After the fact, LAB Gallery, Dublin, 2007

After the fact, LAB Gallery, Dublin, 2007

The Lab is pleased to present After the fact, a solo exhibition by Michelle Deignan. Deignan’s videos play with the conventions of broadcast programmes and artists’ moving image works. They are mischievous and idiosyncratic, combining information of varied significance with often humorous auto-biographical scripts and anecdotes. Deignan presents herself as a very human character, displaying the limits of her control over given situations. By doing this she interrogates her position as a creative individual in relation to institutions with authority.

In both ‘Il Cittadino’ and ‘Red Cheeks’ actors adopt the guise of television presenters. The narratives they tell weave facts and anecdotes connecting the artist to the various locations that they find themselves in. ‘Unmaking or Redoing’ tells the story of the artist being photographed by the police whilst walking down a street in east London. Referencing a “making of” style documentary video, the artist describes this event and her related artistic endeavors through a combination of voice over and filmed interactions between her and an actor. In ‘Assumed Position’, the artist simulates street photography on a pedestrian thoroughfare in London’s financial district and in ‘To Camera’ she attempts to gain access to one of the most ubiquitous locations used on British Television News, 10 Downing Street.