Our Infinite Day-trip is an ongoing project exploring material, form, function, volume and mass within a frame work of romantic ideas of wilderness, movement and shelter. It is informed by the idea that a relationship with a wilderness is largely a removed one.
KG50/49-52 is a large scale sculpture measuring some 20 meters x 15 meters x 3 meters and was temporarily installed at the highest elevation on the west facing slope of a small island off the west coast of Ireland. The work changed the islands height above sea level from 49 meters to 52 AMSL. Due to weather conditions, the work needed constant repair and adjustment and ultimately failed embodying something of the ill fated. A second work, Totem (see image 2) was constructed at the foot of the west facing slope of the island.
in 2008 two works, HIC MANEBIMVS OPTIME and VIA were temporarily installed on the near inaccessible coastline of a remote island off the west coast of Canada. The small local population undertook something of a dangerous expedition by canoe or on foot, risking encounter with bear or cougar to view the two works. This risk was made all too real when, during one of the many trips made around the coastline to maintain the works, I crossed paths with a mature black bear who had decided to investigate VIA at close quarters.
HIC MANEBIMVS OPTIME is a circular neon text without a start or end point. It is a loose translation of the works Latin title. These words (attributed to Aeneas upon finding Italy) have previously been sited on a wooded coastline (with VIA) on a remote Canadian island, at Gallery 333, Grey Area and most recently at Fabrica for the event 1-2-3-4 with Martin Creed, Bob & Roberta Smith and David Blandy. The function of the work's nomadic search for a place to be, shifts whenever temporarily 'pitched' within a space that becomes its host. The works inherent fragility emphasizes the futility of the search; it has been remade a number of times on different continents due to breakage.
