This work takes its title from the Franz Kafka short story, ‘A Report to an Academy’.
In the story an ape recounts his deliberate acquisition of a human identity as a means of survival in the aftermath of captivity. The film takes this idea of identity as performance and explores it through multiple locations: an archetypal west of Ireland landscape, a natural history museum and an artist’s studio. Through extensive use of computer-generated imagery, the assumptions around authenticity and representation suggested by these locations are called into question, with each setting revealed as a highly mediated space. Landscape, museum and studio are reimagined here as stage sets, in which identities might be constructed and false realities forged.
![image](https://www.iput.com/wp-content/themes/iput/dist/images/block-img-transparant.png)
![img](https://www.iput.com/wp-content/themes/iput/dist/images/block-img-transparant.png)
Ailbhe Ní Bhriain
Ailbhe Ní Bhriain works with film and installation to conjure scenarios of dreamlike hybridity. Her work has shown widely, with exhibitions at RHA, Dublin; Broad Museum, Michigan; Whitechapel Gallery, London; Paris Photo; and Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid among others. Upcoming presentations of her work will take place at IMMA, Dublin; CCI, Paris; Irish Arts Centre, New York; CCA, Glasgow; and The Kitchen, New York (with Ann Cleare). Originally from Co. Clare, Ní Bhriain is currently based in Cork. Her work is represented by domobaal gallery, London.