03 Dec 2013

Michael Hanna | Behaviour Setting at Millennium Court Arts Centre

Michael Hanna | Behaviour Setting

'A psychologist at a girl's college asked the members of his class to compliment any girl wearing red. Within a week the cafeteria was a blaze of red. None of the girls were aware of being influenced, although they did notice that the atmosphere was more friendly…' – W. Lambert Gardiner, Psychology: A Story of a Search

Emerging, Northern Irish artist Michael Hanna has been commissioned by Millennium Court Arts Centre and awarded ACES funding from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland to produce a new body of work and exhibition, Behaviour Setting.

Behaviour Setting has developed from a year's residency at MCAC. Using installation with film Hanna's work ventures into the fields of manipulation, perception, space and patterns of behaviour; his research crossing disciplines, from environmental and behavioural psychology to planning discourse, in order to create a visual language of control. Hanna is interested in behaviour and its links to external environmental factors.

In his work the artist appropriates evocative materials like acoustic foam and perforated steel with tactile art materials; wet clay, rubber and plastics. These are integrated with video projection and animation. During his residency Hanna has conducted research, including a series of curated auditory and sensory events for the public in a number of private spaces throughout the large Millennium Court complex. Building on site-specific knowledge the artist has planned an intervention on the scale of the galleries and foyer to subtly transform the immediate environment of the Arts Centre itself.

Hanna's work has been described as showing a healthy disregard for institutional boundaries between disciplines. Emerging from a sculptural background at Edinburgh College of Art and MFA at University of Ulster his practice draws on diverse research from linguistics to psychology. Likewise Behaviour Setting is an installation to be experienced, where the bounds are ambiguous. This large scale solo exhibition represents a new stage in the career of this emerging artist who has previously exhibited solo at Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast and will be presenting a new work as part of Derry-Londonderry City of Culture in December 2013.

A publication will accompany the exhibition.


Michael Hanna: (b.1979, Craigavon, Northern Ireland) completed his MFA at the University of Ulster, 2012 and recently undertook residencies at the Golden Thread Gallery (GTG) and Digital Art Studios (DAS) in Belfast. He graduated with BA (Hons) in Sculpture at Edinburgh College of Art,2009. Hanna has been involved in exhibitions in the UK and internationally including Futures at Elephant Gallery, Los Angeles and Instances of Agreement at the Kao Yuan Arts Centre, Taiwan. He has exhibited in group shows including Oscillator, Science Gallery, Dublin, 2013 and as a solo artist, Calculated Error, GTG, Belfast 2012. www.michaelhanna.org