Public Talk Michael Cerulli Billingsley

Gone In One Blow: A 3500 year-old tsunami teaches us about the Atlantic today

During the Middle Bronze Age, according to sparse first-person-accounts, myth and recent reconstructions, a mega-tsunamiroared across Ireland from west to east… erasing overnight one of Irelands most vital cultures. This Flood, and subsequent Iceland volcanic eruptions with devastating changes to climate, ensured that Irelands The Golden Age would be forgotten. A distorted image of the Tuath Danann would hold imaginations for centuries to come.

Writing a screenplay after almost ten years of new research in Ireland, Canadian media artist and writer Michael Cerulli Billingsley ties those ancient events to a fragile equilibrium that we have come to expect will hold (at least since the great Lisbon earthquake of 1755). Yet poised to happen again, a mega-tsunami would devastate Gloucester and other coastal communities. Using his insights from the times when such events were known to be part of life (and people were not so sure tomorrow would be identical to today), Billingsley will give an illustrated talk about options facing Gloucester, and steps already underway to enhance our survival.

Michael Cerulli Billingsley has a 30-year career of photography and video exhibition following work with Minor White in the 70s. He has written about the arts in a number of periodicals as well as published independent tabloids, zines, artist magazines and blogs. His writing ranges from technical articles and investigative reporting, to song lyrics and poetry.

He is writing his second feature film. His first, Prison Life, saw limited screenings before prints were lost in a fire, and had received Honorable Mention in N.E. Foundation for the Arts and BFVFs New England Film Festival. Billingsley keeps a composition/sound mastering studio in Vermont, where he has lived most of his life