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VIDEO WALL
The video wall as critical video essay, exploring the theoretical underpinnings to the situation at Lough Neagh through a study in cyanobacteria, is a work in progress, and is informed by the workshops and collective writing that will happen in the next few months.
The work opens up radical new approaches to climate change, drawing from the evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis’ teaching, and Katherine Hayles’ new book: Bacteria to AI, where systems theory meets biosemiotics. Decentring, but not devaluing the human, amongst a more multi-species perspective,we reconsider forms of intelligence and 'sensing' as reciprocal with their environment.
Opening up vistas from a multi-species perspective encourages a decolonial, eco-feminist, and more-than-human position to flourish, nurturing radical ways for rethinking sustainability. It is informed by DAS XR group workshops Belfast, where we explore alternative ways of ‘sensing’ the lough, emphasising sound, via a granular synthesis approach.
Meeting The Lough On It's Own Terms. A partnership with Friends of the Earth, Digital Art Studios, Sonic Arts Research Centre and PS2 (Belfast), and Banner Repeater (London) May 19th-31st at PS2 gallery Belfast. June, Banner Repeater. July-September PS2 gallery.
Meeting the Lough (documentation - work in progress)
the video sits alongside the video wall, providing views
into the lough from multiple perspectives, temporalities and scales
I stayed on Ballyronan Marina, Lough Neagh, for two weeks Sept 2024, working with scientists Dave Jewson, director of the internationally renown Limnology Lab, Lough Neagh, and Les Gornall (Dr Sludge), who invented the first aneurobic digestor.
The video (work in progress) begins to draw together my emphasis on a multi-species perspective through collating: 4K aerial drone footage, with 4K footage from the boat, whilst being taken out by local people, with 4K underwater footage, also from the boat as well as riverbanks and canals, and microscopic footage collected from several locations around Lough where we identifed the microcystis cyanobacteria.
The video is a first draft of a work in progress that aims to bring together the deep geological time of our ancient ancestors the cyanobacteria (blue green algae) that brought forth life via the microbial mat that first brought oxygen to the planet, together with the multiple scales and temporalities that abound in the ecosystem of Lough Neagh and watershed.
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 in sufficient numbers from their migration to the Sargasso Sea.
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 cyanobacteria fossil, microcystis sample from Lough Neagh, and a section through cyanobacteria
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
IMMERSIVE ENVIRONMENT
sketch of the installation with video wall (first draft) for the purposes of illustration - the installation can be built to suit different room sizes, with the video expanded upon to fit. There would also be ambient lighting in green, to evoke a feeling of underwater immersion (see below for further pics)
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 in sufficient numbers from their migration to the Sargasso Sea. The video wall brings together the deep geological time of our ancient ancestors the cyanobacteria (blue green algae) that brought forth life via the microbial mat that first brought oxygen to the planet, together with the multiple scales and temporalities that abound in the ecosystem of Lough Neagh and watershed.
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.
MEETING THE LOUGH ON ITS OWN TERMS
Ami Clarke
artist lead with
In the long hot summer of 2023, Lough Neagh, the largest body of water in Ireland and the UK, became eutrophic, and overwhelmed with algae blooms to such a degree it made the headlines. I joined Friends of the Earth Northern Ireland in discussion later that year, which lead in turn to their adopting my artistic response of 'Meeting The Lough On Its Own Terms'. 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. Working alongside Friends of the Earth with new and emerging dynamics that changed on a weekly basis., from the return of Stormont, to the increasing adoption of the Rights of Nature by community groups and many others, I initiated the following art project, galvanising partners, establishing new contacts, and implementing research and development with scientists working on the Lough for several decades. I was invited to join the Lough Neagh Steering Committee in 2024.
After listening to all the stories that converge at the Lough I drew the first diagram, see below, that was then 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 was to set a legal precedent in establishing the Rights of Nature.
MICROBIAL SCALE
Friends of the Earth 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 of an immersive approach to exhibition.
The microbial scale of the cyanobacteria is important in drawing our attention to certain indisputable material facts that show that there is simply too much phosphorous in Lough Neagh, at which point we can start to dismantle everything that makes it this way.
Our focus at the microbial scale has the potential to lead to a paradigm shift in thinking, as we start to understand ourselves in a more decentred way, as just one species amongst the multitudes that live within the vulnerable eco-system of Lough Neagh.
IMMERSIVE ENVIRONMENT
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. The sculptural apparatus that flows into the exhibition space evokes the feeling that we are part of a much larger system, and nods towards the flows of power passing through water treatment systems, sewage pipes, and drinking water plumbing. It speaks of attempts to manage human needs within such a vulnerable ecosystem that includes the cyanobacteria (blue green algae), the migrating eels, chironomid flies, pollan fish, and the micro-organisms teeming with life in Lough Neagh, depicted in the 4K video wall. The teachings of the evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis show us that cyanobacteria are important ancestors who brought life to the planet as we know it, by producing oxygen into the atmosphere. We humans, ourselves, are holobionts, host to thousands of bacteria, most of which we simply couldn't live without. Margulis showed us the importance of understanding life at this truly entangled scale, where interdependencies across species suggest co-operation as a more symbiotic way of being.
The project itself operates as a system, with several components that all feed into one another starting with the collective writing project.
AN ECOLOGY OF WRITING
The text that weaves throughout the work is a collective endeavour, like sediment coming to rest, briefly, informed by disturbances that set all the nutrients swirling again. It is also an acknowledgement of the collective nature of thought, how we never arrive there on our own.
This approach emanates from a long standing interest in art and text, artists writing and publishing, in both my own work, and the programming at Banner Repeater, and the development of the Digital Archive of Artists Publishing https://daap.network/. Overall, there is an emphasis and interest in acknowledging and thinking through the complexities of the subject emerging in synthesis with their environment, from a critical intersectional position (to be found in eco-feminism, posthuman, and more-than-human research and studies). What that means is there is an emphasis on grasping something of the complexity of the multi-temporalities and scales, cross-species contaminations and alliances, necessary to confront the environmental challenges ahead - within an evolving awareness of power relations, which necessarily take into account colonial histories as well as neocolonial extractions of value.
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' of pipes and plumbing, that inter-connects the exhibition space to larger systems
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Sonic Ritual - a live polyphonic ritual (audio performance) developed with John D'Arcy (Sonic Arts) HIVE choir, Friends of the Earth, and local communities (performed 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.
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.
