Mirror Pavilion, Leaf Work
Derrigimlagh Bog
Connemara, Co. Galway
28 August - 18 September 2021
Galway International Arts Festival and Galway 2020 present
by John Gerrard
Derrigimlagh Bog
Connemara, Co. Galway
28 August - 18 September 2021
Claddagh Quay
Galway City
3 - 26 September 2020
23rd Biennale of Sydney
12 March – 13 June 2022
more details
Mirror Pavilion by John Gerrard was commissioned by Galway International Arts Festival for Galway 2020, European Capital of Culture.
The Pavilion is a beautiful and striking structure, with
three sides and the roof clad in a highly reflective mirror and the fourth wall a high–resolution LED wall.
Mirror Pavilion premiered during Galway European Capital of Culture 2020 with Corn Work at the Claddagh Quay in Galway. In 20221, Mirror Pavilion hosted a new artwork, Leaf Work, which unfolded on the LED screen presented in the spectacular 4,000–year–old Derrigimlagh Bog in Connemara throughout Galway International Arts Festival 2021.
Mirror Pavilion by John Gerrard is a response to the escalating climate crisis and fearlessly pushes the boundaries of digital art using simulation. Gerrard has taken digital technology, usually employed by the commercial gaming industry, to create virtual worlds that simulate extremely detailed and authentic landscapes. The characters and landscapes we see on the LED screen may look like video or film but they are not; they hover in what the artist describes as the ‘slippery space’ between the real and the unreal. These two astonishingly real virtual worlds are meticulously constructed by digital means by the artist, a team of modellers, and programmers. This world unveiling will be a dazzling moment on the Irish landscape.
Galway International Arts Festival would like to acknowledge the support of Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture for funding this project in partnership with Galway city and county local authorities, and for the additional support provided by Festival Energy Partner Flogas, and the support of Aerogen and Blue Sky Ireland.
As an artist, Gerrard produces virtual worlds, which are often portraits of real places remade as 3D models of themselves. His works are mostly installed in public spaces, on the streets or city squares. This allows what he describes as ‘unexpected collisions’ that can occur between the art and members of the public.
Mirror Pavilion reflects and responds to the landscape at two locations.
As the viewer approaches the Mirror Pavilion structure, they will see themselves reflected in the mirrored walls, and on the LED screen they will see an image of the landscape in which the structure is situated.
Using a technique described as motion matching John Gerrard generated an ongoing infinite choreography for the characters we see on the screen. Real-life dancers, wearing motion capture suits, walked, danced and performed. This series of motions was then captured and converted into data.
What we ultimately see are the Corn Work characters responding to time while the Leaf Work character responds to the solar cycle and changing temperatures, their movements in tandem with the changes of the seasons. There are two virtual worlds to discover on the Mirror Pavilion LED screen, each at a different physical location.
Located in Derrigimlagh Bog in Connemara, Leaf Work is a lone melancholic virtual character on the screen, clad in oak leaves. Derrigimlagh Bog was the site of transmission of the first transatlantic radio signal from the Marconi station in 1907 and the site of Alcock and Brown’s first transatlantic plane crossing in 1919. In Leaf Work the character performs a lament for the effects of these human advances on the non-human world and its relentless suffering. She walks a simple circle, a choreography based on the position of the sun and her lament is the antithesis of the triumph of Corn Work.
Derrigimlagh Bog, Connemara, Co. Galway
28 August-18 September 2021 | 9am-9pm
Located by the River Corrib at Claddagh Quay, Mirror Pavilion, Corn Work, recalls histories of grain milling in Galway and the strong flow of water which provided a sustainable clean energy source for the city’s now dismantled flour mills. Four folk figures, the Straw Boys, remade virtually, perform a symbolic wheel of production on the LED wall in the work. Changing with the seasons, they commemorate attitudes toward agriculture and the landscape that existed prior to the petroleum derived methods widely implemented today. The powerful coordinated turns of Corn Work provide a mirror image to Leaf Work in Connemara.
Claddagh Quay, Galway City
3 - 26 September, 2020
One of Ireland’s most unique and internationally celebrated artists, John Gerrard is best known for his large-scale and site-specific works, his sculptures which usually take the form of digital simulations, have been installed in both high-profile urban spaces such as Lincoln Center Plaza (New York) for Public Art Fund and Somerset House (London) for Channel 4, and in geographically isolated locations such as Coachella Valley Desert (California) for Desert X. His work has featured at the Venice Biennale and is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (New York). Tate (London) recently presented his work.
Producer: Werner Poetzelberger
Programmer: Helmut Bressler
CG Character Modelling: Max Loegler
CG Character Skinning: Arx Anima
Landscape development: Werner Poetzelberger
Movement Analyst: Esther Balfe
Dancer: Finola Cronin
Drone Photography: The Drone Guys, Sligeachfilms
RGB Aerial Photography, Digital Terrain/Surface Model: Bluesky Geospatial Limited
Oaks : Ailbhe Gerrard / Brookfield Farm
Line Producer (Galway) Declan Gibbons
Line Producer (Vienna) Caroline Ecker
3D Realtime Engine: Unigine
Installation development: Jakob Illera / Inseq Design
Producer: Werner Poetzelberger
Programmer: Helmut Bressler
CG Character Modelling: Max Loegler
CG Character Rigs and Skinning: Arx Anima
Environment development: Werner Poetzelberger
Movement Analyst: Esther Balfe
Dancers: Stephanie Dufresne (Spring), Ursula Robb (Summer), Justine Cooper (Autumn), and Raymond Keane (Winter)
Development Dancers: Siobhan Manson, Lucy West and Ben Sullivan
Drone Photography: The Drone Guys
Straw suit development: Gerardine Wisdom
Grain Farmers: Dan Fogarty (Wheaten straw), Gunther Falkenthal (Rye Straw), Ruairiadh and Marie Deasy (Barley and Oat Straw)
Production Manager: Adam Fitzsimons
Associate Producer (Galway): Declan Gibbons
Line Producer (Vienna): Caroline Ecker
3D Realtime Engine: Unigine
Installation development: Jakob Illera / Inseq Design
GIAF Chief Executive: John Crumlish
GIAF Artistic Director & Mirror Pavilion producer: Paul Fahy
Financial Controller: Gerry Cleary
Mirror Pavilion was presented in two different locations; Corn Work at Claddagh Quay in Galway city and Leaf Work at Derrigimlagh Bog in Connemara.
The site for Mirror Pavilion, Leaf Work is the 4,000-year old Derrigimlagh Bog - an area of blanket peat bog in Connemara - situated just a few miles from Clifden on the Wild Atlantic Way.
Approximately five miles from Clifden on the R341 Roundstone/ Ballconneely Road, Mirror Pavilion is accessed by foot on a looped walkway through the bog taking 20 minutes from the car park. En route to the Pavilion, visitors will pass a number of small lakes, spectacular scenery and a number of information points on the history of the Bog.
Mirror Pavilion, Corn Work was situated on the middle pier of Claddagh Quay, directly across from the city’s iconic Spanish Arch in the heart of Galway City. It ran continuously for 24 hours daily.
Claddagh Quay is just minutes from the centre of Galway city, where the River Corrib meets Galway Bay and flows into the Atlantic Ocean. Formerly a fishing village, it is one of the oldest areas of Galway city.