2013 + 2018
“Daniel Connell’s video installation Lightless projects a metaphoric subtext. Looped footage of flickering lights appears on the CRT televisions scattered around the gallery’s mezzanine level. Filmed in underground car parks, tunnels, back alleys and lifeless interiors, these videos document the slow death of fading light bulbs. But the bulbs never really die. The videos loop, the lights continue to flicker. This is a pulse not a death knell.
These blinking lights follow their own rhythmic patterns and frequencies. As we walk amongst the jumbled arrangement of screens we move through a symphony of flashing light. We can almost hear the dissonant rhythms of these pulsating bulbs. It is noise written in light, a prolonged swansong caught on repeat. These looped intervals – hesitating on the edge between on and off, much like the setting sun — are the constituent parts of a temporal collage. Like Penelope Umbrico’s photographic mosaic, Connell’s installation constructs an image of time (the protracted moment, the interval) in spite of its immateriality.”
Framing The Big Picture, The Art Life, 2013