WordPress does not permit changing the user address so the blog will be still called Seventeen Degrees.

The art students now in the class are as follows:

Amanda Durkan

Amanda Vencatasamy

Anne-Marie Madsen

Aoife Casey

Bryan Duffy

Fionnuala Hanahoe

Ian Clotworthy

James O’hAodha

Kevin Kirwan

Liz Seaver

Martina McDonald

Moa Hogarth

Paddy Browne

Peter Sweetman

Roisin Beirne

Sandra McAllister

Amid the folds and crevices of the black lining were televisions showing videos. The piece resembled a hill that reached almost to the ceiling of the room it was in.

Ian Clotworthy: Did you make 18 Humming Tonnes or name it in the hope that it would play on the mainstream cliche that contemporary art is mostly ‘a pile of rubbish’?

Mary-Jo Gilligan: No indeed I didn’t! But I was aware that it would be a potential target for crass media reviews more interested in brain dead puns that would play on the type of cliches you refer to than actual engagement with the artwork. The name came from the mammoth amount of material involved in the piece; the bulk being eighteen tonnes of redundant packaging, (cardboard, aluminium and plastics), that I borrowed from a waste disposal company.

The sheer weight of this condensed material, (so heavy it was assessed in terms of effecting the structural integrity of the exhibition space which housed a basement below!), seemed to impress people no end.

When passersby engaged with me during the first stages of installation the visual spectacle of the material was striking but it was when the weight was described that people seemed to be staggered. This pushing of senses other than vision in the audience, who are well used to images of vast amounts of rubbish, was a major concern in the work.

And so the title also reflects the importance of sound in the piece, which I used as a device to create an aural and spatial environment as it rumbled from within the huge heavy heap of waste. I used the term “humming” because I thought it would lead one to consider the energy contained within waste.

I.C. Did you want to rebuke the assumption that the waste that a person creates has nothing to do with them after it gets thrown in the bin?

I wouldn’t say that. I didn’t want to make a preaching piece of green art. I that it is difficult to make art about the environment because of the amount of mass media dealing with the subject already. Guilt and frustration seem to lurk near any dissemination of ideas about the environment be they be interest group campaigns or ads for new “eco-products” on the market.

I think that everyone knows that they are in part responsible for human civilisation’s waste problem and it doesn’t concern me to reiterate that fact. However I do think that the awareness people have is dumbed down by the overuse of visual media to communicate ideas surrounding the issue, be it photographs or text. Having been a resident artist at a landfill I found it a far more sensory experience than the one created by visual media alone. Smell, sound, texture, movement etc made far more of an impression on me than the sight of the tipface.

Mary-Jo Gilligan, 18 Humming Tonnes, overview

I.C. Why did you show videos of yourself interacting with a real landfill, jumping etc? Did you want viewers to emulate your actions?

The videos were an addition to the environment that I created. They were included to encourage physical engagement with the material and through this engagement the multi-sensory experience of the material and ideas could be realised. I also wanted humour to be part of the installation and I think that both videos are humorous and at the same time compel the viewer to wonder about what is happening on screen.

I certainly observed some people delightedly jumping up and down in front of the video of me jumping, causing loud noises from the material beneath. The association made between audience and their actions making sounds that added to the overall sonicscape was a big part of my design for the sonic environment of the work.

I.C. How much influence did you hope to exert over the viewers’ actions?

I really did hope that people would climb the mountain. I wanted to make them do that because it was an experiential piece that to me was unsatisfactory to simply observe it. So I draped the carpet right out into the walkway so people would immediately be on top of the fringes of the art. I added signs saying “Climb up” to further clarify my intention with added warning of “unstable footing” to leave a sense of self responsibility with the audience (for reasons of insurance and to dilute the action of instructing the audience).

I.C. Many viewers climbed the mountain. Was this important?

Yes! For the reasons I stated above.

I.C. Did you always think of it as a participation piece?

Yes…well I suppose I did envisage it as a smaller scale steeper mountain at one stage but that rang a bit hollow with the multi-sensory aspects I wished to explore.

I.C. Why did you cover the rubbish with the black material?

The black material is used in real landfills to cover the open face at the end of the working day to prevent birds and wind disturbing the landfill. I found the process fascinating and made videos and played ideas and real carpets at the landfill site. When deciding to create a mountain in an exhibition I wanted to avoid creating a mere visual spectacle (see above). The black felt carpet was the perfect and authentic surface for my piece. Practically speaking its natural strength would protect the audience from harm as it clambered over the rubbish and visually the shadows of its black drapes and folds were perfect allusions to a mountain landscape or indeed black tumultuous sea perhaps…

I.C. When you were designing this piece did you think to balance the viewer’s senses of sight, hearing, and touch in their experience of the work?

Yes as I have touched on before, the multi-sensory experience was the crux. The balance was considered. The visual was important in that the viewer felt deprived of being able to “see” the piece by the black carpet. The sound was very important with two seperate specially crated sound pieces embedded in the mountain.

Big amps were used horizontally with the settings enhancing the bass to send vibrations directly to the surface and peoples’ feet as they manouvered on the surface. Also the sounds and sensations created by that very movement of the audience over the actual crinkling, popping and rustling of rubbish was integral to the piece.

I.C. Could viewers see all the videos without climbing the mountain?

No, only the first jumping video was visible….the top edge and blue glow of another screen invited further exploration to the peak of the mountain where a video piece reflecting the concept of mountain making played on a loop.

I.C. Did you want the reactions to your piece to be rational or intellectual, if your piece had a moral stance; or did you intend a more physical, undescribable response?

I don’t think it’s advisable for an artist to want a certain reaction to their work. You make a piece of art and then hand it over to the audience, you don’t own the idea anymore than they do at that stage. I mean I hoped that the general reaction wouldn’t be disagreeable to me almost as an indulgence, but beyond that…. I overheard some people say “oh, its about recycling” which wasn’t my intention but that’s how someone processed the art and that’s that for them….perhaps they didn’t climb the piece, perhaps they did and when they realised the the material used was rubbish they automatically associated it with a moral stance and that was that. Either way. Whether fully considered or not that was their response and that’s that.

In the making of the piece I definitely made decisions with the audience in mind, how they could engage with the piece and what they would/wouldn’t see, what they would hear, where they could move etc with regard to managing my ideas and their consumption of these ideas. I wanted the audience to have a multi-sensory experience that underplayed the visual experience. But once the making of the art is finished it really is up to the audience to react however they will. I believe that there was scope for all the varied responses you suggested in your question and more.

I.C. By leaving the cloth loose you made it easy for viewer/participants to alter the work. Was this any problem with you?

It was a bit of a gamble as to whether this would work out or not, but time was not on my side! I installed the piece in just three days I think! So in a way the residue of the audience climbing over the mountain being made visible by the gaps and gaping seams was interesting but I did feel the need to regulate the changes every so often by resettling the carpet into its original position so the piece didn’t deteriorate too far from its inception as a visually under-stating piece.

Mary-Jo Gilligan, 18 Humming Tonnes, video

I.C. Would you present the videos as works in themselves, or are they too intimately tied up in the mountain that you did present?

They were made specifically with a greater installation in mind but not necessarily the one I created for this exhibition.

I.C. Describe the audio elements of the work.

The pre-recorded audio elements you mean? The pre-recorded audio elements were created on the simple layering and sound management abilities offered by Garageband. The sounds used were samples of plastics and other waste materials being physically manipulated and vocal sounds. The vocal sounds were used because my voice is my primary tool in sound work and I am very interested in vocal sound making’s ability to describe without using words. I found that I had greater control over my voice than other materials that I was sampling etc so I used extensively to create particular sonicscapes that best fit my ideas about the energy contained in the condensed mountain of rubbish.

I.C. Did you want to make viewers feel small?

Well I think that scale was important. The viewer needed a sense of vastness to the environment that I created. It needed to be out of proportion to the room it was in and its peak was so close the the ceiling that you couldn’t go right to the top.

See more of this project and Mary-Jo’s other work here:

http://maryjogilligan.wordpress.com/projects/