Falling Gardens part I: Angel of Histories
A four-channel immersive audio and video installation (81/2 minute loop)

by Michael R. Murphy and Róisín O’Gorman--In collaboration with:

Matthew Knight—Modular Scoring
Roksana Niewadzisz—Physical Performance
Regina Crowley—Vocal Performance

Artist’s statement:
We cannot tell anyone’s story. There are so many stories, so many voices… and silences. So many histories told by…whom? We tug on the image of the Angel of History described by Walter Benjamin. Practically, this comes through the capture of improvised performances and places–a river in flood, a woman in red, a garden in bloom, a staircase happened upon.  Words and songs and an improvised modular score unsettle the regularity of steady sequences. New experiences emerge for us when we drop in and stay, breaking apart our singular narrative or political lines of  thought  though sometimes interrupting our  sleep or weaving into our dreams. 

Walter Benjamin— from “On the Concept of History” (1940)

“A Klee painting named ‘Angelus Novus’ shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. 
His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. 
This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past.
Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. 
The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. 
But a storm is blowing in from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such a violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. 

This storm is what we call progress.” 

Bios

Michael Murphy is a faculty member of the School of Visual and Media Arts at the University of Montana, where he began working after a career as an actor in theatre, film and television in New York City and Los Angeles. Since then he has worked as a director and creator across multiple disciplines, including theatre, film and opera, as well as interactive media design and installation work.

Róisín O’Gorman  is a Lecturer in the Department of Theatre, School of Film, Music & Theatre at University College Cork. From her background in theatre historiography, dramatic literature, theory, feminism and visual culture, Róisín's current research lives between embodied practices and theoretical understandings of performance. 

Roksana Niewadzisz is a polylingual multidisciplinary artist and a researcher with an academic background in Theatre, Translations and Art History. For over eighteen years she has been developing her skills as audio-visual artist, performer, stage director, actress and mover training, devising work and performing in dozen of projects in/across Poland, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Italy and the United States.

Matthew Knight is a composer based in Missoula, MT, with a passion for combining diverse genres, ensembles, and technologies to create unique musical experiences. He recently completed his degrees in music composition, piano performance, and music technology at the University of Montana, where his work focused on exploring the balance between classic and modern approaches.

Regina Crowley has worked professionally in Irish theatre since the late 1980’s and is a founder member of Gaitkrash Theatre Company in Cork. She is a Designated Linklater Voice Teacher and has led workshops both nationally and internationally. She has trained with Yoshi Oida, Enrique Pardo, Lorna Marshall, Bella Merlin, Fiona Shaw, Phillip Zarriilli and the Moscow School of Cinematography among others.