Róisín’s research during her masters was focussed on building a story about ecological, technological and spiritual concerns through organic materials, plant stuff, in turn foodstuff and in turn, a technology that assists as an archetypal function in the realms of everyday science and positions these materials in a place of spiritual function. The story considered a metaphysical realm as part of the world of scientific research. A mythology, if you like, of the artists role in this place. She conducted many of her own experiments employing the help of seaweed such as agar, an abundant seaweed that is used in microbiology labs and petri dishes to grow microbiological cultures in science labs worldwide. She sourced the seaweed, in its raw dried form from Asian supermarkets in Dublin and created her own agar, or jelly sculptures. The initial idea was to create a ‘jelly lens’, a lens that could help us consider how art and science meet. Through this story she found connections, be they non linear ones, to Guinness and to the European Eel, which is endangered due to a disease in its swim bladder or its ‘sound’, its organ of communication and depth carrier through the depths of the water. Through these threads of story, experiments with electronics and sound through mediums of Guinness and jelly were carried out. From this research she did a residency in the Irish Seaweed Centre and the Institute of Marine Biology in Galway, GMIT. She worked with scientists there recording interviews and film with professors and with students that were specialising in researching the European Eel, the research of seaweed and the focus of sound devices used in underwater settings such as sonar. Multiple sound and jelly sculptures, photographic and video installations were created during the time of this masters. What resulted was a sci-fi themed exhibition that imagined sound produced through a metaphysical lab of many organic materials.
