XENOPHON: ALMANAC OF TOMORROW
AN IMAGINED SURVIVAL GUIDE FOR TOMORROW, 2017
MCGIBBON O’LYNN (2017)
This piece was created created in conjunction with researchers at CÚRAM, the Science Foundation Ireland Centre for Research in Medical Devices at NUI Galway.
The world today faces more threats than we can comprehend. Most of these are caused by humankind: nuclear war, climate change, inequality, societal breakdown, and pollution are a few examples. So can the science of today be used to inform the ways in which we can survive the disasters of tomorrow? McGibbon O’Lynn’s futuristic almanac, created in conjunction with researchers at CÚRAM, the Science Foundation Ireland Centre for Research in Medical Devices at NUI Galway, proposes a multitude of bio-tech inspired responses to a state of emergency. Xenophon: Almanac of Tomorrow is a trans-disciplinary, mixed media interactive work which confronts us with the question of what life would be like after an apocalypse and the strange ways in which people may have to change in order to survive.
BIO
Irish artist Siobhan McGibbon, and writer and lecturer Maeve O’Lynn began collaborating together on The Xenophon Project in 2015; the project arose from Siobhan's period as artist-in-residence on the Chimera Art and Science Programme at CÚRAM, the Centre for Research in Medical Devices, at NUI Galway.
They employ a multi-disciplinary approach, combining contemporary arts practice, narrative and scientific research to imagine the future of the human species. With each body of work, McGibbon O’Lynn continue to build upon the narrative of this post-human world, pondering different dimensions and the consequences of bio-enhancements. McGibbon O’Lynn have exhibited in The Future is Already Here, Galway City Museum (2015) and Why is it Always December, The Millennium Court Arts Centre, Portadown (2016). Extracts from The Xenophon Projecthave also been published in the Winter 2016 issue of the literary journal, The Stinging Fly. Upcoming exhibitions include Tulca Festival of Visual Arts in Galway in November 2017 and Droichead Arts Centre, May 2018.