On being there

On being there is a filmic encounter with the material and outputs of the office of Tom dePaor. The earliest project represented here is from 1991, and the film spans 30 years to include a project at Dysart, Co. Wicklow.

There is the place itself. There are notebooks, drawings, prints, scale models, 35mm slides, photographs, films, files, books, writing. A diversity of materials and media, evidencing significant technological changes in production and reproduction. This is the raw material.

The film is a rerecording, or sampling of this material, where scale, media, and modes of presentation and realisation merge. The linear transition from drawing to model to built landscape and documentation is disrupted. The film explores the permeability of the image. Animated or activated through movement and operation, everything can be superimposed, overlaid, or cut into. An audio-visual encounter with place, within the space of the screen and the loudspeaker.

The film premièred in January 2022 at the Tom dePaor exhibition ‘i see Earth’ Building and Ground 1991-2021 at VISUAL Carlow, curated by Nathalie Weadick and supported by the Arts Council. This screening brings Tom dePaor’s work home to a building he designed, the Pálás Cinema.

Followed by Q&A with director Peter Maybury, Nathalie Weadick, and Tom dePaor, chaired by Hugh Campbell.