Micheál O'Connell MOCKSIM

Not posting or active here for, maybe a year, as of 1st Sept. 2025. The website mocksim.org will be updated with any new work. May send out occasional stimulating 'newsletter' if you care to join mailing list there. The best way to contact me is by electric mail (email).

Yesterday evening the setup of #SystemInterference at @wexfordartscentre began. Will be chatting about it with Alan Corcoran this morning on @southeastradio at 11am. 'Car Parked' installed. (Photo Elizabeth Whyte Director Wexford Arts Centre). #artist #SupportingArt #ArtsCouncilSupported #ArtsIreland #artscouncilireland @artscouncilireland @uillinnwestcorkarts @highlanesgallery @visualartistsireland

"@polygon_palm  ⚖️ROLODEX PROPAGANDA 📝 Rolodex Propaganda is an exhibition exploring propaganda, corruption, deep fakes, and duplication. This week we feature the work of Micheál O’Connell @mocksim Micheál O’Connell/Mocksim is a systems interference artist. Mocksim finds the absurd in everyday dysfunctional technologies and systems. His interventions are often performative, emphasising the farcical elements to technological behaviour. Mocksim has exhibited at Matt’s Gallery, Whitechapel, London and Crawford/CiT Wandesford Quay in Cork. Mocksim recently received an Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon Commissions Award facilitated the production of new work for a solo exhibition, System Interference, in West Cork in 2022, which then travelled to Wexford Arts Centre, and opened at Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda on November 25th, and runs until February 2024. From that body of work Mocksim is showing Golf Camping(2022) and Turbo Golf (2022) for Rolodex Propaganda. View the work via the link in the (@polygon_palm ) bio." #camponagolfcourse #turbogolf #artificialstupidity "The show is an online/offline ‘embassy’ of The Wrong Biennale existing as a mobile-only exhibition on Polygon Palm.  The online PP show displays an interactive virtual rolodex of artist images, scrollable by viewers, that link to their artist/work pages. The exhibition will have a physical manifestation at KARST @karstgallery , Plymouth, UK in April 2024. The physical show includes a giant rolodex visible and scannable by viewers who can access the AR and online artifacts. Curated by Tom Milnes. Artists: Alan Warburton - @alwarburton Clareese Hill - @clareesehill Clement Valla - @clmntvalla Helene Kazan - helene_kazan Katie Zazenski - @kathryn.zazenski Marc Blazel - @blazeldude Max Colson - @maxcolson Micheál O’Connell (Mocksim) - @mocksim Raphael Fabre - @erbafleahpar Shane Sutherland - @shane_sutherland Theo Ellison - @theo_ellison Tom Milnes - @tommilnes Dates: Online -  November 1st. 2023 to March 1st. 2024. Offline at Karst @karstgallery  – April 2024"

Doing 20 minute Stand-upset 23rd December 2023 Clip captured by @ingridplum

'Dawn Chorus' After #MarcusCoates @marcus_coates_

Title: 'Screw Work' Dimentions: 80cm x 80cm Medium: 4 Screews (techniclally ring shank masonry nails), wall, pencil line Durashun: 1 weak Price: Negotiable Locashun: Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre Statemint: Put up quick while another werk gets its fancy restorashun done, Screw Work is just four shagin screews on a wall (well ring shank nails, whatever they are), bangin out a 45 degree line like they meen buisness. They don’t hold nothin. Or maybe they do. No labour. End work as wee know it people. There’s a kind of suspended arousal to it. Each one bare, tensed, nipple-like, just sittin there waiting to be coverd or touched or flagged up by the censorious algorythm. Too rude for the algorithem it is. Too still for the feed. This is the wall sayin, 'here, use yer imagination for once'. The piece flips between tease and protest den. Screews meant to support somethin but left hangin. Like a promise never quite fullfilled. Some call it lazy. Some call it conceptual. The artist calls it gettin two feckin works into the Open by usin the same exact space, thanks very much. Economical. Radical. Possibly immoral. It’s art that says, screw yer productivity. Screw yer polish. Screw yer perfectly hung masterpieces. No object, no finish, no conclusion: just the supports, lined up like they’re on the verge of something, and denied their moment. Sometymes the most honest gesture is to screw the screws, show nothing, and call it a job well done. #skibbereen @uillinnwestcorkarts #cork @freethenipple #freethenipple #ceramics Assistance: @stephen.canty.37 (install) @sylwia_soundscape (pics)

As part of the currant Members and Freinds Exibishun at Uilinn: West Cork Arts Centeer, witch feauters over 130 wounderful art works by artisits local and otherwise, one particulary erjjjkp and visable peice has appered on the out side wall of the bilding. Created by the ever-humbl but queitly confidant artis Mocksim, Irish Broken English China is four plates, cracked or glazzed or maybe photo-shopped, possably with desert on them still, maybe not safe for dishwasher. The artis, once Head of Crockery at Anna Dumitriu's The Institute of Unnesesary Research (we think), and kniwn once for his breaking-and-fixing practices, has stated that the work is not for ego pourpuses but as a public dooty, and he believes veiwors will be, quote, 'more then deligthed'. Whether this is about identitty, domestic sadniss, or just old crockery glued back up again, the plates are stuck their firmly and dont move (we checked). Anyone intrested can go see them anytime, outside, and also pop inside where the main exhibbition is still ongoing, with propper lables and heating, untill 3rd of Juley. No shoes required but advisoble; interpritation welcome but not essental.

Not only is @virginiaphongsathorn 's painting 'Soft' (2008) back on its perch after careful restoration by the artist following an accident - @rubymay_rogers & @_bocr_pics will be glad to see it in place - but she gifted me this new marvel (still in its box) connected with 'Artificial Power' (2022). #SystemInterference @lauramousavi

As part of annual events run by The Irish Heritage Club of Seattle, I am doing two talks at The Armory, The Seattle Center, with a curated 'digital art display' to coincide: pieces by Bassam Issa Al-Sabah @this.isnowhere , Katie Nolan @katienolanart , Daniel Murray https://loom.cafe, and Elinor O'Donovan @elinorodonovan . Digital Art Display: Sat 15th March 12:00 - 6:00PM. Loft Room 1 Sun 16th March 10:00AM - 6:00PM. Loft Room 1 TO HELL WITH TRAD... Sat 15th & Sun 16th March 4:00 PM. Loft Room 1 ARTIFICIAL STUPIDITY and a bit of history Sun 16th March 1:00 PM. Loft Room 2 Further details: Title, Talk 1: To Hell with Trad! Irish Digital and Tech Art Now 'Technology artist and researcher Micheál O’Connell, also known as Mocksim, provides a critical survey of Ireland’s contemporary digital art scene, situating it within the broader context of the nation’s rapid technological and economic transformation. Ireland’s emergence as a base for tech giants like Apple and Google has reshaped its landscape and identity to an extent, with terms like “server farm,” “wind farm” and “solar farm” reflecting a curious continuity with its agrarian past. As elsewhere, Irish and Ireland-based digital artists work across diverse practices – glitch art, generative design, speculative AI and VR – producing imaginative and sometimes provocative responses to these new realities. This talk considers whether and how such practices engage with deeper cultural, political and ethical implications. Some work, as philosopher of aesthetics John Roberts suggests, risks being too easily absorbed into the very technosystems that artists might claim to critique. Roberts’ concept of “unfitting” will be given some attention. The talk/lecture highlights the diversity of Irish digital art (a contested term in itself) and will be accompanied by the exhibition featuring selected works...' Title, Talk 2: Artificial Stupidity and the Overlooked History of Ireland’s ‘Tech Bros’, Sisters, and Disruptors. Thanks to @snoozersband and others for tips. @digitalhumanitiesucc @sussexunimah @uillinnwestcorkarts @artscouncilireland @ihcirish

Duchampoo – Because Even Your Aesthetic Judgments Need a Rinse.

Turing Tasting, an essay by @mocksim for ABC 99g ⚖️💾 This exchange serves as an exploration of human-machine dynamics, grappling with the very medium of our interaction while critically examining foundational texts and ideas. Beginning with a challenge to the distinction between human and machine, the dialogue unpacks the limitations of both parties, questioning the boundaries of mediated communication and the ways in which intimacy and sincerity are constructed across technological interfaces. By invoking figures like John Peel and his conversational radio style, the conversation situates these questions within a historical and cultural context, highlighting the performative nature of dialogue, even when abstracted through layers of mediation. 99g is a mail art project by ABC, showcased at The UK’s National Museum of Computing, located in the historic Bletchley Park—famed for its role in Allied code-breaking during WWII — during ‘Pushing the Envelope: An exhibition of mailed and communication art’ curated by @lucyhelton 📩 Embracing the constraints of the postal system, 99g is inspired by the creative ways artists and traders have historically navigated customs regulations. In particular, while sending books has become increasingly complex, a letter containing correspondence and weighing under 100g remains tax and customs-free. ABC and @lucyhelton have curated a selection of international artists to produce a book weighing no more than 99 grams. The books will be posted by each artist in a first-class envelope, adhering to their country’s postal restrictions, to Bletchley Park throughout the duration of the exhibition. 👅🛜