Position One
2023
Experimental Film / Montage, 7 mins
According to the Irish Aviation Authority, outlined in their Surveillance and Radar tab, an Air Situation Picture is ‘an accurate picture of air traffic, both in the air and on the ground.’ This work springs from this statement and wanders through the visual culture of aviation, taking the viewer through a range of shifting and at times opposing perspectives using dual-screen display.
Further, the work questions what and whom can move freely through the airspace above Ireland and what and whom can’t. In short, the work arranges a constellation of contradictions that fluctuate between ideas of home and territory, sovereignty and autonomy, testament and homage, verticality and horizontality. The work uses found footage from a 1980’s Aer Lingus TV advert, google maps satellite imagery, stills from the RTE news archive and Rik’s own film footage.
Rik is a filmmaker, writer and workshop facilitator currently based in Dublin. Their work excavates the obscene in, at first glance, natural or taken-for-granted systems that shape the physical world around us. They are interested in documenting responses to power structures that obstruct our abilities to care for ourselves, each other as well as the resources we share - they do this by highlighting, through language and images, moments when our capacity to shape these systems are either challenged, prevented or permitted. Recent projects have looked at the prevalence of Data Centres within an Irish context, invisibilized surveillance technologies as well as the points of collapse of Irish Neutrality within the context of neocolonialism.
Overall, their practice is dedicated to learning about how we collectively seek, find and maintain a stake in the world against the backdrop of seemingly unpalatable or untouchable capitalist systems. They are currently developing work around various mining sites in Ireland.
Rik is supported by The Arts Council Ireland and the Basic Income for the Arts Pilot Scheme.
