Imbue with Spirit (2024)
Imbue with Spirit is a performance developed in conjunction with Under the Feet of Shadows, an ongoing collaboration between EL Putnam and Irish author Mike McCormack that tells a fictional origin myth of a yet-to-be-built data center in Killala, Ireland where Terra (an android being akin to a diviner) is called upon to negotiate between the forces of technology, the environment, and human society as an entangled ecology in order to cultivate development of the center. The work merges science fiction with folklore, imagined and actual mythologies and histories of technology in Ireland. In this performance, Terra recursively creates a footpath from its own remains; a gestural ouroboros where notions of technological progress are challenged in this ritual of ephemeral creation.
Two iterations of the performance have been presented. The first was presented in conjunction with Under the Feet of Shadows as part of the performance event Livestock: Creation Myths, curated by Frances Fay and Katherine Nolan, at Mart Gallery in Dublin, Ireland, September, 2024. The second iteration was presented as part of Planetary Thinking, an exhibition by the Cosmotechnics Group (Simon Blackmore, Andy Broadey, Paul Dolan, Helen Knowles, Alis Oldfield and EL Putnam) at Bankley Gallery in Manchester, UK on 1 November 2024.
Photos are from Mart performance. Credit: Serhii Sapoval.
Video from Bankley performance.
