I began with a quote from George Kubler's book, The Shape of Time and traversed the city in a car with a friend, chasing the sun. In my hands, a video camera pointed at a blank white surface sitting on my lap, onto which I cast word shadows with a series of laser-cut cardboard fragments. My friend navigated, driving to keep the sun on the passenger side of the car and the shadows on the surface I was videoing. We began in the city centre and ended up out in the suburbs.

In my own work, a thousand concerns of active business lie unattended while I write these words. The instant admits only one action while the rest of possibility lies unrealised. Actuality is the eye of the storm: it is a diamond with an infinitesimal perforation through which the ingots and billets of present possibility are drawn into past events. The emptiness of actuality can be measured by the possibilities that fail to attain realisation in any instant: only when they are few can actuality seem full.

The shape of time: remarks on the history of things.
George Kubler (1962)


sun writing was shown in the group show Time space at the Burren College of Art Gallery, from August to September 2009. Curated by Martina Cleary and Jerome O'Drisceoil.