Video director, photographer, designer, drummer and letterpress printer Ror Conaty opens up on his creative processes to Adhamh O’Caoimh.
As the man behind the kit of Dublin synth metal titans No Spill Blood, and also the psychedelic heft parade that is Burning Realm, Ror Conaty has long been thought the best drummer Ireland has yet produced.
My own fandom extends back to my teens. Conaty, along with Burning Realm vocalist Michael ‘Owensie’ Owens, was a member of progressive punk trio Puget Sound. Three insanely talented kids who seemed intent on charting their own course, Ireland’s answer to Fugazi. The type to book D.I.Y. tours in South America in the days when prepaid phonecards and dodgy shops littered around Temple Bar were the only ways to talk to someone in another country.
This pioneering spirit also manifests in his visual work as a director and photographer. Whether it be part of the Chromatic series of concert films, excellent music videos for Dublin wunderkind Denise Chaila, post punk visionaries Extravision or the sorely missed Wyvern Lingo, Conaty’s vision and artistry have proven as capable as those dexterous limbs in delivering things that demand to be witnessed.
His incredible ‘Looking Glass’ project took place across Cork in 2022, a gargantuan citywide exhibition that saw his work redefine traditional advertising spaces. In place of whatever people are putting on billboards these days, unspeakably beautiful infrared site specific photographs recast the locations they were found in vibrant pinks and reds. Some truly stunning imagery.
And when not making his mark in sound or sight, Conaty is also the mind behind The Monolith letterpress, purveyors of world class original prints, and his designs also transform each one of boutique Dublin company Moose Electronics effects work of art, as well as covetable sonic crayons.
Hot off the release of the excellent Burning Realm debut, ‘Face The Fire’, for whom he also handles design duties, the man himself was kind enough to lend me his time to talk about the man behind his work.
I was very taken with your adventures in letterpress. Has your work with Monolith come to a close or just a temporary stall?
I’ve been so busy with other things, I have a project I’ve been developing to rekindle it, but it’s a matter of finding the time. I’m working on a photobook, and obviously there’s a lot of Burning Realm stuff happening, and a lot of design work for records along with No Spill Blood.
I haven’t had the time to be out printing, but it’s my happy place, out there working away. My design is to push that more into fine art, focusing on books that have physical letterpress prints in them and stuff, things I won’t say too much about now. The aim is to bring it in line with my musical and visual aesthetic, as it develops. These things are always developing.
Speaking of developing, I also loved the ‘Looking Glass’ project you executed.
The whole concept was to give people a window into what’s outside our human perspective. To emphasize the magic of the world by bringing in things from outside of our visual spectrum through infrared.
The infrared light that’s reflected from the plants is actually the light that they’re rejecting to limit the spectrum of light that they feed upon. That’s why they’re green. Green attracts a certain spectrum of light. I went a little bit infrared crazy for a while.
From a purely aesthetic point of view, it creates a stunning visual, but conceptually, it’s got legs, as they say.
Thanks! I was attempting to use an altered perspective to accent and draw people into the waking world.
Each piece was site specific so as people compared the infrared image with their real life vision of a location it would create a moment when they were anchored in that location, hopefully appreciating that time and space. It wasn’t so much about photography, the images were just a tool to induce presence.
The negative self critic in me wanted it to be grander, I luckily had received a small Arts Council budget to do it and then just worked my ass off. There were fifty three billboards around Cork. So it meant driving down after work, getting there at midnight, sleeping for five hours, getting the early light and shooting as much as I could over the couple of days, back up to Dublin, back down to Cork the next week.
We’ll disagree on its efficacy. The results were amazing, though it seems to have been a real labour of love.
You know those moments where you think, wow, I might actually have the opportunity to do this, I’m just going to go hell bent at it, and see if I can pull it off. Even if you missed the mark, you’ve proven to yourself you can do something. I think that’s important, especially if you’re a person who has a lot of ideas. Ideas can become a weight around your neck if you don’t bring them to fruition.
After doing that project I made an agreement with myself that I was going to get out of my own way. That it was more important to do things than be completely obsessive over how well they are done. Naturally, if you’ve been doing something for a long time, you’ll get better at it, you’ll have a decent standard anyway. So just put it out into the world and move onto the next thing. As opposed to being like a sniper and focusing on the one shot, give me a Gatling gun.
That’s applicable to so many creative endeavors. Good advice to give anyone about anything. “Get out of your own way.”
I have this theory: when you’re working on something, you’re putting your energy into it and there has to be a point that you put it out into the world, to get feedback and recoup energy to put back in the tank, and back into the work. So, a way of looking at it would be that at the moment in my life, it’s better to do EP’s or singles, than it is to do an album. To keep getting that feedback. To keep being enthused, a circular energetic economy of creativity. It’s meant to be about enjoying this thing, creating beauty and impacting the world in a positive way. When you start getting overly analytical about a project, you’re not enjoying it anymore.
What can you tell me about the photobook you’re working on?
I was on tour last year with No Spill Blood. I love touring, but I get intense social anxiety which can make it difficult. I’m used to my own company, so I find the lack of solitude challenging. I consciously brought my camera with me for the tour, as a kind of retreat, and something to work on while I was away, something between a creative toy and a solace for myself.
I set a goal to just shoot long exposures for the duration of the tour, only allowing myself to take a ‘conventional’ photo, where time wasn’t blurred by the open shutter when we were in total stability, a hotel rooms after a show, or backstage when everything was calm, using shutter drag to show the frenetic madness of touring. You go away for three weeks and it feels like one long day. It’s very peculiar.
Is that a theme? Imposing your own limitations?
Limitations can be liberating for sure, this could be related to another stupid theory I have; if you want to draw something, start in the worst copybook that you have, one that you don’t care about. If you have a really nice artist’s pad there’s a sense of pressure, that only ‘cool’ things are meant to go into it. For example there’s something liberating about playing a cheap guitar, it mutes the internal critic because I don’t approach the instrument with the same intent. To make good things, you need that freedom to fuck up and be shit.
When it comes to expressing yourself musically, and visually, is there anyone that’s inspired both?
People like Aaron Turner [of Sumac, Mammifer, renowned musician, artist and label owner] and Jacob Bannon [of Converge, Wear Your Wounds, renowned musician, artist and label owner]. I got into art through record covers, really. I went and studied design essentially to learn to visualize music.
When I was in NCAD, I fell in love with the camera, and got into music videos. I just was interested in every way of being involved with music. The union of sound and vision is incredibly deep. There is something so potent when a music video does that thing. When the video is elevating the music and the music is elevating the video.
What perspectives have you gained from such a diverse body of collaborators and projects these last years?
Everything you do draws new opportunities, and new interests, and introduces you to new people. Get out of your own way.
And aside from new, excellent music, what projects have you now lined up?
I’m currently working on releasing that first photobook we discussed, new designs for Moose Electronics, a few collaborative art video pieces and a print edition, all of which I’m incredibly excited to get out into the world. Energy out, energy in, I’m just trying to keep up my end of the deal and get out of my own way.
Words: Adhamh Ó Caoimh
Burning Realm’s debut album, ‘Face The Fire’ is out now.
