Susan MacWilliam - Works
For details of individual works click on images
     
  Some Ghosts
  2009, Colour, Stereo
  Some Ghosts is a video portrait of the Atlanta based Danish American poltergeist investigator Dr William G Roll.
     
  Put Your Arms Around Me Honey
  2009, Artist Pages - CIRCA
  1. Amorous Caresses     2. Charlantry of Mediums    3. Some Serious Inquirers
 
     
  F-L-A-M-M-A-R-I-O-N   Commissioned for MacWilliam's solo exhibition at the 2009 Venice Biennale
  2009, Blu-ray, Colour, Stereo
  In 1931 a ‘teleplasm’ spelling out the name Flammarion appeared on the wall of a cabinet at a séance in Winnipeg. Poltergeist investigator Bill Roll, poet and writer Ciaran Carson and medium's grandaughter Arla Marshall come together in F-L-A-M-M-A-R-I-O-N and respond to the image of the teleplasm.
     
  The Only Way To Travel 
  2008, DVD, Colour, Stereo
  The Irish trance medium Eileen Garrett first travelled to New York in 1931 on invitation of the American Society of Psychical Research. The Only Way To Travel reveals a world of 1930s high living, the cocktail hour, the rise of the New York skyscraper, and an era of glamorous travel, optimism and new horizons.
     
  Library 
  2008, DVD, Colour, Stereo
  Shot in the Parapsychology Foundation, New York the imagery in Library moves between long and close shots and light and dark conditions, with the air conditioner providing the soundtrack.
     
  Eileen   
  2008, DVD, Colour, Stereo
  Eileen is a synchronised 3 screen work. Hailed as the world's greatest medium, Eileen Garrett (1893-1970) founded The Parapsychology Foundation in 1951. In Eileen Garrett is conjured up through image and anecdote.
     
  Psychic Edit
  2008, DVD, Colour, Stereo
  Psychic Edit presents a strobing edit of archival home movie footage of Eileen J. Garrett from the Garrett-Coly personal archives.
   
   
  13 Roland Gardens
  2007, DVD, Colour, Stereo, 22mins, 30secs.
  Eileen Coly daughter of the famous Irish medium Eileen J Garrett describes Garrett's 'R101 Airship Seance' of 1930 and 13 Roland Gardens, site of Harry Price's Laboratory of Psychical Research.
     
  Dermo Optics
  2006, Installation with projection
  Dermo Optics presents the experimental research of Madame Duplessis.
   
     
  Dermo Optical Cake
  2006, DVD, Colour, Stereo, 2mins 24secs.
  A cake commissioned from Zvezda, a cake shop in Celje, Slovenia is cut dermo optically.
   
     
  Explaining Magic to Mercer
  2005, Installation with DVD and framed images
 
The artist discusses with her 5 year old nephew Mercer the bizarre and extraordinary phenomena attributed to the historical figures that have been the subject of her work.
   
  Feelers
  2005, Artist Pages - Printed Project
  Printed Project is the journal published by Visual Artists Ireland.
   
 
  Headbox
  2004, Installation of Objects and 3 Video Works
  Based on the case of Rosa Kuleshova, a young woman whose remarkable ability to read with her fingertips made her the subject of intense scientific observation in Russia in the 1960s.
 
  Kuda Bux
  2003, Installation with Video Work DVD, B+W, Colour, Stereo, 10mins 40secs.
  The New York mystic Kuda Bux was made famous during the 1930s and 40s by his dramatic demonstrations of eyeless sight.
 
  After Image
  2002, B+W and Colour, Stereo, 4 mins 30 secs.
  Delving into the bizarre and the extraordinary.
  Exploring the myth that the last image seen before death is retained on the retina of the eye.
 
  On The Eye
  2002, Installation of 3 Projected Video Works.
  Projected images of a lightning storm, ceiling fans and mountain mist flicker, strobe and stutter.
   
 
  Stereoscopes
  1999-2001 Illuminated Slides.
  The stereoscopes present 3D images observed through special viewing glasses.
   
 
  The Persistence of Vision
  2000, B+W, Colour and Sound, 7mins 40secs.
  Based on the extraordinary case of Brooklyn based Mollie Fancher who exhibited multiple personalities and clairvoyance.
   
     
  45 rpm
  2000, B+W, Silent, 4mins 34secs.
  The work presents images of a spinning zoetrope.
  Inside the zoetrope are images of the artist repeatedly raising her hand to her forehead.
 
  Experiment M
  1999, Installation with 2 Videos, Both B+W, Silent, 5mins 43secs.
  Based on the case of the Belfast born levitation medium Kathleen Goligher and her researcher Dr.William Jackson Crawford.
     
  Faint
  1999, Colour with Sound, 3mins 40secs.
  Presents images of a fainting girl set against the sound of bird song.
  The work relates to mesmerism and trance, spiritualism and mediumship.
 
  The Last Person
  1998, B+W Silent, 10mins 30secs.
  Based on the case of Helen Duncan (1898-1956). Duncan, a medium from Portsmouth was the last person to be tried under the British Witchcraft Act of 1735.