Sinead O'Brien - Most Modern Painting

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A dance to understand the self in a world that believes it to be one dimensional.

Limerick born poet, musician and womenswear designer for Vivienne Westwood, Sinead O'Brien wrote the song Most Modern Painting "about the creation and maintenance of ‘the self’ " - something that is to them "the most epic task we are faced with in our lives... The lyrics are voiced through a dialogue between the conscious and unconscious, through dream recall, memory, the individual and the ego.”

Essex born filmmaker and former ballet dancer, Saskia Dixie teamed up with O'Brien for their second film together. The film accompanies the song's ethos by dissolving 'self' as society's often one dimensional 'ego' - replacing it instead with a visualisation of self as a relativeness to others.

Dixie 'Very early on we talked about form and both wanted to explore the music video formula. I wanted to bring everyone together into one world with a dissolved hierarchy, where the focus could shift equally between every performer involved as opposed to traditional music videos which use dancers to decorate their primary artist. I was interested in what feelings and images could arise from this restructuring and was confident that not only Sinead's striking presence on screen, but her thought provoking prose would boldly come through, no matter how experimental things became, so that allowed us to work in this way. She then - much like our previous collaboration - let me run absolutely wild and I spent sporadic weekends, over a period of 6 months, workshopping material with the dancers. With this time I could really get my teeth into her writing and start to put together a response which involved themes of: 'The creation, maintenance, upkeep and renewal of 'the self' and 'Personal (aesthetic) VS Social maintenance'

Read more about Sinead here

CREDITS