a craft that travelled to the moon! Sure, we haven’t gone back in forty three years, but … Continue reading Immersive VR Education – Culture File →

Kino is an international filmmaking movement that’s been running in cities around the world since 1999. The concept is simple – aspiring filmmakers of all levels of experience, meet over a weekend; write, direct, edit and screen films all in a two day blitz. Over time the movement has expanded to included week long ‘international … Continue reading Kino D – Culture File →

Megs Moorley at IMMA, image copyright Catalyst Arts Gallery. Meg’s Moorley’s ‘artist led archive‘ is a wonderful storehouse of the wisdom and work of numerous art collectives over the last four decades. The archive, which tours as a series of exhibitions and discussion events, is part of the permanent collection at the National Arts Visual … Continue reading Artist Led Archive – Culture File →

Perhaps you’ve seen it. One of those instantly recognisable meme images, that neatly confirm our prejudices with a concise and tweet ready bon mot. The image shows a young man, trendily emaciated and nebbish, Brooklyn casual in navy and white stripped boaters, below his aquamarine shorts and Warby Parker goggles. He sits on a park … Continue reading The Typewriter – Culture File →

‘White Cane Audio Theatre is a group of blind and visually impaired participants (aged 20’s to 80’s) led by theatre director Ciarán Taylor of Carpet Theatre with radio programme maker and composer Rachel Ni Chuinn (The Shape of Sounds to Come –Lyric Fm), and facilitated by the National Council for the Blind in Ireland with … Continue reading Sightless Cinema – Culture File →

Download: ‘William Morris in Dublin’ William Morris, considered the founder of the late Victorian Arts & Crafts movement in architecture and design, twice visited Ireland. He toured the country, delivering lectures on art and socialism. The influence of Morris’s design philosophy, and to a lesser extent his political leanings, can be seen to this day … Continue reading William Morris in Dublin – Culture File →

Pigtown Scratchings is an occasional multidisciplinary event in Limerick, created by science and music collaboration Softday. Last week I headed down for Lyric’s Culture File, to speak to some of the multidisciplinary artists featured in this years event. Featuring: performance poet Roger Gregg, musician and sonic artist Günter Berkus, contemporary dance artist Angie Smalis, storyteller … Continue reading Pigtown Scratchings – Culture File →

Download: ‘Notes from a performance art piece’ Notes from a performance piece Phase 1 – Destroyed by Life NO EXPRESSION, EYES OPEN, SLOW NO FEELING, EMPTY, SLAVE EXHAUSTION 1 – Electric awaken 2 – Rise, slowly painfully 3 – Crawl to feet 4 – Splash alive 5 – Trudging walk 6 – Slow pickup case … Continue reading Notes From a Performance Art Piece – Culture File →

Ed Devane, featured in part six of ‘Mad Scientists of Music‘, is one of Ireland’s most innovative musicians. Having moved away from producing rigid programatic electronic music, Ed is at the forefront of combining electronic sounds and analogue instrumentation. For his recent Dodeca Cycle piece in Dublin’s coach house exhibition space. Ed constructed an installation … Continue reading Ed Devane’s Dodeca Cycle – Culture File →

Last week saw the first ever iDig music festival arrive at Dublin’s Convention Centre. I spoke to videogame composer and festival organiser, Craig Stuart Garfinkle, about videogame music and his work composing for world of warcraft. Download: ‘Craig Stuart Garfinkle Interview’ Tracks used Warlords of Draenor – Shadowmoon Sunset Warlords of Dranor – Grinspiration Warlords … Continue reading Culture File Interview – Craig Stuart Garfinkle →

The tradition of artists creating provocative performance dinners, extends back at least to Filippo Marinetti’s Futurist Cookbook. The Futurists delighted in inedible meals, celebrating their love of speed, violence, and technology. The Domestic Godless, with their wilfully obscure ingredients, their exploration of culinary alternative histories, and their satirical recipes provide a more palatable, if no … Continue reading Canaliculus Purgamentorum – Culture File →

I caught up with the crew of Little Gem Records, a new record shop – yes you read that right, a new record shop – beneath Dublin’s Cavendish Row. Little Gem are a tryptic: A record store, recording studio and an indie label. They specialise in releases from local bands, folks whose music you can’t … Continue reading Little Gem – Culture File →

Spoken word nights in Dublin follow a predictable recipe: an unpalatable mishmash of weepy bildungsroman, irate slam and colouring book political commentary. Bluebottle Collective‘s events are different. The group hosts intimate experimental affairs, as likely to feature performance art or avant garde comedy as poetry and prose. Now Bluebottle are expanding into internet art, with … Continue reading Paraudiolia 1 on Hibernation Radio →

A look back on what I’ve been up to in 2014. This is the year I wrote my first stage plays, finished an award winning documentary series ‘Mad Scientists of Music‘, and released my latest radio sitcom ‘Choices‘. I’ve also been lucky enough to make a bunch of podcasts with super smart rising talent James … Continue reading 2014 A Year in Review – You’re Doing It Wrong (EP2) →

A podcast journal, questioning the creative life. I delayed posting this for a long time. It was recorded at a moment when I felt very emotionally vulnerable. A time when I was questioning the assumptions underlying the life I’ve chosen – the penurious road of the struggling writer. Maybe the open vein is the best … Continue reading You’re Doing it Wrong – An Introduction →

From the primitivist pederasty of Henry Darger’s ‘Realms of the Unreal‘, to Mark Hogancamp’s theraputic Marwencol dioramas, recent years have seen an ironic mainstreaming of ‘outsider art’. In a culture obsessed with commodifying novelty, a secretive graffiti tagger, self taught architect or precocious infant painter can be instantly thrown into the limelight. All that’s needed … Continue reading The Laugh laughing at the laugh – Tim & Eric – Culture File →

My final piece for Culture File’s series on ‘Silence‘, is an interview with performance artist Amanda Coogan. I don’t want to preempt the piece by writing too much about it. I will say that of all the conversations I’ve had this year, both on mic and off, this was perhaps the most personally meaningful. Amanda … Continue reading Amanda Coogan on Silence – Culture File →