Project title: onym.ie
Funding strand: Covid-19 Response Award, 2020
Project description:
Onym is a web-based, interactive audio-visual project produced during the Covid-19 pandemic. The title of the work comes from the suffix -onym, derived from the Greek word "onoma" meaning "name", as found in
the words "synonym" and "antonym".
The work is based around pairs of antonyms forming conventional binary oppositions such as "life" and "death". For each pair of antonyms, a thesaurus was used to build a chain of synonyms to bridge the gap between them. Starting with one word the process
was repeated until its antonym was suggested by the Thesaurus. At that point, the process was continued, without reusing any words, until the original word was suggested. In this way, a complete loop was formed. With each synonym suggested by the
thesaurus, the meaning was nuanced. The accumulation of these nuances exposes the shades of grey in between words considered to be diametrically opposed.
This idea was originally explored in an earlier artist’s book. The web project reconfigures and updates this work adding animation, audio, and interactivity.
The artwork takes the form of a standalone website which can be accessed at
www.onym.ie
Photo: Niall de Buitléar
Aims of the project/work Onym
The idea for Onym goes back to the beginning of Niall’s practice when his work was very different. In one particular project, he used text and created physical booklets as a way to deliver these texts.
The funding from the Arts Council for Onym and the period of COVID-19 allowed Niall to revisit the physical booklets. Originally intended as a physical installation in a gallery, Niall thought of a digital approach to re-imagine the work due to COVID.
"I hadn't thought of the digital approach. At that time, I was thinking more in terms of vinyl on a floor, [...] just a static thing. [...] Just this idea of using motion came in and came to me [...] it was just a real slow burner, I suppose different
elements kind of accumulated."
Not having access to his studio pushed Niall to look at digital tools that were accessible and available to use, to realise his work, not just as a standalone piece of software, but in a web environment. He had some previous skills in developing websites
that he was able to expand:
"I had some skills in this area, mostly not related to my art practice. [...] As a kid, I made websites and stuff but then I did a course a few years ago, where I was looking to reskill more for a day job outside of art practice, but I studied web development
a little bit. And the particular tools I used to make this piece [ONYM] were new to me. [...] there was a baseline of skills I had there."
The Arts Council funding allowed Niall to refresh his web development skills and up-skill in CSS animations to achieve the animated features of the work.
Development of the work/ project
Onym was conceived as a piece to be shown in the digital space, not a replication of a physical work that is catapulted into a digital space.
"I was trying to do something different. I could use the internet as a medium. [...] It uses web tech to make the project and it's not a transposition of another medium into the digital format."
With the funding awarded, Niall was able to create the work digitally and launch the work online. The development period was short but intensive from the award being announced in May 2020 and the work being presented online in June 2020.
The funding was utilised in these four ways:
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Artist’s fee: investing significant time in developing the work,
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Collaborator fee: collaborating with a web developer to produce a proof of concept
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Web element: purchasing of the URL for the work
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Documentation and Promotion: creating a physical postcard to document and promote Onym
Learnings
Promotion
Artists often operate a one-man band in creating, producing and promoting work. Visual Artists often rely on the infrastructure of a gallery and their capacity to promote the artist’s work. The fact that ONYM was not attached to a gallery, came with its
challenges to promote the work widely.
"[...] probably that was the most difficult part of the project really. And I think getting engagement for Visual Art online is difficult."
Niall was utilising his own Social Media Channels (Instagram), Niall’s website, Visual Artists Newsheet and Niall’s artist’s profile on Temple Bar Art Studios.
Shortly after the project launched, it was highlighted as part of a “From the Artist to the Archive” post on the NIVAL Instagram account which showcased Niall’s work.
The idea to create a physical promotional piece in the form of a postcard only emerged after digital promotion:
"Later on [...] I decided to produce a physical postcard for this project, which is slightly counterintuitive, but it was, I guess, a response to part of the challenge of having digital artwork, particularly in the visual art space that is usually so
connected to physical galleries."
The audience for digital art outside of the traditional gallery and venue spaces is very limited. For Onym, Niall reached an audience in Ireland as well as abroad such as the US, UK, Belgium, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands. While Niall admits that
the level of audience engagement he had hoped for did not necessarily emerge, the work continues to find a modest audience online on an ongoing basis.
Version controls
During the development process of Onym, Niall hit a challenging point when some tweaks were required for positioning elements on the website resulting in the website ceasing to function entirely. He was only able to recover a four-day old version of the
website.
"While this wasn’t pleasant, the rebuilding processing resulted in a rigorous reassessment and clarification of code that had accumulated piecemeal over a number of weeks, with a much improved result. This has taught me a valuable lesson in the importance
of version control." (Niall de Buitléar, Visual Artists’ News Sheet | July – August 2020, p. 7)
Impact
Credit: Niall de Buitléar
The Arts Council Covid Response award gave Niall the opportunity to build on his skills and revisit an idea for an installation. While the audience for Onym to date might have been limited, the work nevertheless presents “the basis for something physical.
So I think that's important in the visual arts space that the digital is tied in with something more tangible in the real world.”
What’s next?
Niall describes his main practice as an interdisciplinary approach combining drawing, sculpture, printmaking, and painting. Exploring digital tools for his practice came naturally for ONYM as he had a baseline knowledge and skills in web development but
also an interest in coding to explore abstract images for his sculpture, drawing, painting and print work.
Niall’s main object making practice hasn’t changed significantly due to ONYM but it has expanded to include experimentation outside of his established approach.
"I am currently developing two video works using and responding to video clips taken from various social media platforms. The first of these, which is at an advanced stage will explore the relationship between early video art and current social media
video content. The second will be more complicated multiscreen work and I am still in the content collection phase. Both works use online video as their source material and also as their subject matter."
In parallel he also continues to use digital tools, such as a laser cutter, to create his physical work.
"I've been working on paintings, but they're actually made by laser cutting. So there is a digital drawing, that's the basic structure of a painting. It is laser cut onto a small panel, and then I will make multiple copies of one image on a panel and
then it will be painted in slightly different ways. So just the physical and the digital aspects of those works. So I think I was kind of heading that way anyway. I have been, over the years, using those kinds of tools more. Slightly different to
the online work, but still, there is a digital aspect to the physical work I make as well."
Further links