aemi is delighted to present the world premiere of our curated programme ‘Signals & Circuits’ at the 65th edition of Cork International Film Festival in November. ‘Signals & Circuits’ is a programme of contemporary moving image works by Irish and international artists Jenny Brady (IE), Jussi Eerola (FI), Laura Fitzgerald (IE), John Smith (UK), Deborah Stratman (USA) and Yoga For The Eyes (IE).
Taking the ‘circuit’, with all of its possible meanings, as a conceptual framework, the programme purposefully complicates interconnected ideas relating to communication, travel and technology, highlighting films in which intimate or ordinarily private thoughts are vocalised and acts of speaking or mis/over-hearing, particularly in recorded form, take on significances other than those originally intended. This gives rise in several instances to concerns about illicit societal control and surveillance but ultimately ‘Signals & Circuits’ emphasises the political and cultural value of speaking out, either to express an inner voice or strengthen the power of collective struggle.
Film info
Jussi Eerola, Blue Honda Civic, 2020, 11 min, Finland
Laura Fitzgerald, P45, 2017, 16:10 min, Ireland
Michelle Doyle, Eva Richardson-McCrea & Coilin O’Connell with Jenn Moore, Yoga For The Eyes, 2018, 24:12, Ireland
John Smith, A State of Grace, 2019, 3:23 min, UK
Deborah Stratman, Hacked Circuit, 2014, 15:08 min, U.S.A.
Jenny Brady, Receiver, 2019, 14:36 min, Ireland
‘Signals & Circuits’ can be pre-ordered through the booking link above and is available to watch from 9 November at 12:01am GMT+1 (you’ll have 6 days 23 hours to start watching, once you begin, you’ll have 30 hours to finish watching)
Q&A
Join us online Thursday 12th Nov 8pm for a Q&A with programme artists Laura Fitzgerald, Michelle Doyle, John Smith, Deborah Stratman and Jenny Brady
Jussi Eerola
Jussi Eerola (b.1969) has worked as a cinematographer on many internationally awarded short films, documentaries and tv-features since 1992. His directional debut was a documentary about electro-hypersensitive people titled Refugees of Technocracy (2009). The Return of the Atom directed together with Taanila premiered at TIFF 2015 and was given the NORDIC:DOX award at CPH:DOX in 2015. Blue Honda Civic is Eerola’s first short film as a director.
Laura Fitzgerald
Laura Fitzgerald’s practice is a self-reflexive, a self-critical comment on how it is to be an artist and human. Recent shows and screenings include: Fantasy Farming, a Platform Commission for the 39th EVA International; Headcase, at the RHA Ashford Gallery; Futures, Series 3, Episode 2, RHA Gallery, Brief Encounters between Structure & Agency, the Irish Film Institute and Lucian’s Neighbours, at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin. Fitzgerald is in receipt of a bursary award from the Arts Council to support her work in 2019-20. She is a recent recipient EMERGENCE Visual Art Award 2019 which she applied for nine times. She is currently in residence at the Firestation Artists’ Studios until late 2020. She greatly fears living in the real world.
Yoga For The Eyes
Yoga For the Eyes investigates the Free Party movement in Ireland, the right to assembly and the development of intentional communities. Hippy communes paved the way for alternative lifestyles and complementary medicine, both of which were radical in their early inceptions. More recently these ways of living have become increasingly commodified and centred on the individual over the collective. Alternatives to capitalism and industry are a capitalist industry. Yoga for the Eyes is an ongoing project by artists Coilin O’Connell, Eva Richardson-McCrea and Michelle Doyle. It has had two public outcomes, one at Open Ear Festival on Sherkin Island in Co. Cork and the other in a back garden of a rental property in Phibsboro in Dublin. This project uses archival footage, video collage, sculpture and community based interventions.
John Smith
John Smith was born in Walthamstow, London in 1952 and studied film at the Royal College of Art. He has made over fifty film, video and installation works known for their formal ingenuity, subversive wit and oblique storytelling, his films blur the perceived boundaries between documentary and fiction, playfully exploring and exposing the language of cinema. John Smith received a Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Artists in 2011, and in 2013 he was the winner of Film London’s Jarman Award. Recent solo exhibitions include Kate MacGarry, London (2020, 2016); Alma Zevi, Venice (2017); Museum of Contemporary Art, Leipzig (2015); Tanya Leighton Gallery, Berlin (2015); Centre d’Art Contemporain de Noisy-le-Sec, Paris (2014); The Gallery, Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle upon Tyne (2014); Figge von Rosen Gallery, Cologne (2013); Kestnergesellschaft, Hanover (2012); Turner Contemporary, Margate (2012) and Weserburg Museum for Modern Art, Bremen (2012). His work is held in the collections of Tate Gallery, Arts Council England, MoMA New York, Kunstmuseum Magdeburg, FRAC Île de France, Wolverhampton Art Gallery and Ferens Art Gallery, Hull.
Deborah Stratman
Artist and filmmaker Deborah Stratman makes films and artworks that investigate power, control and belief, considering how places, ideas, and society are intertwined. Recent projects have addressed freedom, surveillance, sinkholes, comets, raptors, orthoptera, levitation, exodus, sisterhood and faith. She has exhibited internationally at venues including MoMA (NY), Centre Pompidou (Paris), Hammer Museum (LA), Witte de With (Rotterdam), PS1 (NY), Tabakalera (San Sebastian), Austrian Film Museum (Vienna), the Whitney Biennial and festivals including Sundance, Viennale, Berlinale, CPH/DOX, Oberhausen, True/False, TIFF and Rotterdam. Stratman is the recipient of Fulbright, Guggenheim and USA Collins Fellowships, an Alpert Award, Sundance Art of Nonfiction Award and grants from Creative Capital, Graham Foundation, and Wexner Center for the Arts. She lives in Chicago where she teaches at the University of Illinois.
Jenny Brady
Jenny Brady is an artist filmmaker based in Dublin, exploring ideas around speech, translation and communication. Her films have been presented at Projections at the New York Film Festival, LUX, Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival, MUBI, International Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, EMAF, Quote Unquote, Videonale at the Kunstmuseum, Bonn, Experimenta at BFI London Film Festival, Images Festival, November Film Festival, the Irish Film Institute, EVA International, The Irish Museum of Modern Art, The Whitechapel gallery and Tate Liverpool. She was the inaugural IMMA 1000 artist-in-residence at the Irish Museum of Modern Art and is a studio artist at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios.
Images courtesy of the artists
