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A Sod State, 2021/22
Video installation / Single Channel Video
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A Sod State.
4K/UHD
Full Running Time - 22mins
Viewing copy on request
info@eoghanryan.ie
Distributed by li-ma
Video installation / Single Channel Video
A Sod State.
4K/UHD
Full Running Time - 22mins
Viewing copy on request
info@eoghanryan.ie
Distributed by li-ma
Video Stills
A Sod State@Against the Day. Photo:Tobias Hübel
A Sod State @Visio 2021. Photo: Federica Di Giovani
A Sod State@Rijksakademie Open Studio’s 2022. Photo - Tomek-Dersu-Aaron
'Sod’ or turf is wet, fertile ground; it is also slang British for someone that is difficult or causes problems, and ‘sod all’, as in - absolutely nothing. ‘State’ is the particular condition that someone or something is in at a specific time, as much as it is a nation or territory considered as an organised political community”.
A Sod State looks to conflicting themes of religion, statehood, state power, and spectatorship through the lens of the Northern Irish Troubles. The film unravels a world of untrustworthy narration, wandering sounds, strobing imagery and disarray. It is a tale of a corrupted, often censored, surreal and confused state of affairs, [RR1] in which, an inner demagogue is manifested. This creature, or puppet, is not quite god, not quite devil, and performs binary contradictions of class, faith, identity, and borders; private, public, and political.
A Sod State posits the Troubles in an alarmingly present tense, reconfigured as a time out of joint. Confusing memory and media, the film draws heavily from manipulated archival footage, juxtaposing it with images of recent post-Brexit media coverage. As such, it becomes an example of repetitive political theatre; a spectacle watched and consumed through TV screens and newspaper articles.
A Sod State looks to conflicting themes of religion, statehood, state power, and spectatorship through the lens of the Northern Irish Troubles. The film unravels a world of untrustworthy narration, wandering sounds, strobing imagery and disarray. It is a tale of a corrupted, often censored, surreal and confused state of affairs, [RR1] in which, an inner demagogue is manifested. This creature, or puppet, is not quite god, not quite devil, and performs binary contradictions of class, faith, identity, and borders; private, public, and political.
A Sod State posits the Troubles in an alarmingly present tense, reconfigured as a time out of joint. Confusing memory and media, the film draws heavily from manipulated archival footage, juxtaposing it with images of recent post-Brexit media coverage. As such, it becomes an example of repetitive political theatre; a spectacle watched and consumed through TV screens and newspaper articles.