Gary Farrelly is an Irish visual and performance artist based in Brussels. Together with his German collaborator Chris Dreier, he works under the banner of Office for Joint Administrative Intelligence. O.J.A.I. is a self-styled paraintelligence agency, conducting artistic research in the fields of institutional power, bureaucracy, erotic architecture, ritualistic magic and pedestrian tunnels. The following … Read more
Hope in Despair I have always loved museums, no doubt having a kind of prophetic disposition I realised the somewhat terrible and prodigious potency that was entombed in their almost sterile yet paradoxically life-affirming grace. Loss, chronic loss, is the ultimate domain of all humans. It seems to me that the problems here below on … Read more
SONNET XIV for Diane Windsor When I was still the husband of the wind — when I was Leopardi-sure I’d never know a woman’s body’s ways — when I was nineteen – when I was Prufrock-positive of mermaids never singing to me, either, of a life without betrothal or progeny – – when I … Read more
My musical journey started with a lot of Church organ and Bohemian brass music in a tiny village in Bavaria – and when I say village I really mean it. At the age of five I developed a desperate desire to learn the guitar, because my mum had one (for her kindergarten group and she … Read more
On Opening A Door When I left the cafe I planted my leading foot beside the door The front of my shoe just nudging the skirting And I reached for the handle with my opposite hand. I only mention this because (and eschewing false modesty) my positioning was perfect. It was perfect. My carriage optimally … Read more
Gratitude “Hate it here? But why?” I’m sick of your confounded cry. London is Open— But when is a kind word spoken At 8 AM when elbows stab your side, A slouching drunk swallows your Pride, And grinning altruists shiver and wait For you to blink and take their bait? And so we move in … Read more
Commuting with Baudelaire We are living in a time when there are no gentlemen. So, women stand for hours without being offered any seats. It’ s a privilege which they have laboured for and for centuries, It appears! Madness, I know, but you must respect them. As you watch their small fists tightening on the … Read more
On 55th West between 8th and 9th Street I just miss getting mugged. I hear them coming up behind me, two street kids and I speed up. They hit the next guy, take his phone and break his arm. I back off, slipping between parked cars as they run away. He’s just sat there on … Read more
Poets may be divided into three types: those of us who must be and are, or have been, suppressed, at least until after we are dead; those whose subject matter is so commonplace/banal that it doesn’t matter either way; and then those who become pure decorations of the Regime. One key qualification for a poet … Read more
Wingform is an hour-long piece of music I composed for Crash Ensemble between 2017 and 2020. Scored for twelve musicians, it has four ensemble movements connected by my own solo electric guitar passages, which act as a kind of connective tissue for the whole body of the work. Wingform – Barry O’Halpin & Crash Ensemble Bandcamp … Read more