"Outhere" Denis Buckley
Outdoor Public Screening
Saturday 12th September
Artist: Denis Buckley (www.denisbuckley.com)
Outhere is a 30-minute single-channel film, presented as an outdoor night-time screening with a live performance by the artist. In this work, Denis Buckley, performing as his alter ego Mariner, embarks on a quixotic quest to uncover a hidden mathematical equation within the contours of the Great Skellig, a discovery he believes will somehow define Ireland. But, much like the doomed visionaries of Werner Herzog’s Heart of Glass—a key influence on the work—Mariner’s search leads him out to sea, where he becomes lost. His final finding is not a triumphant revelation, but rather a stark reflection on agency, failure, and the overwhelming forces of climate crisis.
Inspired by Herzog, Coleridge, Melville, Orson Welles, and the poetic resistance of 18th-century Kerry writers, Outhere is a layered cinematic and performative experience. The film was developed over a year, with its Hiberno-English text spoken and rehearsed repeatedly to fully inhabit the body. Visually, the work overlays studio-painted glass backdrops with location footage shot from a moving boat, creating a sense of mythic displacement and dissolution. Written during a 40-degree heatwave in the French countryside, the piece resonates with themes of environmental collapse, obsession, and the shifting meaning of nationhood in an era of uncertainty.
For this special event, Buckley will deliver a live voice-over performance alongside the screening, a practice he has staged in outdoor locations across Ireland, Britain, Sweden, and Australia. The event will take place at a site near the gallery or a suitably atmospheric location, with contingency planning for weather conditions.
Buckley, an internationally exhibited artist, has worked across film, performance, and text-based installation, with a practice rooted in Irish cultural identity, experimental narrative, and site-specific storytelling. His work has been supported by the Kerry County Council Art Bursary (2023) and has been presented at major film and performance festivals internationally.