Abstract

This article analyzes Shannon Scheme, a hydroelectric complex built in Ireland in the 1920s, through two key moments: its initial construction and its contemporary reinterpretation within the framework of the Eco Showboat artistic project. Conceived as a strategic infrastructure, the Ardnacrusha dam and its associated works, which form the Shannon Complex, profoundly altered the Irish landscape, becoming a symbol of modernization and sovereignty for the young state. Far from a merely technical intervention, the project influenced society, culture, and collective imagination, contributing to the construction of a national identity. The article parallels this foundational period with a contemporary initiative: the passage of the Eco Showboat artists through the Ardnacrusha locks. This innovative program, combining art, science, and ecology, questions the current relationships between environment, technology, memory, and landscape. Through workshops and interactions with residents, it highlighted the importance of local knowledge in interpreting the territory, while revealing tensions between industrial heritage and ecological sustainability. By comparing the Eco Showboat intervention—based on qualitative, in situ data collected in 2024—with written accounts of Ardnacrusha’s construction, the study draws on the perspectives of Heidegger and Lefebvre, as well as scholarship on ecological art, framing technology as both a way of revealing and a socially embedded practice. This dialogue between past and present reveals the evolving relationships with technology, territory, and the environment, suggesting that large-scale infrastructures can become points of articulation between identity and the shaping of the future.