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Download: ‘The Killer Podcast’

Every few years hollywood is shocked by an utterly predictable success. Some startling maverick producer actually markets a movie to an underserved audience. The flick makes major bank, and a mad scramble begins, as studios line up to cash in. Five years ago it was the grey dollar, as the critically acclaimed Kings Speech dragged […]

  The ‘Death Cafe‘ movement invites us to discuss death over tea and cakes. For Culture File, I visited the death cafe at The Irish Hospice Foundations’ Forum on End of Life. Chatting with people approaching the end of life, and others working to make its passing less painful, inevitably made death for a moment […]

A few months ago, Irish company Immersive VR education ran a successful kickstarter to create a virtual reality simulation of the Apollo 11 journey to the moon. Put like that it sound kind unbelievable – we actually built a craft that travelled to the moon! Sure, we haven’t gone back in forty three years, but […]

Kino is an international filmmaking movement that’s been running in cities around the world since 1999. The concept is simple – aspiring filmmakers of all levels of experience, meet over a weekend; write, direct, edit and screen films all in a two day blitz. Over time the movement has expanded to included week long ‘international […]

Megs Moorley at IMMA, image copyright Catalyst Arts Gallery. Meg’s Moorley’s ‘artist led archive‘ is a wonderful storehouse of the wisdom and work of numerous art collectives over the last four decades. The archive, which tours as a series of exhibitions and discussion events, is part of the permanent collection at the National Arts Visual […]

Perhaps you’ve seen it. One of those instantly recognisable meme images, that neatly confirm our prejudices with a concise and tweet ready bon mot. The image shows a young man, trendily emaciated and nebbish, Brooklyn casual in navy and white stripped boaters, below his aquamarine shorts and Warby Parker goggles. He sits on a park […]

‘White Cane Audio Theatre is a group of blind and visually impaired participants (aged 20’s to 80’s) led by theatre director Ciarán Taylor of Carpet Theatre with radio programme maker and composer Rachel Ni Chuinn (The Shape of Sounds to Come –Lyric Fm), and facilitated by the National Council for the Blind in Ireland with […]

Download: ‘William Morris in Dublin’ William Morris, considered the founder of the late Victorian Arts & Crafts movement in architecture and design, twice visited Ireland. He toured the country, delivering lectures on art and socialism. The influence of Morris’s design philosophy, and to a lesser extent his political leanings, can be seen to this day […]

Pigtown Scratchings is an occasional multidisciplinary event in Limerick, created by science and music collaboration Softday. Last week I headed down for Lyric’s Culture File, to speak to some of the multidisciplinary artists featured in this years event. Featuring: performance poet Roger Gregg, musician and sonic artist Günter Berkus, contemporary dance artist Angie Smalis, storyteller […]

Download: ‘Notes from a performance art piece’ Notes from a performance piece Phase 1 – Destroyed by Life NO EXPRESSION, EYES OPEN, SLOW NO FEELING, EMPTY, SLAVE EXHAUSTION 1 – Electric awaken 2 – Rise, slowly painfully 3 – Crawl to feet 4 – Splash alive 5 – Trudging walk 6 – Slow pickup case […]

Ed Devane, featured in part six of ‘Mad Scientists of Music‘, is one of Ireland’s most innovative musicians. Having moved away from producing rigid programatic electronic music, Ed is at the forefront of combining electronic sounds and analogue instrumentation. For his recent Dodeca Cycle piece in Dublin’s coach house exhibition space. Ed constructed an installation […]

Last week saw the first ever iDig music festival arrive at Dublin’s Convention Centre. I spoke to videogame composer and festival organiser, Craig Stuart Garfinkle, about videogame music and his work composing for world of warcraft. Download: ‘Craig Stuart Garfinkle Interview’ Tracks used Warlords of Draenor – Shadowmoon Sunset Warlords of Dranor – Grinspiration Warlords […]

The tradition of artists creating provocative performance dinners, extends back at least to Filippo Marinetti’s Futurist Cookbook. The Futurists delighted in inedible meals, celebrating their love of speed, violence, and technology. The Domestic Godless, with their wilfully obscure ingredients, their exploration of culinary alternative histories, and their satirical recipes provide a more palatable, if no […]

I caught up with the crew of Little Gem Records, a new record shop – yes you read that right, a new record shop – beneath Dublin’s Cavendish Row. Little Gem are a tryptic: A record store, recording studio and an indie label. They specialise in releases from local bands, folks whose music you can’t […]

Spoken word nights in Dublin follow a predictable recipe: an unpalatable mishmash of weepy bildungsroman, irate slam and colouring book political commentary. Bluebottle Collective‘s events are different. The group hosts intimate experimental affairs, as likely to feature performance art or avant garde comedy as poetry and prose. Now Bluebottle are expanding into internet art, with […]

A look back on what I’ve been up to in 2014. This is the year I wrote my first stage plays, finished an award winning documentary series ‘Mad Scientists of Music‘, and released my latest radio sitcom ‘Choices‘. I’ve also been lucky enough to make a bunch of podcasts with super smart rising talent James […]

A podcast journal, questioning the creative life. I delayed posting this for a long time. It was recorded at a moment when I felt very emotionally vulnerable. A time when I was questioning the assumptions underlying the life I’ve chosen – the penurious road of the struggling writer. Maybe the open vein is the best […]

From the primitivist pederasty of Henry Darger’s ‘Realms of the Unreal‘, to Mark Hogancamp’s theraputic Marwencol dioramas, recent years have seen an ironic mainstreaming of ‘outsider art’. In a culture obsessed with commodifying novelty, a secretive graffiti tagger, self taught architect or precocious infant painter can be instantly thrown into the limelight. All that’s needed […]

My final piece for Culture File’s series on ‘Silence‘, is an interview with performance artist Amanda Coogan. I don’t want to preempt the piece by writing too much about it. I will say that of all the conversations I’ve had this year, both on mic and off, this was perhaps the most personally meaningful. Amanda […]

In this penultimate episode of my series of interviews on silence, I speak to Trevor Agus of SARC. Belfast’s Sonic Arts Research Centre is a world class facility for the study of sound. I’d met some SARC staff at the Happy Days Beckett Festival in Eniskillen, including the composer and sound designer David Bird. So […]

Silence, it can be an elusive experience in a modern world dominated by cities, and illuminated by technology. Silence is not only a product of our environment, but also of our perceptual system. In this second in a series for Culture File, I speak to Professor Fiona Newell of Trinity College Dublin, about sound and […]

My latest report for Culture File is a discussion with Irish author Kevin Barry, about the role of silence in his work. Kevin joined Sara Maitland (author of ‘A Book of Silence‘) on a panel about silence at the recent Happy Days Beckett festival. He was a joy to talk with, and this discussion became […]

Perhaps the most famous line in Portrait of the Artist goes like this: ‘Ireland is the old sow that eats her own farrow’. Some things never change. The ‘peace dividend’ of Brian Lenihan’s attack on the Irish economy, was a fall in rents. Dublin got something it had never had before, cheap unused buildings. This […]

My latest report for RTE Lyric FM’s Culture File, took me ‘upstairs’ to the week long ‘Happy Days‘ Samuel Beckett festival in Enniskillen. The festival organisers and tourism board of Northern Ireland were wildly hospitable (many thanks especially to Cathy Kapande, Kirstin Smith, Allie Crehan, and Sean Doran). Little did they know I’m but a […]

So last night I was lucky enough to see the incredibly talented radio producer Roman Mars perform a live episode of his show 99% Invisible, at the ever creepy Freemasons Hall in Molesworth St. The event was a part of the inaugural Sounds Alive festival, which brought together a bunch of radio folks like legendary […]

Image: Popical Island, literally ripped from the pages of Hot Press I’ve long been enamoured of the sheer fun of Popical Island‘s albums and gigs. The label come collective feature numerous highly regarded Irish bands like Groom, Tieranniesaur, Squarehead, Big Monster Love and No Monster Club. This indy rock (I’d go as far as to […]

I can’t quite believe it, they let me do it again! Recently the producers of Lyric FM’s daily culture programme ‘Culture File‘ took an interest in my documentary series Mad Scientists of Music, asking me to adapt a report on brilliant Northern Irish chiptune musician Chipzel for their show. Last week they commissioned me to […]

Chuffed to be able to present my first piece for RTE Lyric FM’s ‘Culture File‘ programme. It’s a short on Chipzel, the Chiptune artist profiled in Episode 2 of Mad Scientists of Music. The piece features much of the same material from that report, but presented in a more straightforward way, which was an interesting […]

Footnotes was a one off student media award shortlisted show that ran on Trinity FM in the late 2000s. Footnotes – Americana (63 Megs)

Thrust Us was a sex and relationship advice show that ran on Trinity FM in the late 2000s. Thrust Us – Episode One (Best Of) (42 megs)

News Stories of the Year - Wikileaks, Acts of God TV of the Year - Boardwalk Empire, Walking Dead, Spartacus Blood and Sand, Movies of the year - A Profit, The Social Network, Network (1976), Scott Pilgrim Games of the Year - Minecraft, Sleep is Death, Pixeljunk Eden (2008) * Dylan Cuthbert Person of the year - Julian Assange, Bradley Manning, Justin Hall, Plato, Why the Lucky Stiff Personal Highlights of the year - Andrews trip to America, Johns trip to Italy, Marshmallow Ladyboy Jesus, Cheaper Than Therapy

A mini-documentary about my first trip to America in 2006. Download: East Coast / West Coast While I was at the anti DRM demonstration at Apples 5th avenue store, I also interviewed a member of New Yorker’s for Fair Use, Jay Sulzberger. The interview was too long to include in the program, but if you’re interested […]