MTU Crawford College of Art & Design

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Aoife Claffey

MA:AP 2020

Aoife Claffey

In today’s world, rapid developments in transportation, communication and media are seen as progressive. However, they also exacerbate the fracturing and destabilisation of society. Societal structures appear to dissolve through the acceleration of technologies. My work examines this through Irish transportation sites and systems. Using associated materials and media, I explore increasingly tenuous relationships between humans and objects. Objects are redeployed and their status reduced to arouse pure sensory stimulation or hallucination on identity.

Using translucent layers of imagery and sound, I create immersive environments that transform unexpectedly each time the work is encountered. By manipulating these properties, I aim to provide an ambiguous space for the viewer to recall the peripheral, a space that’s in the midst of a constant, perpetual transformation; a non-space.

During the process of making, I often allow activity to go beyond my control. Physiological and psychological tensions between chaos and order are encouraged both during the making, and within the work, to evoke uncanny effects or altered cognitive states. Using projection, found objects, motors and surround sound as agents for political and social change, my practice aims to critique these systems. Focusing on the reality of turbulently existing on the cusp of global self-induced crisis, my work encompasses notions of unpredictability, fragility and movement.