Rage

The short video film ‘Rage Against the Dimming of the Light’ was screened (as a looped back projection) from windows in three locations in Killough, Co. Down at dawn and dusk over seven days, from 9-15 February 2025.

The title is taken from the headline of an article in the Guardian newspaper in 2020 ‘Irish rebel over lighthouse LED makeover’, based on the poem by Dylan Thomas.

An improvised, lo-tech video work recorded on location at St John’s Point Lighthouse and in Killough, Co. Down in January 2025, the film celebrates the extraordinary quality of the light generated by the 1908 Fresnel lens within the lighthouse lantern and the nocturnal landscape it illuminates.

The film and its screening were commissioned by Lecale Lightkeepers to support the campaign to stop the Commissioners of Irish Lights from carrying out changes which will radically diminish the light and is a call to the community to engage with civil society, the Council and the planning process.

‘Rage Against the Dimming of the Light’ is an experimental slow film made up of a montage of long takes and intermittent text, with the focus on the visual and audio experience of the moment, stillness, observation and extended duration. It is intended to be shown in a loop, beginning and ending at any point.

Questioning the convention of the static cinema audience, the film is purposefully framed to be seen whilst on the move, in the manner of a casual passerby looking at a billboard.

The soundtrack was added later using a recording of bird song heard during its first showing. The metronome alludes to the character of the occulting beam, 45 seconds illuminated, 15 seconds dark, occulting meaning the duration of the light is longer than the duration of the dark.

Extract from Rage Against the Dimming of the Light, 2025, 4 mins 50 secs, digital video and audio