Updating the Website

I have the website almost completely updated for the year 2011, I have images of my work up, I just need to get      the Midlands Arts and Culture Magazine bit up and the Curating images sorted. I had a few technical issues with the laptop so it's taking a while to get the new stuff up on the site but you can see it here - http://www.pbyrne.ie/

Midlands Arts and Culture Magazine Issue 16 Winter 2011/2012

The Winter issue of Midlands Arts and Culture Magazine was out this month and our project form the Electric Picnic, The Honeycomb Project, was on the cover. This is the first time I was featured in a publication.

On page 10 there's a write up about me and my practice, the current residency and my future plans. The interview was carried out in July 2011, before Occupied, the show that I curated in Mountrath.

And then on page 15 there's a page all about The Honeycomb Project and those of us involved with the installation.

Harvest Fair, Portlaoise

For the last 2 weeks of October I worked with John Dohany, an Artist and Set Designer from Portlaoise, constructing large scale props and sculptures for the Halloween Harvest Fair which took place in the centre of Portlaoise town. The event was a great success, i think somebody said there were around 3500/3600 people at the fair. Even on the last day there was loads of work to be done so unfortunately I didn't get any photos of the finished work. My main duties were prop builder and painter and John also asked me to make an animation that would be projected onto a huge moon that was probably close to 16 feet across and 12 or 13  feet high, this stood at one end of the area.


This is one of the fliers, designed by John Dohany

Residency - Summer 2012

A few weeks ago I applied for a residency in Skagastrond, Iceland. Today I received an email telling me that my application was successful. The residency is with Nes Artist. I applied for a 3 month residency for June, July and August 2012. 

This is where it's located on the map.

Residency Work - Extended

Since starting the residency in April I have been experimenting with some video work. I didn't have much experience with it before so a lot of what I'm doing is quiet simple, cropping, time remapping, etc. I'm enjoying the work with it. Some of my videos were too large to upload to my Vimeo account.


The Flat

Website

I have my website pretty much sorted out with a proper domain name. My website address is www.pbyrne.ie

Electric Picnic - The Honeycomb Project

Laura Byrne, Karen Hendy, Helena Malone, Vera McEvoy and myself are collaborating on a light installation for the Electric Picnic 2011 which takes place on 2nd, 3rd and 4th of September. This is known as 'The Honeycomb Project'. The installation is the result of about 5 months planning and experimenting and began to take shape in July. On the 22nd of August construction began at the Arthouse in Stradbally, Co. Laois with the help of the local youth club and some members of the adult workshop that we held in the opening months of the residency. The sculpture will be on display in the Main Arena of Electric Picnic.

Originally we were planning to build it as a wall, this was before we had seen the area that our sculpture was going to reside in. After this it was decided that we were going to construct it as a cube which also helped us tackle any health and safety concerns we had. The biggest worry with making the piece as a wall form was wind, but with the cube this wasn't an issue.


 The finished sculpture, all ready for the Electric Picnic 2011.

The volunteers and ourselves constructing the sculpture on site. Without the volunteers this project wouldn't have happened

Nearly ready, just need to add all of the bottles,LEDs and batteries

 Getting the boards ready and weather proof.

 This is our tree. Originally the sculpture was going to be a wall but later ended up as a cube surrounding this tree and incorporating as part of the installation

 2000 of these LEDS will be attached to 2000 batteries and then these will be put into 2000 bottles

 This was the first day of preparation. The local Youth Centre and other local people helped us out a lot. they deserve a huge thanks. Without them this project wouldn't have happened.

 The map with the locations of all of the art works, we're number 11

The Starting Point