Doireann O’Malley & Armin Lorenz Gerold

In the video installation Prototype II: The Institute, Doireann O’Malley explores the complexity of gender constructions. The work was made borrowing from collaborative methodologies such as Live Action Role Playing (LARP), somatic exercises and speculative worldbuilding. The main characters in the film were asked to improvise on their own ideas about what it would mean to live in a world without binary gender definitions. The film references scientific laboratory environments, modernist architecture, psychotherapy, bio-politics, and utopian science fiction. It captures the way the boundaries between genders — and boundaries between human, nature, and technology — are far more diffuse than the divisions of constructed polar opposites such as nature and culture or man and woman. Can technological development make possible a more complex understanding of the world and override ingrained behavioural patterns?

Doireann O’Malley (b.1981 in Limerick, Ireland) lives and works in Berlin. Their practice explores new perspectives on trans identity through the lens of a post psycho-analytic, schizo-analytic methodology of rhizomic entanglements, machine learning and quantum transformation. O’Malley is currently participating in the Berlin Program for Artists. Granted Berlin Art Prize in 2018, their work has been exhibited a.o. at The Hugh Lane (2018), KW Institute of Contemporary Art (2018).

Armin Lorenz Gerold (b.1981 in Graz, Austria) is a Berlin-based artist and composer. Centering on sound, his practice traces the inherent multiplicities of sonar experience resulting in audio plays, audio visual live-performances, broadcasts, audio installations, and sound design. His recent exhibitions and performances include KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, LambdaLambdaLambda, Pristina, and Between Bridges, Berlin.

Doireann O’Malley and Armin Lorenz Gerold have been collaborating since 2016 for the film series Prototypes for which Gerold composes the sound and music.

Supported by Culture Ireland.

Artwork

Prototype II: The Institute
2018
Two-channel video installation with 5.1 surround sound audio
Excerpts from a two-day Live Action Role Playing workshop, approximately 60 mins
Courtesy the artist; Commissioned by The Irish Arts Council, Next Generation Award and Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane

Venue

Göteborgs Konsthall

 

Image: Doireann O’Malley in collaboration with Armin Lorenz Gerold, Prototype II: The Institute, 2018. Photo: Hendrik Zeitler