More info about the original Ormston House performance.

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"Michael Lightborne presents Water Damage, an audio-visual trip through the Blackwater valley, exploring the deep entanglement of Irish rivers with agriculture and politics, places and people, health and life, myth and memory.

Expanding on his album Slí na Fírinne, released by The Department of Energy in 2022, Water Damage uses field recordings of the North Cork countryside, processed and recomposed using sampling and synthesis, twisting and warping into techno rhythms and walls of drone accordion.

Water Damage incorporates live visual elements including archival images taken from agricultural journals of the twentieth century, combined with the liquid, chemical and organic materials of the Blackwater valley itself. Phosphate, nitrogen, slurry, petrol, ink, leaves, seeds and dirt drift in and out of the stream of images, while the willfully stupid technique of ‘image composting’ is employed to examine how maps of these lands are made and unmade."