Digital Vapour Trails—Ronnie Danaher in profile, by Abi Mitchell

Technology can be overstimulating, data can be oversensitive, and the internet can be overwhelming. The immersive nature of digital technologies can be seen throughout society and by how much our lives revolve around ‘platforms’, ‘devices’, media and our online presence. Ronnie Danaher’s practice explores how her experiences of growing up surrounded by technology and the internet have shaped her worldview and her relationship with religion, and have created space for different identities and communities around her.

I met with Ronnie in her studio in April 2024 to discuss her practice and reflect on the recurring themes in her work. Following our IRL conversation, which took many divergent turns, we continued our interview through digital communications, adding yet more data to our ever-growing digital vapour trails…

Purgatory is a recurring subject in Danaher’s projects and links to her past works which look for absolution and penance, such as in ‘iConfess’ (2022) and ‘Dataism Confessional’ (2021). Danaher expands on how the idea of purgatory has influenced her practice and discusses how the theme became an important part of her work.

‘Purgatory came up when reading Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto by Legacy Russell (Verso) while on residency in Milan with BJCEM and UK New Artists at Fabbrica del Vapore. Russell talks about the artist called American Artist, and about how googling “American artist” puts their website as the top result, with no mention of their legal name, placing them in “a sort of spatial limbo, a viral everywhere and nowhere”. Reading this felt like a “Wham Line”, which both radically altered the direction of my research but also cemented what I’d always been thinking about. As I come from a Catholic background, I’m always alert to religious references which cross over with the internet, and the significance of liminality and the in-between in my work made limbo my new obsession.’

To read the full article on Corridor8, click here. 

This article was commissioned in Spring 2024 as part of a partnership with Corridor8, a not-for-profit platform for contemporary visual arts and writing in the North of England.