Using found and AI-generated footage, HARDCORE FENCING explores the increasing difficulty of self-understanding in a world dictated by endless streams of digital content. Decomposing the overlap of alienation from celebrity culture and violence, the video highlights the unrelenting pressure to perform online archetypes, and how vulnerability has become a marker of authenticity.

Titled after an earworm from a Taylor Swift song, the found object sculpture END IN BURNING FLAMES OR PARADISE acts as a companion piece to the video work. It contrasts the car as an object of hyper-masculinity with the arrows of Saint Sebastian, suggesting that our perceptions and aspirations demand impossibly high standards and warning of the fragile line between desire and violence.

Supported by Zeitgeist Irland 24, an initiative of Culture Ireland and the Embassy of Ireland in Germany.