Switched

Date: 2 September 2010

Adrian Duncan & Fiona Marron

Of Process

Both artists’ current work takes, as its shared root, physical, speculative and necessary human activities, which are used as tools for investigating other, less tactile, human activities and processes. These physical activities reveal a process that is used to view the less tactile processes from a different angle. Duncan and Marron share an interest in addressing the complications inherent in attempting to define such an abstract topic. In the manifestation of these ideas, metaphors are introduced that provoke thought and enquiry into our claims to knowledge.
Duncan’s work overlays everyday empirical investigative activities upon less obvious processes of measurement. His work at first illustrates the flaws in this scientific method (the problem with induction, statics, etc.), particularly when applied to dynamic systems. The work attempts to marry one method of measurement with another seemingly incomapatible system, and from this, investigating how institutional structures are formed and changed. This is done with reference to Popper’s Objective Knowledge.
In her sculpture and video installation Marron pursues her interests in the relationships between labour, knowledge and value, using the mining industry as a model. Combining appropriated text from sociologist Alvin Gouldner’s 1954 field report of an American gypsum plant and footage from the realms of production at a present-day Irish mine, Marron examines the ‘many standpoints in terms of which the raw data of factory life can be ordered and made meaningful.’ (Gouldner 1954)
Adrian Duncan studied and worked as a structural engineer in the UK and Ireland for over a decade before returning to study fine art at IADT. His practice is based in sculpture/installation, video, writing and drawing. He has exhibited at Pallas Contemporary Projects, The Joinery and The Lewis Glucksman, UCC. He is assistant editor of Paper Visual Art to which he also contributes. Fiona Marron was born in Co. Monaghan in 1987 and graduated from Fine Art at Dublin Institute of Technology last year. She has had solo exhibitions at The Joinery, Dublin (2010) & FOUR gallery, Dublin (2009). She has participated in many group shows including Reverse Pedagogy III, a residency and exhibition hosted by The Model, Sligo (2009).