up from the black

'up from the black' video link

The video is based on movements and idea of Zeibekiko dance, traditional Greek protest dance improvised by one male, who is expressing their own or social struggles and reaching for hope. It was banned by authorities for couple of times and it’s still spontaneously performed by contemporary Greeks.

I moved Zeibekiko on the street of Athens. On poor, dirty, dark street. I wore jeans and black hoodie. I was a non gender no one. Dancing their sorrow out, trying to stop floating, hit the rock bottom with my feet and direct my sight towards hope.

Rooftop culture

Paris Legakis did it. Vasiliki and Claire from Yellow Brick did it. In February Maria and Skafte did it. They took us to the rooftop. Why? And why does it feel so damn good every time?

Spiral staircase, unstable ladder.

+ EFFORT / SECRET / EXCLUSIVITY / ADVENTURE / EXCITEMENT

Secret cubes surrounded by white walls or no walls or railings at all.

+ SAFETY / DANGER

Seeing up, down and to the infinity.

+ POWER POSITION / HOPE / SUBLIME / PERSPECTIVE / EMPOWERMENT

Hiding or exposing: podiums or nests.  

+ PUBLIC / PRIVATE / US / THE OTHERS / COMMUNITY / UNIVERSE

Silent, timeless. All the time in the world. Free time, free mind.  

+ FOCUS / MOMENT

=

Open air, open atmosphere. Easy talk, easy breathe, easy feel.

Take me high!

Hunting for hope

Yesterday turned out to be a step forward when it comes to my hunt for the meaning of hope. I got one answer but also a bunch of new questions.

“Hope is the best word to understand international feelings.”

International? Feelings? In this context hope is approached as a medium to connect with each other.  But still what is the core of hope? And then, what is the relation between hope and emotions? Is international used in the sense of universal, profoundly human or is it referring to the communities around you? Making a divisions between us and the others and offering a bridge?

Fourth day in Athens

Our last day had an inspiring kick-off when we met Maria Lalou, a Greek artist/ researcher and Skafte Aymo-Boot, a Danish architect on the rooftop overlooking Athens; looking from above, observing urban landscape. The sky was grey and slowing dropping tears. Horizon revels layered clash of different architectural elements.

Together the Amsterdam based lovely duo run a transdisciplinary project called Un-finished(http://un-finished.org/[UN]_introduction.htm). It is a study on the architectural archetype of the unfinished concrete building found everywhere in the Athens cityscape, turned to a performed archive. In other words, the project aims at mapping and registering the unfinished buildings in Athens. At the moment there are approximately 200 objects as they call the buildings in the archive. The words they use when speaking about the project were very poetic and romantic: to collect buildings, concrete skeleton, anti monument, contemporary ruin parallel to ancient ruin,  contemporary archeology, owner holding a dream  and void of the city. Object of interest revolts only around concrete buildings. It’s its liquidity that becomes solid and timeless strength.

From the rooftop the fact that there is no architectural planning in Athens can be easily observed. Each building is by one person. This serves the project very well. Maria and Safte are interested in personal stories: emotional, comic, tragic behind the image of the building, trying to get behind the history of the city. Private and public are closely intertwined. Rough constructions with emotional baggage. The unfinished buildings describe the city socially and politically. Stories of the past and the future. Investigating history of unfinished ones it´s not an easy task. It´s a challenge that requires good people-relation skills, to get to the core of the building.

Concrete skeleton gets an organic quality. Ruinporn dystopia charm.

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Our second meeting of the day was a walk-and-talk style discussion with Orestis Doulos. He is a member of the Greek section of the International Marxist Tendency (IMT), also known as the Communist Tendency. It started to rain when we were standing on the hill and having a look over Athens. A political stroll.

We talked about Athens as a city, politicization of universities, the crisis and its cause and consequences, its positive and negative sides, future visions and alternative scenarios. According to Orestis there is no solution under capitalism. It’s a matter of the deep crisis of capitalism itself.  The crisis is destroying the petit bourgeois making them feel closer to working class. Social activities are getting more and more common when people are trying to fill the gap caused by government instead of putting pressure on the government. Things are getting worse day by day.  

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In the end of the day we had a cup of coffee with Christos Chryssopoulos www.chrissopoulosvivlia.blogspot.com), writer and Anastasia Douka (https://anastasiadouka.wordpress.com/), visual artist. Raindrops kept on dancing. As Christos is devoted to writing and literature theory the topics were alike: the explorative nature of a writing process and its aims, the idea of intersubjectivity and literature as a medium to open up a space for discourse.

Christos underlined the act of misreading: texts can be appropriated politically by extreme right or extreme left. It is about allowing different use. This all leads to a question if literature can be dangerous. The writing does not have to be political or economic to open up a space for discourse. It can be poetic or aesthetic as well. Another interesting thing raised up was the strategy of unfamiliarization: what is unfamiliar in familiar?

Short Video Shot in Athens

Universal language

Konstantinos Mihos´ contact improvisation class offered moments of anonymous intimacy beyond verbal communication. My body, your body, two strangers.

Touch by touch shy gestures take shape of full body contact. Smile, laugh and sweat guide us through the process. Shame is gone. Liberation is here. After two hours I don´t know your name but I know your body. No words are needed.   

The physical discourse is initiated by random objects. Choose the spot, place the object, escort the other one. What is safe? What is not? Are you avoiding certain parts of the body? Which parts are you comfortable with? Find your personal taboos. It is possible to locate three kinds of no-zones: sexual, safety related and those addressing dirt. An analogy? From micro to macro, from individual to society?

how to find yourself amongst others?

where to fight for yourself and where to let go, where to listen, support, follow someone else's needs, when to ask for comfort for yourself? how to find oneself? when to ask for something if i'm not sure about my needs?

and how to find yourself bodily in all of that?

Kostantinos Mihos made it all easy yesterday. Simple assignments, basic movement imagination led us to honest, clear being amongst others.

thanks for being yourself with me.

THE SECOND DAY IN ATHENS

Depression Era

For the first meeting of the day we met the Depression Era collective members Zoe Hatziyannaki, Angela Svoronou, Yorgos Prinos in the former Romantso Magazine (Romanzo Periodiko) head quarter transformed into a bar and a cultural space. We were entoured by cigarette smoke, rhythmic music and enjoyed fresh squeezed orange juice and cappuccino freddo.

Drawing by Justin Tyler Tate

The Depression Era Project inhabits the urban and social landscapes of the crisis. It begins as a collective experiment, picturing the Greek city and its outer regions, the private lives of outcasts, the collapse of Public systems, the emergence of the Commons and snapshots of the everyday often under the radar, in order to understand the social, economical and historical transformation currently taking place in Greece. It seeks to do so with as clear a gaze as possible. It understands, in its double meaning, that entropy, disaster, uncertainty and insolvency are also states of mind, ushering us to an era where the notion of progress, the idea of growth and the reflex of looking forward to a future are no longer dominant modes of perceiving and creating in the world.

After a deep and intense discussion we picked some of the key notions and words from the meeting:

- starting point: 'everybody' was alone, need to work collectively, political approach, photography

- context: time of crises, no alternative options existed, need to produce different images than media is giving, reflections of the medium 

- try to present situation different than in the media

- ambition: dialogue with photographers and writers, creating the discourse  

- political discourse, political questions, everyday politics, political parties

- “Everything has a political dimension”

- “To not to choose is also a choice”
- DIY attitude

- challenge: need to focus on ongoing discourses, not arguing

- positive sides of collective working:1+1=3, support group, sharing

”I Am A Karate American Egg (Make America Great Again)”

In the evening we attended a performance called ”I Am A Karate American Egg (Make America Great Again)” by visual artists Maria Glyka, Vassilis Vlastaras and Jim Hobbs in the Beton7 Gallery.

About the performance:  False news produced intentionally for advertising purposes, seeking profit or appearing by mistake - informed citizens on social media living in a hyperlinked world where speed of information exceeds the speed of truth and it remains a reference point even though it is proved untrue. Thirty years after the fall of the Wall, international debates are being held for the "cost" of constructing a new one. Is the Greenhouse Effect a hoax? Did the Simpsons predict the election of the new US president? Is just playing golf the answer?

“…The posturing is not entirely surprising. Mr. Trump’s proposals to wall off the United States from a variety of foreign influences fit the promises he made to his base of working-class white voters, resentful of how trade and immigration have changed the country they claim as their own…
…Then there is the fact that Mr. Trump’s macroeconomic strategy, which looks set to marry increased government spending with high interest rates, is in some tension with his objectives on trade: By strengthening the value of the dollar, it will make the trade deficit bigger.
Finally, the problems that the president has resolved to tackle have largely petered out on their own. More Mexican immigrants are leaving the United States than coming in. And Chinese exports to the United States are actually declining…”
New York Times, Eduardo Porter, 31/1/2017

Feelings, notions: 

Clever anagrams, populism, deep irritation, anger...

I Wanna Dance With Somebody

Generally when I wanna dance I do it in a club or somewhere with my friends, never dancing with strangers. Before Kostantinos Mihos´ contact improvisation class I was little nervous: Do I have to touch strangers? Do others notice that I can´t move gracefully? The class was actually very interesting and mind-broadening experience. Through various exercises I started gradually breaking the barriers in me. After two hours it felt natural touching and reacting to someone else’s body.

Enjoy a dance with Whitney: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH3giaIzONA

1.

Plants and objects. Writings on the walls. 

Ceilings, floors. 

It can be hard to describe meetings with people using photographs, in a city like Athens, in the middle of a myth, when he drops laughter in plants grown through pavements. And that smile, black hair. The struggle the glory, irony, bitter, real, alive, 

And a faint taste of blood in the mouth, like when you lick a zink coated metal found in the cheese pie.

Sweat and moist.

People meet  every day and become part of a narrative common or intertwined like veins in a pumping muscle.

A muscle of collective memory - 

Art as a muscular memory   

Art allow the magicz

// the spherical real

which is curios and strange.  When people laugh, sing, eat and wonder, for example,

When they occupy theaters 

When they transform old 50’ties clubs 

Into performance biennales 

When we work bar jobs /call centers 

In order to pay for the gaffe tape

Needed for rigging the cable for the soundsystem

At a free space volunteer based festival.

and invite refugees into the home.

hi. how are you doing there, on the other side?
i'm sitting here in a fancy cafe, drinking coke after a long night with friends. sun and delicate wind embrace my body. warm voices and laughs of our group comfort my inner quivering.
it's so easy. no fight for survival at the moment. i'm privileged in here. being really uncomfortable about it.

i came here to think what collaboration could be for me, to meet  examples of togetherness.

i'm looking for contact.
in our group, with artists and theoreticians that we meet, people on the streets, in the shops, cafes, restaurants, with people working in our cozy hotel, city animals, plants, soil, buildings, trash, objects.
also with you.

what are the possibilities of contact? what are the ways it could be built and finally, how to work together? taking the path of mutual thought, idea or including the difference? how to proceed with the work itself? are there some patterns in those everyday contacts that we could use to build the collaboration? maybe it already began during our walks, with enjoyment of the sun and delicate wind on our faces, all shades of green around, the beauty and the roughness, discomfort of being privileged, being exotic in immigrant districts, adjusting to them, having fun moments together, being tired, needy, just being together.

i wait for you.

Athens diary

How to avoid cock fights?

He was asked to tell about one of the internal struggles the group had to deal with.

He told that one of the group members decided to join a political party, which made other members leave.

They saw it as an issue that the individual now associated with the party and their values, and they did not want their organization to be subjected to that association. 

This seemed counterintuative, as their reason for the groups forming was bringing together the photographers and other artists, which were in need of sharing their knowledge and closing the distance between the individual artists. One of the members also described the group as a small reflection of society.

By these accounts the group had a shifting and fluid role, with the members influencing the group into different directions.

For me it became very difficult to understand how you can form a group on the incentive of bringing people together, but eventually excluding some because of their political opinion. In my mind the image of the group formed more towards a supportive structure, not necessarily investigating the situation of others, but rather bringing together people with common interests, generating a quite homogeneous group where individuals would comfort each others in their similar struggles.

I think we have quite many of these kind of groups, or groups taking this shape temporarily, in our academy. With multiple seminars becoming supportive, rather than critical sessions, courses, which rather than challenge, just encourage the working method of the students.

I think it is very important not to call these group reflections of society. 

They are distorted and polished.

And often forget to teach us how to talk about subjects appropriately to the environment.

🐓🐔🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐔🐓🍌

Found on the streets of Athens

 

Crisis of genre

Aperitif thoughts

In the very center tags, texts, Hope for nothing, Error 404: Hope not found, Papers for everyone very first second, Welcome refugees united we stand, Police state = Fascist regime

Cats, dogs, ruins on the spotlight, empty spaces, quick changes in atmosphere, every day life, South with S

Mixture of people, structural elements, feelings, smells 

Night, groups of people, tense atmosphere or just a reflection based on the pre-reader?

Daytime, sunny, bohemian, creative, megaphones, functional fountains

Notions: twixt: shortened version of betwixt, which means in between, neither the one not the other; Disguised: looks something, is something different, utopia, politics and political, roundtable, outcome orientated, involvement, together, individualisation, educational tool, propaganda, commodity

Actions: experimenting stereotypes, making contemporary art meaningful and establishing it, thinking about the next step, not further, to raise questions, to manifest contradictories, to escape

Questions: Artistic research/scientific research – different moral codes? How does the legal form of the intervention affect the funding; interdisciplinary attitude, not just art/ science but art/non-art, does art exist without other fields? Why should people be interested in art? How to make them interested in art? Is it possible to create an art scene by mixing up art theory students with art students? What does responsibility refer to? Taking a lead? Supervising? Legal responsibility? Relation between space and what happens around it? What art can do? When idealism becomes an obligation? Do you have to be outsider to be objective? Can you kill history?

Structural elements or dimensions: vertical/horizontal, top down/bottom-up, private/public structures, “heart structure”, core, insider/outsider, structures in response to landscape, “if you are not out, you are locked in”

Would you like to join a political party?

Greek flag

Facade

The students told us that there was active political activity in the universities. The art academy was the most easygoing, most of the students squabbling about leftists approaches and interpreting Marx.

In others universities youth organisations of different political parties recruit students, sometimes even offering them easy passes in certain classes where the parrent party controls the professor. 

How do we practice for the political discourse in comparison?

It must be quite an empowering feeling to have a social group as strong as a youth organisation supporting you, especially when in the age of young adults. I guess it would require an extensive stability of personal affairs to be able to differentiate the political issues of society vs the issues of your own. 

Parthenon

There is peculiar zone when political dialogue is both an educational form and a manifestation of power at the same time. Is it forgiving enough for educational forms to have such a definite impact on you later life?