In Anticipation

In Anticipation

Aristic residency

with the participation of Katerina Daskalopoulou (actress, performer), Chrysanthi Koumianaki (visual artist), Pavlos Lykoudis aka Okami (dancer), George Moraitis (visual & sound artist) and Anna Pangalou (mezzo soprano, sound & installation artist)

Public showing: Friday 19 May 2023, 15.00 – 21.30

Doors open at 15:00.

15:00 – 20.30: durational performances by Katerina Drakopoulou, Pavlos Lykoudis and Anna Pangalou. Their works in progress can be visited throughοut the building. The audience can join any time, at their own pace.

21.00 – 21.30: Acoustic live by George Moraitis:

Artwork on the facade by: Chrysanthi Koumianaki

5 Mpenizelou Palaiologou Str. 105 56, Athens

The building that is located at Mpenizelou Palaiologou street, had been housing for more than 50 years the headquarters of a trading and distribution company for specialty chemical and plastic products. Today, the building has a fluid operational identity, hosting occasionally ephemeral artistic interventions initiated by Flux Laboratory Athens.

The silent office rooms, the empty laboratory and the peaceful hallways exude a sense of liminality; a feeling of familiarity and, at the same time, a feeling of being lost. When visiting, one might argue that the space constitutes a “threshold”, a transitory place, appearing to be both in a semi-ruined state as well as in a process of renovation. A place infused with hope and possibility. In fact, a major reconstruction work is about to begin with the aim of creating a unique cultural and administrative complex for Swiss and Greek synergies, under the roof of which diplomacy will be merging with the arts.

In anticipation of these developments, Flux Laboratory Athens invited five artists to work in-situ, deploying their practice, while interacting with the tangible and intangible elements of the building. For three consecutive weeks, from dawn to dusk, the residents have been engaging in a dialogue with the building, embracing the notion of rituality.

By definition, rituals are repeated or habitual, constituting a sequence of activities that involve gestures, symbols, words, actions, or objects. Rituals tend to mark special moments, symbolising the passage from one state to another, in ways that make that passage memorable. The "ritual" denotes not only the sacramental or the ceremonial, but also actions and practices of behaving or doing. The process of human bodies working on site constitutes itself a ritual that involves a transformation from "doing" into "being".

In this light, Katerina Drakopoulou (actress, performer), Chrysanthi Koumianaki (visual artist), Pavlos Lykoudis aka Okami (dancer), George Moraitis (visual & sound artist) and Anna Pangalou (mezzo soprano, sound & installation artist) have been tracing fragments of the building’s spatiality, while reimaging its relationship with the past and the future. Movement, voice, sound, and papercraft have become paths of artistic exploration.

Filmmaker Avrilios Karakostas has been capturing the movement of their bodies in space, the impact of rhythm and time in the artistic process and the (im)materiality of the works. He is currently working on a short film, reflecting on rituality and its various manifestations.

On Friday the 19th of May, the building will open its doors to the public. The audience will have the opportunity to explore it through a series of durational performances, installations and an acoustic live that the residents have built throughout the residency period.

Starting from the dipole "movement and inertia", Katerina Drakopoulou explores ways in which the butoh body can penetrate, absorb, highlight or integrate into the architecture of the space.

Chrysanthi Koumianaki comments on the temporary state of the building in anticipation of the reconstruction process. She draws inspiration from the adjacent storefronts that are permanently closed or under construction. She observes the elements that cover them, such as paper, newspapers, or paint, and how they are used as "noticeboards", with pasted posters, stickers and graffiti or slogans written on them. These elements eventually become decorative patterns through their repetition, resembling a stained-glass window that she re-constructs on the existing windows of the building’s façade.

For Pavlos Lykoudis the natural elements, the decline of the interior space and the body of the performer are being mapped and unified through the use of tape. The body interacts with the light and the "flaws" of the space; a kinetic and visual exploration of the assimilation of the body into the urban landscape (now, before and after).

George Moraitis develops a sound installation that situates sound in direct relation to architecture and environmental geographies. Spatial forms, acoustics, psychodynamics of listening, and corporeal experience all come to the fore in the practice of sound installation. Space is not treated as a static object, but rather as a live instrument. The consequences of such moves further dissolve the musical object, replacing it with location, place, spatiality, presence of bodies, environmental input, and interference of local noise.

Anna Pangalou’s work titled “In Anticipation” is a site-specific sound and found sculpture installation investigating the concept and perception of time. The piece utilizes antique clocks and empty, resonant, spaces slated for demolition to produce an asynchronous score and draw the viewers’ attention to the concept of time: its linear, circular, and vertical aspects. In a long duration performance for voice, clocks, texts, songs, and a vacant building, the artist is investigating how conventional and personal time is echoing in us. The installation is the first in a series of site-specific installations that deal with the passage of and the experience in time and its sonic environment.