Ciaran Begley
Research Abstract
Direct encounters with manifestations of light
This research project examines the development of art as direct experiences, and is mediated through my light-based installational practice. Situated art experiences are interrogated through realist and phenomenological frameworks to tease out meaning from the act of engaging with art. The aim is to better understand how artists construct complex art encounters, how visitors engage with these artworks, and what visitors get out of these experiences. Visitors is a term used specifically in the project to refer to audiences with agency, those who choose to encounter art. This research provides new ways to understand contemporary art installations as acts of experiential knowledge making and sharing. The research involves installations using lightbulbs and other light sources that project themselves through old camera equipment, single-candle soot smears on white ceramic plates, and cell phone-based selfie stick sculptures presented as online art presentations. This iterative practice engages visitors through direct encounters with strange art situations, setting up repeatable art encounters where investigation rewards visitors with new conceptions of the world as a shared space. The light effects used in my installations become art strategies structuring art installations that are psychologically challenging, physically intriguing, and socially engaging.
Bio
Ciaran Begley is a Pakeha artist who straddles the spheres of conceptual art, engineering and science. With a strongly installational practice, Begley’s work has a tendency towards found objects, architectural intervention and light. Born in Hawaii, Begley’s family emigrated to Aotearoa in the wake of the nuclear era. Begley grew up in Wellington and completed a BFA in Christchurch in 1999. Begley has since set up galleries on the isles of New Zealand and Britain, as well as Our Neon Foe in Sydney, Australia. After completing an MFA at Sydney University in 2016, Begley has since moved to Melbourne retracing his mother's steps to settle in the same neighbourhood where she was born.