Kieran Boland

"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 digitally composited moving image 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.

DOK Niederösterreich NÖ DOK für Moderne Kunst St. Pölten AUT 22.11.13 - 5.1.14
[MARS] Gallery Melbourne AUS 12.12.13 - 20.12.13
Wallflower Photo Media Gallery Mildura AUS.9.14 - 9.10.14
Non-Sites in the City NO-GO Vienna AUT 19.6.15 - 28.6.15

INSTALLATION IMAGES