|
The Last Broadcast
Revelations – Garrett Phelan - 2009 |
|
|
|
In a possible mythology of the
avian world, the Mynah bird stands alone, possessing the capacity to go
beyond mere mimickery and the imitation of human speech. It is suggested that
unlike other simple talking birds, the Mynah does not just mindlessly repeat
sounds, but instead is capable of achieving unique modulations of syntax and
inventive sentence constructions. If Mynahs can say new, unheard and
unrepeated things, might they - presumably - think and reason too? This
proposed folkloric belief in the Mynah’s extraordinary capacities and
intelligence makes it both revered and feared – it is a shadowy and
potentially dangerous bird talking to us from another realm, a world free of
human vice and corruption. Garrett Phelan binds this avian meta-mythology to
the core of his new body of work, The
Last Broadcast Revelations, casting the Mynah bird in the role of
a dark prophet with worrying access to the tools of propaganda, the radio
broadcast and printed word. The bird alternates from the voice of darkness to
the voice of hope, from a seer of devastation to the prophet of possibility. Phelan’s preferred
artistic method of communication and information dissemination (echoed in his
creation of the thinking, talking Mynah) is famously the radio broadcast, he
is perhaps best known for his now legendary Black Brain Radio (2005). In an
insightful text on this project (http://www.garrettphelan.com/BlackBrainRadio.htm),
Sarah Pierce’s citation of Marshall McLuhan underscores Phelan’s
manipulation of medium’s potentials for both intimacy and anonymity,
truth and misinformation: “Radio is provided with
its cloak of invisibility... It comes to us ostensibly with person-to-person
directness that is private and intimate, while in more urgent fact, it is
really a subliminal echo chamber of magical power to touch remote and
forgotten chords.” Frequently in the guise of a
naturalist or radio broadcaster, and in this instance through the voice of an
alter-ego Mynah bird, Phelan constructs convincingly realistic narratives,
through sculptural sound works, animations, drawings, and zines that parody
our experience of the (re)presentation of the real, and our physical
engagement with the natural world. The
Last Broadcast Revelations is the third and final chapter in a
trilogy of such projects through which he has explored concerns regarding our
failure to behave as responsible members of what he describes as the
“Natural World Community”. Like the pervasively familiar voice of
the radio host, Phelan seamlessly weaves himself, visibly or invisibly,
through his narratives, presenting at times outrageous inventions with such
deadpan earnestness that they seem more like factual recitation than
purposeful storytelling or polemic artworks. This carefully nuanced handling
pulls his projects out of the quagmire of agit-prop and through his
interdisciplinary process, we begin to understand his work, not merely as a
didactic narrative, but rather a complex commentary upon trust: an
exploration of ‘faith’ in the truth of an earnestly proposed
idea, testimony or autobiography. |
|
|
|
To view images of
the project or read the specially commissioned text by Glynn Anderson click
on the links below. |
|
|
|
|
|
For more information
on Glynn Anderson go to http://www.birdsofireland.com/ |
|
|