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MEETING THE LOUGH ON ITS OWN TERMS
Ami Clarke
artist lead with
Friends of the Earth Northern Ireland asked me to work with them adopting my artistic response of 'Meeting The Lough On Its Own Terms', addressing the crisis at Lough Neagh, the largest body of water in the UK and Ireland, that had become eutrophic with algae blooms and a site of ecocide in the summer of 2023. The complexity of how the Lough became eutrophic presents a text book case in the converging dynamics of power, influence, and conflict of interests, that have developed over decades, if not centuries, around Lough Neagh and the watershed.
I have initiated the following art project, working alongside Friends of the Earth on a live site of ecocide, working within new and emerging dynamics that change on a weekly basis., from the return of Stormont, to the increasing adoption of the Rights of Nature by community groups and the Lough Neagh Partnership, under our provocation. I was invited to join the Lough Neagh Steering Committee earlier this year. I have seeded the following initiative, galvanising partners, establishing new contacts, and implementing the research and development that means we know there is a serious case and need for the work.
Friends of the Earth have welcomed my approach of ‘meeting the lough’ on it’s own terms, that brings a new experiential focus at a microbial scale within the sensorial realm (immersive exhibition, online hub/portal for the work, and film). Drawing our attention to indisputable facts that show that there is simply too much phosphorous in Lough Neagh. My diagram on the complexities that converge at the Lough was used at the Friends of the Earth conference at The MAC Dec 2023, as different communities came together to develop a recovery plan, where the goal is to set a legal precedent in establishing the Rights of Nature.
The following is to give you a sense of the immersive environment, as we decentre the human and shift our focus to the microbial realm 'meeting the Lough on it's own terms' in a video and sound installation. With a sculptural apparatus that speaks to the flows of power of a particularly neoliberal sort, passing through such a vulnerable ecosystem, that includes the cyanobacteria, migrating eels, chironomid flies, pollan fish, and the multitudes teeming with life in Lough Neagh, as well as us humans.
The project overall operates itself as a system, with several components that all feed into one another.
The ongoing collective writing project and diagramming sessions, have been running for over a year, with contributions from the following people: John D’Arcy (Sonic Arts Queens University Belfast), James Orr (Friends of the Earth), Dr Thomas L Muinzer (Queen's University Belfast. Author of UK’s Climate Change Act: Climate and Energy Governance for the UK Low Carbon Transition: The Climate Change Act 2008 (Palgrave: UK, 2018), Les Gornall (Co-Founder International Environment Forum Oct 1997 - Present, Consultant | D.Phil, BSc.(Hons),CBiol,FRSB) David Jewson – Director of Limnology Lab, Lough Neagh. University of Ulster, School of Geography and Environmental Sciences, Save Our Shores, Love Our Lough, Surfers Against Sewage, Collette Stewart (Friends of the Earth), Deborah McLaughlin (Friends of the Earth), Declan Allison (Friends of the Earth), Jane Morrow (PS2), Davy Mahon (PS2), Simon Wood (Ravenhill Films), Shauna Corr (Journalist), Tommy Green (Journalist), Catherine Devlin (Digital Arts Belfast), Richard Davis (Digital Arts Belfast).
These have informed everything else, with several outcomes:
Immersive Environment
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Meeting the Lough on its Own Terms - immersive environment with spatially realised visual / audio work and sculptural 'apparatus' that emulates pipes and test-tubes as a 'system' that inter-connects with other larger systems
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Sonic Ritual - a live polyphonic ritual audio performance with hive choir, Friends of the Earth, and local communities performs within the work during exhibition
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bringing together old (traditional indigenous technologies) and new technologies (sensors, AI) via ritual - as a new technological interface (reference: druidry, permaculture, and older traditions that once guided and informed human relations with nature), in order to recalibrate our human relationship within nature from a multi-species perspective
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shifting perspectives - acquiring the rights of nature for Lough Neagh
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Short video works (within the work shown on monitors) - drawn from footage from Lough Neagh and personal accounts drawn from the collective writing project
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Petri dish photographs, diagrams and drawings of cyanobacteria developed with scientist David Jewson, Director Limnology Lab (Lough Neagh), Ulster University, and Les Gornall (Co-Founder International Environment Forum Oct 1997 - Present, Consultant | D.Phil, BSc.(Hons),CBiol,FRSB).
Film with immersive soundtrack to be shown in gallery and auditoriums - a 'science fictioning' version of the work, that speculates within the sensorial realm, whilst speaking to key aspects of the story of Lough Neagh drawing together the microbial with the neoliberal. Working with microscopic footage in 4K and various sound recordings from Lough Neagh - informed by the collective writing project, diagramming, and sonic ritual.
IMMERSIVE ENVIRONMENT
sketch of the installation with video wall - the video wall should be considered as one option, for the purposes of illustration only and can be built to suit different room sizes, with the video expanded upon to fit. There would also be sympathetic lighting, in green, to evoke an underwater sense of immersion. (see below for further pics)
Microscopic view of Lough Neagh with Cyanobacteria
The immersive environment holds 4K video footage of microbial life to be found at Lough Neagh, collected by the artist during field trips to the Lough over a year and a half, supported by Friends of the Earth NI, and scientists Dave Jewson, and Les Gornall. The footage informs a microscopic view of a multi-species approach to ‘meeting the lough on its own terms’ to consider the vulnerable eco-systems that humans are but a small part of, that includes the cyanobacteria and the famous Lough Neagh eels and elvers (baby eels), that no longer come back from their migration to the Sargasso Sea. The video environment brings together the deep geological time of our ancient ancestors the cyanobacteria (blue green algae) - the microbial mat that first brought oxygen to the planet - together with the multiple scales and temporalities that abound in the ecosystems and watershed around Lough Neagh.
The expressive video and sound environment interweaves with sculptural elements referencing the infrastructural apparatus; the pipes and plumbing of water treatment systems, sewage systems, as well as the financial systems that act as contemporary modes of extraction within the vulnerable ecosystem of Lough Neagh (and so many other sites experiencing an over abundance of algae blooms).
When we consider the Lough at the scale of microbial life we cut through the complexity, and can say irrevocably, that the high levels of phosphorous in the Lough bring about the algae blooms. Here, we can start to dismantle everything that makes it this way.
The work includes a live collective sonic ritual performed during the exhibition period, developed with John D'Arcy of Sonic Arts Belfast and HIVE choir, PS2 gallery Belfast, and Digital Arts Studios Belfast, in response to the collective writing project developed with Friends of the Earth Northern Ireland. Visual and aural residues from the live event and previous events, linger in the video footage on display throughout the exhibition.
installation is modular in the sense that it can be expanded or reduced to fit the room size as appropriate with larger screen/wall space dedicated to the video wall/s and sculptural apparatus
details of video wall, and close up views of footage
potential lighting of the work
Ballyronan Marina September 2024 - field trip - Ami Clarke, David Jewson, Les Gornall, James Orr (Friends of the Earth)
hydrophone audio recordings underwater at Lough Neagh
with Peter Harper, Shoreline Environment Officer,
Lough Neagh Partnership
'sensing the lough'
field recordings - audio, video, monitoring of the cyanobacteria
Cyanobacterial remains of an
annulated tubular microfossil
Oscillatoriopsis longa
Cyanobacteria: microcystis sample from Lough Neagh collected by Ami Clarke
Transverse section of a dividing
cell of the Cynaobacterium Microcystis showing hexagonal stacking of the cylindrical gas vesicles
Petri dish wall photographs
of a fossil, sample, and diagram of cyanobacteria
PRINTS/DIAGRAMS
MAPPING THE FLOWS OF POWER
Lough Neagh Neoliberal diagram of slurry showing equally: the flows of power and pollution
The MONIAC – Monetary National Income Analogue Computer
I've always been very fond of this early attempt at showing the dynamics of the economic system. Despite being superseded by many newer theories and models, it remains an interesting way of showing the dynamics of something quite complex, and no doubt informs my desire to make visible, in some sense, the flows of power and pollution in my own work.
In 1949, A.W.H. (Bill) Phillips, a New Zealand electrical engineer studying sociology as an undergraduate at the London School of Economics, built a hydraulic simulator (called the MONIAC – Monetary National Income Analogue Computer) of the British economy based on contemporary economic theory. It was the first analog computer to solve the nonlinear coupled differential equations of mid-twentieth century economic theory (Bollard 2016) and led to the use of control theory to study stabilization issues in macroeconomics. Later known as the “Phillips machine”, the “Philips-Newlyn machine” or the “MONIAC”, the device demonstrated difficult macroeconomic concepts so clearly that it became a mainstay of instruction at the London School of Economics for more than 15 years (Barr 2000) and at Leeds University for more than 20 (Newlyn, 2000). In a reproduction of the project, William H. Rydera & Robert Y Cavana exposed some of the implementation issues missing in the standard references, and whilst undeniably flawed, the machine remains an important specimen in the evolutionary development of system dynamics models.
SONIC RITUAL
other ways of 'sensing the lough'
The Sonic Ritual will engage with the environmental concerns that the work seeks to address as a live articulation - building a technology, that draws upon the collective writing, that becomes a ritual to conjure the future...
first draft ideas that came out of our Sonic Ritual workshop with John D'Arcy HIVE choir, Friends of the Earth, PS2 studios Belfast, and invited guests, in November 2024 (still very much to be developed)
with thanks to the support of John D'Arcy, and PS2, Belfast
Collective writing project - Friends of the Earth NI December 2023 ongoing
VIDEO - SHORT FORM
'We live in capitalism: neoliberalism' - with reference to the feminist science fiction writer and theoretician Ursula K LeGuinn's famous quote: 'we live in capitalism'. The underwater footage shows the dispersal of the algae blooms in the water column at Portlegnone 25.08.24. situated on the outskirts of Lough Neagh, Northern Ireland. With thanks for assistance from Darragh Graham, and Navid Gornall.
VIDEO
SCIENCE FICTIONING
'sensing the lough'
excerpt from video (work in progress) - drawing together all the different scales and temporalities from a multi-species perspective that includes us humans, in the delicate ecosystem that is Lough Neagh.
The Weather Meets the Water at Lough Neagh
footage: September 2024 Toome Canal, going into Lough Neagh
MEETING THE LOUGH
ON ITS OWN TERMS
overview
