Conor Hayes

Limerick School of Art and Design

Project Statement:

elegy for a smoke machine

"cos'è questo? "Questo... è un tentativo di estrarre la verità... all'incirca!"

 "What is this? "This... is an attempt to extract the truth... approximately!"

 elegy for a smoke machine is an attempt to extract the truth (approximately), or is it?

elegy for a smoke machine  is a collection of video pieces and installation consisting of contaminated memories. A film of a dream, a visual poem of rumination and lament for the dead and what is gone. Here lies the most unreliable navigation of masculinity and boyhood through the worlds of cinema, sports, internet culture, and agricultural settings. In the search for meaning in these areas, old idols, false gods, and belief systems are questioned (blurred and pixelated) by blending mischief and reality. Heroes and villains are disputed, the time is out of sync, and is it funny or just sad? (bittersweet like nettle soup!) Nothing is as it seems (a walking contradiction, a piece of true fiction), tis neither here nor there. This work illustrates a restless quest full of doubt, angst, and internal conflict through dubious imagery.

Artist Bio:

Conor Hayes is a visual artist from the west of Ireland recently graduating from Limerick School of Art and Design. His work deals with concepts of masculinity and boyhood in relation to time and memory. Through the mediums of film, sculpture and printmaking his practice aims to explore and capture insights and glimpses of the masculine in cinema, sport, internet culture, and agricultural settings within our society. Through visual narratives, incorporating play, the aim of the work is to discuss notions of masculinity and its impact on society.