Every few years hollywood is shocked by an utterly predictable success. Some startling maverick producer actually markets a movie to an underserved audience. The flick makes major bank, and a mad scramble begins, as studios line up to cash in.

Death Cafe – Culture File

Sep 24th, 2015

The ‘Death Cafe‘ movement invites us to discuss death over tea and cakes. For Culture File, I visited the death cafe at The Irish Hospice Foundations’ Forum on End of Life. Chatting with people approaching the end of life, and others working

Immersive VR Education – Culture File

Jul 17th, 2015

A few months ago, Irish company Immersive VR education ran a successful kickstarter to create a virtual reality simulation of the Apollo 11 journey to the moon. Put like that it sound kind unbelievable – we actually built a craft that travelled

Kino D – Culture File

Jul 8th, 2015

Kino is an international filmmaking movement that’s been running in cities around the world since 1999. The concept is simple – aspiring filmmakers of all levels of experience, meet over a weekend; write, direct, edit and screen films all in a

Artist Led Archive – Culture File

Jul 2nd, 2015

Megs Moorley at IMMA, image copyright Catalyst Arts Gallery. Meg’s Moorley’s ‘artist led archive‘ is a wonderful storehouse of the wisdom and work of numerous art collectives over the last four decades. The archive, which tours as a series of e

The Typewriter – Culture File

Jun 23rd, 2015

Perhaps you’ve seen it. One of those instantly recognisable meme images, that neatly confirm our prejudices with a concise and tweet ready bon mot. The image shows a young man, trendily emaciated and nebbish, Brooklyn casual in navy and white s

Sightless Cinema – Culture File

Jun 16th, 2015

‘White Cane Audio Theatre is a group of blind and visually impaired participants (aged 20’s to 80’s) led by theatre director Ciarán Taylor of Carpet Theatre with radio programme maker and composer Rachel Ni Chuinn (The Shape of Sounds to Come –

William Morris in Dublin – Culture File

Jun 10th, 2015

Download: ‘William Morris in Dublin’ William Morris, considered the founder of the late Victorian Arts & Crafts movement in architecture and design, twice visited Ireland. He toured the country, delivering lectures on art and socialism. The inf

Pigtown Scratchings – Culture File

May 14th, 2015

Pigtown Scratchings is an occasional multidisciplinary event in Limerick, created by science and music collaboration Softday. Last week I headed down for Lyric’s Culture File, to speak to some of the multidisciplinary artists featured in this y

Notes From a Performance Art Piece – Culture File

May 12th, 2015

Download: ‘Notes from a performance art piece’ Notes from a performance piece Phase 1 – Destroyed by Life NO EXPRESSION, EYES OPEN, SLOW NO FEELING, EMPTY, SLAVE EXHAUSTION 1 – Electric awaken 2 – Rise, slowly painfully 3 – Crawl to feet 4 – Sp

Ed Devane’s Dodeca Cycle – Culture File

Apr 28th, 2015

Ed Devane, featured in part six of ‘Mad Scientists of Music‘, is one of Ireland’s most innovative musicians. Having moved away from producing rigid programatic electronic music, Ed is at the forefront of combining electronic sounds and analogue

Culture File Interview – Craig Stuart Garfinkle

Apr 10th, 2015

Last week saw the first ever iDig music festival arrive at Dublin’s Convention Centre. I spoke to videogame composer and festival organiser, Craig Stuart Garfinkle, about videogame music and his work composing for world of warcraft. Download: ‘

Canaliculus Purgamentorum – Culture File

Jan 20th, 2015

The tradition of artists creating provocative performance dinners, extends back at least to Filippo Marinetti’s Futurist Cookbook. The Futurists delighted in inedible meals, celebrating their love of speed, violence, and technology. The Domesti

Little Gem – Culture File

Jan 8th, 2015

I caught up with the crew of Little Gem Records, a new record shop – yes you read that right, a new record shop – beneath Dublin’s Cavendish Row. Little Gem are a tryptic: A record store, recording studio and an indie label. They specialise in

Paraudiolia 1 on Hibernation Radio

Jan 2nd, 2015

Spoken word nights in Dublin follow a predictable recipe: an unpalatable mishmash of weepy bildungsroman, irate slam and colouring book political commentary. Bluebottle Collective‘s events are different. The group hosts intimate experimental af

2014 A Year in Review – You’re Doing It Wrong (EP2)

Dec 26th, 2014

A look back on what I’ve been up to in 2014. This is the year I wrote my first stage plays, finished an award winning documentary series ‘Mad Scientists of Music‘, and released my latest radio sitcom ‘Choices‘. I’ve also been lucky enough to ma

You’re Doing it Wrong – An Introduction

Dec 21st, 2014

A podcast journal, questioning the creative life. I delayed posting this for a long time. It was recorded at a moment when I felt very emotionally vulnerable. A time when I was questioning the assumptions underlying the life I’ve chosen – the p

The Laugh laughing at the laugh – Tim & Eric – Culture File

Dec 9th, 2014

From the primitivist pederasty of Henry Darger’s ‘Realms of the Unreal‘, to Mark Hogancamp’s theraputic Marwencol dioramas, recent years have seen an ironic mainstreaming of ‘outsider art’. In a culture obsessed with commodifying novelty, a sec

Amanda Coogan on Silence – Culture File

Dec 1st, 2014

My final piece for Culture File’s series on ‘Silence‘, is an interview with performance artist Amanda Coogan. I don’t want to preempt the piece by writing too much about it. I will say that of all the conversations I’ve had this year, both on m

Trevor Agus at SARC – Culture File

Nov 24th, 2014

In this penultimate episode of my series of interviews on silence, I speak to Trevor Agus of SARC. Belfast’s Sonic Arts Research Centre is a world class facility for the study of sound. I’d met some SARC staff at the Happy Days Beckett Festival

Fiona Newell on Sound & Silence – Culture File

Nov 18th, 2014

Silence, it can be an elusive experience in a modern world dominated by cities, and illuminated by technology. Silence is not only a product of our environment, but also of our perceptual system. In this second in a series for Culture File, I s

Kevin Barry on Silence – Culture File

Nov 11th, 2014

My latest report for Culture File is a discussion with Irish author Kevin Barry, about the role of silence in his work. Kevin joined Sara Maitland (author of ‘A Book of Silence‘) on a panel about silence at the recent Happy Days Beckett festiva

Community Arts in Dublin – Culture File

Sep 29th, 2014

Perhaps the most famous line in Portrait of the Artist goes like this: ‘Ireland is the old sow that eats her own farrow’. Some things never change. The ‘peace dividend’ of Brian Lenihan’s attack on the Irish economy, was a fall in rents. Dublin

‘A Writer in Beckettland’ – Culture File

Sep 8th, 2014

My latest report for RTE Lyric FM’s Culture File, took me ‘upstairs’ to the week long ‘Happy Days‘ Samuel Beckett festival in Enniskillen. The festival organisers and tourism board of Northern Ireland were wildly hospitable (many thanks especia