Lawless has made several journeys in and around the Carlow area developing Transitional Instruments, a new commission realised as part of Undercover: A Dialect. Whilst on reconnaissance in early August for leftover material around industrial estates and several reported illegal-dumping grounds, shady digging led him to a skip on the Athy road that looked promising. Soon he was in the reception of the company who filled the skip, Thermo Air, a long-established enterprise who fabricate air treatment and ventilation products primarily for export. After explaining his project, where he planned to salvage scrap material around Carlow to use in making makeshift guitars and fiddles for local musicians to play, he was kindly invited to tour the factory floor and examined several substantial 1980s soviet union tooling presses used to shape large scale heating and fan units. A new relationship began, and lawless was invited to liberally take material from the factory to use and to work with employees there.
Since developed as a site specific project and involving a concert with Eric Butler as part of Carlow's annual Culture Night, Transitional Instruments offers an alternative, literally lyrical interpretation of Carlow's local industry. It acknowledges and builds upon the continuing presence of a tooling and fabrication industry that has featured large multi-national companies such as Lapple.
In Lawless' ideology there are no leftovers, only possibilities for further use value as he collects fragments from the factory line, reconvening them into objects that link together the industrial sector and music community, creating a conscious camaraderie through the bargaining, improvisation and handling of raw material.
Forward Michele Horrigan
As Part of Undercover a Dialect, Visual, Carlow
curated by Michele Horrigan
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