women looking out

women looking out from Laura O' Connor on Vimeo.

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A (brief) History of Looking for culture night belfast 2012

 http://abriefhistoryoflooking.wordpress.com/


A project I did for culture night Belfast. This project is based around the act of voyeurism, "looking and being looked at".

“I want a History of Looking. For the Photograph is the advent of myself as other: a cunning dissociation of consciousness from identity. Even odder: it was before Photography that men had the most to say about the vision of the double. Heautoscopy was compared with an hallucinosis; for centuries this was a great mythic theme.”

― Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography

Using the camera as the thing that separates viewer and looker I gave the public a chance to look at a person in the eyes, in real time, but without the social awkwardness of that person looking directly back.

Volunteers were asked to sit for 10 minutes whilst being filmed and projected on to a shop window. The results were extremely interesting, and the project even featured on the BBC Arts show.

woman in landscape

susanna from Laura O' Connor on Vimeo.

aerobic collages and moving pictures

"ploughing"

"roll up,roll up"



PLOUGHING

ploughing from Laura O' Connor on Vimeo.

40 days & 40 nights

3 ply marys

Ink drawings done on 3 ply tissues, then peeled back to reveal a blotted line style drawing, distorting the figure. I like the idea of Mary Magdelene as "temptress", a flame haired prostitute etc... speculation around her role in the bible and her dipiction in biblical images as a red haired, lost soul, looking to the heavens really interest me. There is something which says 'defenseless woman' to me and reminds me of a Vermeer painting.  I guess the first time a prostitute was ever explained to me I was 10 and had encountered the word in the bible, I asked my mother what it was.. also the first time I had heard my mother say the word 'sex'... which threw me completely!!

works in progress, march 2012

Two video pieces I'm working on as part of installation work.... unfinished, but interesting non the less

she's lost all the weight off her face....

 pause, touch, engage.......

Mirror Machine Exhibition, Bluewall Gallery

An exhibition of video works by 7 artists practising in Northern Ireland

Louise Shine, Jenny Keane, Ciaran Hussey, Allan Hughes, Laura O'Connor, Paola Bernardelli & Linda Monks

co-curated by Joe Keenan & Laura O'Connor

Laura O'Connor, Jane Fonda

Linda Monks, Sylvanienders

Paola Bernardelli, Jac & Johanna

Jenny Keane, Chord (projection), Dracphylia (monitor)

Louise Shine, (screens on plinths),test card, watching tv & putting away the messages

Allan Hughes, (monitor on crate with bracket) The Listening Station 1

Installation on Ashe Street Cavan

works by Jenny Keane, Ingeminated Battology (left) & Ciaran Hussey, Conveyor Masses (right)

Opening Speeches with Laura & Joe

Some shots of the exhibition installation