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Michael Fortune as part of Darklight 2009
October 8, 2009 — October 11, 2009
As part of the Darklight Festival 2009…
Michael Fortune
We Invented Halloween
October 8th – October 11th, 2009
We Invented Halloween is the title of a three channel installation recorded on Halloween night, 2005, 2006 and 2007 in the artists family home in rural Wexford, Ireland.
Each year a central activity of the night involves the artists mother dressing up in an improvised manner with anything that will disguise her identity, and calling into his granny’s house, which is next door. Prior to calling to the house we see his mother getting dressed, with the aid of his sisters, who dress and undress her with layers of coats, socks, tights and plastic masks.
The work, which involves long, hand held takes, follows her along the road and into the grannies house. In each recording his granny ignores the camera and welcomes his mother, though she is unaware of her identity thinking instead it is one of her great grand children. Each of the three films finishes when his mother leaves the house delighted she has fooled his granny once again. By revisiting this annual practice the viewer is offered an insight into the immediate environment of family life, human relationships and contemporary ritual.
More Info: http://www.darklight.ie/festival-2009/art/
“A playful irreverence is the first thing you notice in Michael Fortune’s work. It’s like entering the world of kitsch as might have been imagined by a stoned Flann O’Brien. The ‘embarrass de richesses’ that is the curated array of cups, mementoes from holidays, pilgrimages to Lourdes, plates stamped with Jackie and JFK, crucifixes by telephones, ‘holy’ statues, religious ephemera, fridge magnets and the circumstantial boundaries of culture and art and where they overlap are areas of interest for artist Michael Fortune. Referring to the forms of video diaries, home movies, and photography as archive, Fortune’s work decodes and recodes everyday rituals and folklores.
In his three-channel video installation We Invented Halloween Fortune uncovers and locates Halloween as a scene with a structure, a piece of time that unfolds in a particular direction endlessly replayable. The ritual of dressing up is meticulously observed, a cushion for a hunchback, socks for gloves, the face masked. The performance is the ritual observation of these details, just as much as it is the journey next door. Outside a passing car flashes it’s headlights in a gesture of recognition to the carnival charade; everyone is in on the act.”
From Performing Folklore
By Sarah Tuck
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