(Phelan/McLoughlin, 'Kippure', Installation view - Kerlin Gallery 1995. Photograph on aluminium, sound, 1watt FM radio transmission, radio walkmans. Collection of The Arts Council of Ireland.) Documentation photograph by Brendan Bourke.



Kippure
was produced in response to a Government Green Paper on Broadcasting and was originally installed in a group show in a commercial art gallery called The Kerlin Gallery.

It comprised a panoramic photograph of the Kippure transmission mast located in the Dublin mountains. Accompanying this image was a 1 watt transmission which broadcast ambient sound of the location throughout the gallery and surrounding streets and buildings on a specified FM frequency assigned by the IRTC (Independent Radio and Television Commision).

The summit of Kippure mountain is the site of a television and radio transmitter mast , and as such is the oldest television transmitter site in the Republic of Ireland. It was first identified as a transmitter site as part of a Radio Éireann survey into potential FM radio transmitter sites in the mid 1950s. The Irish government Board of Works built an access road to the site in 1959 and by the summer of 1961 the mast was erected and television trade test transmissions, consisting of slide views of Ireland, a testcard and the music of Count John McCormack were played out.

The Green Paper on Broadcasting marked a radical shift in attitude towards broadcast policy in Ireland and Phelan/McLoughlin submitted a cultural contribution to the Green paper by outlining their views on Arts Broadcasting in the cultural sector at that time.



BACK