Siobhán McDonald

Methane Lake

https://ars.electronica.art/planetb/en/invisible-seam/

Siobhán McDonald examines particles floating in the air and matter buried underground from past worlds. In an exploration of Arctic permafrost and plants preserved in this depository, the project traces histories of generations of underground systems. Starting with boglands as its protagonist — their ecosystem, history and mythologies — the project considers ideas around time and the preservation of collective memory in that thin layer between soil and rocks, where some of the most important changes in contemporary times are taking place.

Listening to Soil

Offering

Interaction between materials, technology and culture

The project started by collecting soil samples from the JRC soil library, organizing them by location, thus creating a roadmap to the journey soil has taken; the trail along which civilization travels. As the trail progresses across timescales, the PH content changes and the tonality of the soil shifts. The installation is one result of an ongoing dialogue with Arwyn Jones (EU – JRC) and archaeologist Dr Brendan O’Neill (IRL) to chart soil processes and rituals circa 1500 BC.

By constructing a traditional lime kiln to mix lime with clay and soil, the work, Offering, mimics the shape of a burial urn, historically meant to enclose cremation ashes. *Offering* aims to reveal forgotten histories when ecological practices and gathering food were based on the necessity of survival and the cycle of life. The artwork rewinds to a time when people did not exhaust nature.

Tipping Point

A slow distillation of deep time, temperature, atmosphere, and biosphere

A hand-blown glass vessel filled with 20,000-year-old glacial water (from the Dryas period) and 2.00 ml of future air maps the story of the last major tipping point in the earth, which occurred during the Dyras period, to the present day. It is a slow distillation of deep time, temperature, atmosphere and biosphere that points to a methane unsustainable future.

Tipping Point – water to air is inspired by the oldest plant ever to be regenerated and grown from 32,000-year-old seeds — the artist explored this age-old plant to determine how the seeds were able to survive for so long. It is a time capsule of the frequency of the Earth 32,000 years ago. The seeds were found covered in ice 124 feet below the permafrost and regenerated in glass vials.

Methane Lake

In the video installation Methane Lake, the artist paints on large blocks of ice from different moments in history that have calved from the Arctic ice sheet and brought to the British Antarctic Survey. The act of painting with invisible methane gas presents itself as time capsule of the frequency of the Earth 20,000 years ago, representing the imagined notion of a time we cannot go back to. The artist embarked on an expedition to explore this beautiful and vital Arctic ice which holds a memory that extends for millions of years into the past. The film explores the slow workings of geological processes found deep in permafrost, meditating on the sentience of ice. By painting on transient matter such as mycelium and ice from different moments in history and letting them melt, the artist wishes to express the infinite concept of Ensō. Ensō is rooted in Japanese calligraphy and closely related to the concept of wabi-sabi — the Japanese idea of the transience of all things. Ensō is a circle that has since ancient times been written with canes or sticks in mid-air.

Credits
This project was created within the framework of STUDIOTOPIA in association with GLUON. Supported by the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, and the Brussels Capital-Region, The Joint Research Centre, JRC SciArt project of the European Commission, Arts Council of Ireland Project Award, Trinity College Dublin, Creative Ireland Award and Monaghan Co Council.
STUDIOTOPIA is co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.