Hello-Hello

Hello-Hello arose out of Danny McCarthy’s experience of working on the intergenerational performance project Moment, in collaboration with four other artists and the staff and residents of O’Connell Court sheltered housing unit in Cork.

In the course of his work with residents and staff the artist decided to record project participants and artists saying ‘Hello’ and to take the recording back to the studio to use it as the basis of new work. Listening to the recordings back in the studio McCarthy soon realised that they needed little or no treatment and that the ‘voices of the dispossessed and repossessed’ spoke very powerfully on their own. Each voice expressed itself and reflected the gamut of human emotion that runs through the unique environment of O’Connell Court.

Hello-Hello was sited at the entrance to a deconsecrated church, which was also the space where the Moment performance took place. Speakers were placed around the space and sounded intermittently the word ‘Hello’ as people entered. The sound was diffused so that sometimes it came from behind, other times from overhead or the left and right. The work later formed part of the exhibition Listening With The Sound Turned Off in the Triskel Arts Centre, Cork, where it was placed on the stairwell with the sounds moving up and down the stairs.

Danny McCarthy studied at the National College of Art and Design.He has pioneered both performance art and sound art in Ireland and he continues to be a leading exponent exhibiting and performing both in Ireland and abroad; most recently in SPAN2 in London, at Hearing Place in Melbourne, Australia, and in April 2004 he exhibited/performed in TRACE Gallery Cardiff with a new work Wild Oats & Cornerstones, and as part of Collective Jukebox 4.03 in Museo Fotografia, Milano, Italy.

His work has appeared on numerous CDs and has been broadcast widely on both radio and TV He is a founding director of Triskel Arts Centre, Cork, the National Sculpture Factory, and is a director of Art Trail and the Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh. He is the recipient of numerous awards and bursaries from both the Irish Arts Council and Department of Foreign Affairs. He has represented Ireland abroad at various exhibitions. More recent exhibitions include the premier of his piece waTEr at the Bourges International Electro Acoustic Music Festival (France), Sounding The Town (installation), and Wa(l)king The Dream (live sound performance with Viv Corringham) in the Sirius Arts Centre Cobh Ireland. He has recently exhibited as part of the Trace Retrospective 2000-05 in Franklin Furnace, New York.

McCarthy curated a CD (open submission and invited) entitled Bend It Like Beckett for Sound Works/Art Trail Festival to commemorate the Beckett Centenary. In early 2006 he founded The Quiet Club (with Mick O'Shea) a floating membership sound (art and electronics) performance group that have presented works all over Ireland and are due to tour Europe in 2007.