Interview with Hailey O’Gorman about Clockwork Comfort

‘Clockwork Comfort is a cross-disciplinary exhibition between third year creative writing student Hailey O'Gorman, second year authorial illustration student Jesse Kay, first year authorial illustration student Maria Meekings, and fine art alumni Liv Gravil. It is about the known, the unknown and the monstrous and transitions between these states.’

— Press release by Maria Meekings

What is ‘Clockwork Comfort’?

Clockwork Comfort is about that look you get when you look at yourself in the mirror too long. Like, you're looking, and you're looking, and maybe, to begin with, you were familiar with the idea of what you are looking at, but now, as you're looking at yourself, you're like ‘Hey, what am I looking at? What am I? What am I made of? Is this flesh?’ You sort of become unknown to yourself the more you study the physicality of yourself, in my experience. Clockwork Comfort is the exploration of this unknowingness, I guess.

What can we expect to see?

A blend of art and visual poetry, and ideally, some intersections of the two. The artist's have taken the brief and ran with it. We have alterations of a life drawing, eels, and real wings. Real.

How did the project come to be?

Panic, 3 Monster energies, and McKenzie Wark's philosophy for spiders

How did the people come together? Did you look for them or did they come to you?

I'm a lucky duck — I was explaining the vague concept of Clockwork Comfort to my partner, who's made exhibitions before, and ae were like, ‘Okay, here's everything you need to do.’ So ae were roped in. And soon, as were some previous collaborators of aer's. Ae really sorted out a lot of it for me. I am very grateful. I met with the artists and narrowed down the concept of the project with them. Maria, Jesse and Liv have all been incredibly helpful since the inception, and have helped at every stage since.

What do you want people to take from it?

I'm not sure. Maybe I don't want people to take anything from it, rather just be in the space. This is the mirror. Do you see yourself there, or is this just art, on easels, that does nothing for you? To be in the space is to see yourself (hopefully) in a way that you haven't seen yourself before.

Come visit: The Lighthouse, Monday 29th November, 17:30-20:30

Edited by Elise Peyrat