Kieran Boland

HD Video projection | 16:9 aspect ratio | colour | stereo sound | duration 7'50" | English and German with subtitles. NÖ DOK für Moderne Kunst St. Pölten, AUSTRIA (2013), [MARS] Gallery Melbourne (2013), Wallflower PhotoMedia Gallery Mildura (2014), Non-Sites in the City NO-GO Vienna AUSTRIA (2015). This project was produced at the AIR-Artist in Residence program in Krems an der Donau, assisted by the Austrian Government and facilitated through RMIT University School of Art.

"There’s really no expectation of privacy in a public place anymore in this world"
— Phillip-Lorca diCorca

In Jestertag, I speak with people in the streets and parks of Vienna about long-distant memories of each site but I am completely ignored, even when putting my arm around a sightseer posing for an off-screen photographer. As a moving image composed of two separate time frames, I watched strangers from a distance using a lens with a long focal length, entering each scene to improvise with randomly selected individuals only when they had already left it. The project explores the limits of what constitutes free speech—in relation to social polarization surrounding surveillance and voyeurism. Through a multiplicity of references to collective memory, we are also encouraged to reconsider our perception of what is mundane, or overlooked, and even forgotten. The project title is an amalgam of English and German. A Jester walked a fine line in an attempt to entertain at court. Tag is both a social media term for the retrospective identification of individuals and the word for day in German.

Play Trailer (Vimeo)