Works Made Live:
I started using the live body as part of work in 1969 and have been active ever since. If practice is a journey it seems there are important questions--where are you trying to get to, and are you always getting there by the same means, or in the same way? Of course more than forty years brings considerable experience of being and doing across the world. The last year or few years I feel I have reached a good and strong plateau, deeper and with better focus than what preceded it. The works are back to some renewed energy, with a strong driver and possibly more selfish, simply reliant on core principles. I have been known previously to be bound up in social or socio-political causes with the work as their carrier. Now, again, the images are direct and more to the point. There are always metaphors inside the images and the recent work has maintained this but become more expressive. Not far away are frontiers of duration and body stamina--expressive markings which are transgressive--dirtying of visage and identity. As a parallel even contradictory ingredient, I make rich, nearly catholic photographs, film and video, along with music and sound--all useful advisory building blocks. Mine is a practice where I have entered these background subjects professionally in their own right, as well as or to facilitate their use in my own work. For example my album Lament, a recording of traditional musicians created as a monument to the loss of life in Irelands urban war "The Troubles", was released in 1992 by Caroline-Real World Records. Subsequently, Lament was listed as one of Rolling Stone Magazines best albums of all-time. There has hardly been a cause or issue to the left or liberal necessity in struggle that I have not supported or put my name behind. Since 2005 I have headlined festivals with a refreshing energy and singular zeal--with live work that risks, that makes a contribution.