CINEMA
Ge9n – Haukur Már Helgason
Documentary
duration: 79 min Thursday 11 June 2015, 20:30 Athens School of Fine Arts Giorgio De Cirico Movie theatre of ASFA, 256 Peiraios st. Following Iceland’s 2008 economic crash, a popular uprising led to the collapse of the country’s right-wing government. Like a hurt animal, the State-apparatus still fought back and desparately, even somewhat comically, prosecuted nine people for “attacking parliament”. The film is an encounter with these nine people as agents of political thought and action. http://www.icelandicfilms.info/films/nr/1286 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2316669/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl |
A film evening with the director Kostas Kollimenos
Friday 12 June 2015, 21:30
Giorgio De Cirico Movie theatre of ASFA, 256 Peiraios st.
Programme:
1. One day Prince. 2011
Honorary Distinction at the 5th Festival Halkida Documentary
A documentary on the ceremonial tradition of popular culture of the West Greece. The local dialect – a key trait of the local history – dominates narratives and songs. The lens focuses two people as opposite poles of age and the pillars crumbling edifice, tying their experiences engraved in memory, patience and persistence in the target that everyone else left …
Script, direction, photography, editing, sound, production: Kostas Kolimenos. Duration: 35
2. Zoom in the cherry trees. 2012
The zoom in cherry is a personal diary relating the existential journey of every man in his everyday life. So zoom in cherry is my journey from my birthplace existential in today’s modern Europe against a backdrop of crisis in Greece. ”
Script, direction, photography, editing, sound, production Kostas Kolimenos. Duration: 25 ‘
3. Orfea’s Way. 2014
Niki lives in Athens with her husband and her seven year old son, Orfeas. The young woman trapped in a dull marriage, meets and falls in love with Giannis, a young bohemian city guy. They both feel the strong attraction that dominates their body and soul, and decide to take a trip to the Greek province. The return to the big city will bring changes and will signal new unforeseen developments. Orfeas will disappear and Niki will be forced to return violently to reality. Always in the background of the story a country plagued by economic, political and emotional crisis.
Script, direction, production: Kostas Kolimenos. Duration: 65’
Giorgio De Cirico Movie theatre of ASFA, 256 Peiraios st.
Programme:
1. One day Prince. 2011
Honorary Distinction at the 5th Festival Halkida Documentary
A documentary on the ceremonial tradition of popular culture of the West Greece. The local dialect – a key trait of the local history – dominates narratives and songs. The lens focuses two people as opposite poles of age and the pillars crumbling edifice, tying their experiences engraved in memory, patience and persistence in the target that everyone else left …
Script, direction, photography, editing, sound, production: Kostas Kolimenos. Duration: 35
2. Zoom in the cherry trees. 2012
The zoom in cherry is a personal diary relating the existential journey of every man in his everyday life. So zoom in cherry is my journey from my birthplace existential in today’s modern Europe against a backdrop of crisis in Greece. ”
Script, direction, photography, editing, sound, production Kostas Kolimenos. Duration: 25 ‘
3. Orfea’s Way. 2014
Niki lives in Athens with her husband and her seven year old son, Orfeas. The young woman trapped in a dull marriage, meets and falls in love with Giannis, a young bohemian city guy. They both feel the strong attraction that dominates their body and soul, and decide to take a trip to the Greek province. The return to the big city will bring changes and will signal new unforeseen developments. Orfeas will disappear and Niki will be forced to return violently to reality. Always in the background of the story a country plagued by economic, political and emotional crisis.
Script, direction, production: Kostas Kolimenos. Duration: 65’
VIDEO screenings
AR-T / Effrosyni Kontogeorgou
Performance (2014)
ice, wood, 2 iron sheets, spotlight Original duration approx. 2 hours Video duration 16’ Capital is dead labor, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor and lives the more, the more labor it sucks – K.Marx Sucking is an act that our lived-body knows it before knowing. It bears both sensible and sensual meaning since our infancy. Apart from the feeding (surviving) purposes, it is also an act that displays associations of pleasure and satisfaction. According to the psychology (of the adult), our drive, the principle of pleasure, is often in conflict with the principle of reality; self-preservation, estranged labour. Could our products become so many mirrors in which we can see reflected our essential nature? During AR—T the performer is sucking a word (logo-like) made out of ice, fully absorbed by the process. After a while the meaning of the word, as well as the act, is becoming something else. Is this a production or an elimination? Is this a narcissistic act of pleasure? Nourishment? Or obsession and self-destruction? What remains at the end? Within the context of Performative Labour-ism /Month of Performance Art in Berlin 2014 / 06.05.14 at ZK/U-“Centre for Art and Urbanistics”. |
The Miniature Series / Jorge Cabieses-Valdes
Single Channel (loop)
HDV. Color. Sound. 7´35´´ 2009 – 2012 The Miniature Series were produced between the years 2009 and 2012 and were conceived as one piece. These videos were filmed using the chroma key technique, that is, including a solid and homogeneous color which was later manipulated in order to insert new images. Through this technique, the artist himself performs in front of the camera combining three different alternatives of the effect: chroma key as background, as a wearable suit and the combination of both of them. On the other hand, The Miniature Series combines two formal concepts related to the artist´s practice: the aesthetics of Rococo (eighteen century furniture and porcelain objects) and press cut outs of disaster images, taken from the archive put together by the artist for the last 15 years. |
Trygos / Peeling a grape / Maria Nikiforaki
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Trygos
Video duration 2’ 17’’ The Mediterranean and Greek cultural and visual background has always been a spiritual environment for social fermentation. The Dionysian Mysteries role was to remove inhibitions and social constraints because it served as a discharge of the individual and a return to a natural state. Such manifestations provided liberation for those marginalized by society. This body of work explores the qualities of the ‘spectacle’ of the customs and tradition as a form of celebration and an answer to a political call for resistance. The memories I have of Greece are these flirtatious moments when the society celebrates its excess, in this case the wine making process. Excess and expenditure can be an erotic gesture, can it also advocate an alternative way of thinking of economics. Peeling a grape
by Maria Nikiforaki Video duration 42’’ The Mediterranean and Greek cultural and visual background has always been a spiritual environment for social fermentation. The Dionysian Mysteries role was to remove inhibitions and social constraints because it served as a discharge of the individual and a return to a natural state. Such manifestations provided liberation for those marginalized by society. This body of work explores the qualities of the ‘spectacle’ of the customs and tradition as a form of celebration and an answer to a political call for resistance. The memories I have of Greece are these flirtatious moments when the society celebrates its excess, in this case the wine making process. Excess and expenditure can be an erotic gesture, can it also advocate an alternative way of thinking of economics. |
The poem begins with the unloving sun / Panos Sklavenitis
Video duration 10’ 50’’
I contacted LIFO editor Aris Dimokidis to write a provocative article on the Greek sun. I used a couple of examples and suggested that he improvise. One example entailed a German politician making a statement along the lines of “Greeks can put their sun where it doesn’t shine”. Aris gladly responded and thus emerged the following April Fools article in LIFO: Donald Tusk: “The Greeks can stick their sun where it doesn’t shine”. The article provoked strong reactions, was commented on and shared much among social networks, and was reproduced over the next few days by a range of nationalistic publications as real news. ‘The poem begins with the unloving sun’ is a work in progress, which so far consists of the aforementioned action and this video in which the choreographer and dancer Medie Megas performs a compilation of texts consisting mainly of readers’ comments on the LIFO article. I thank Aris Dimokidis, the LIFO team and visual artist Io Chaviara for their valuable help. |
Germany Loves Greece Greece Loves Germany /
Eva Giannakopoulou
The Camera, Passionate Performer
Video duration 6’ 39’’ I was there when Prime Minister Tsipras met Chancellor Merkel in Berlin on the 23rd of March 2015. Behind the camera my body was squeezed by the demonstrators and journalists who were present right outside the Chancellor’s building. Germans and Greeks exchanged passionate kisses and hugs, singing and dancing, shaking hands and delivering a message against the European Austerity measures. My hand was shaking carrying the camera, political tears of Love. |
Definition / Rilène Markopoulou
Video duration 4’ 23’’
Using personal clichés and images, associations and movement, the artist tries to find a way to define herself by desperately attempting and failing to take an imprint of her teeth – the forensic equivalent of a biographical identity that also symbolises vulnerability, as hidden personal secrets. Basic insecurities and fundamental fear of human existence are expressed in her effort to attempt a personal portrait of her inner self. |
Edible Tales / Battle of Sexes / Katerina Fanouraki
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video art (2014)
Concept: Katerina Fanouraki/Μariana Kavroulaki Choreography: Μaria Softsi Performers: Katerina Fanouraki/Maria Softsi Stage Direction: Dimitris Andjus Cinematography: Nikos Kakonas Post Production: Christos Lolos Photography: Stelios Marinakis Edible props: Mariana Kavroulaki Songs: 1.Bosnian lullaby performed by Lori Secansca 2.”Molis koimithei to kyma” Traditional North Epirus polyphonic song 3.”Aman mike kapetane” Performed by Grupi i Himarës 4.”Assimenia m’alysida”,Traditional Epirus song from Pogoni, Ioannina 5.”Tis Elenis to krevati”.Performed by “Lalitades” 6.Traditional lament song from Epirus region, clarinet solist: Tassos Chalkias. “The food was always connected with the human being. Milk is a vital substance for its nutrition through its infancy. A child crawls on the floor, struggling to discover its movement abilities. It sucks its palms and fingers, covered with milk. Figs are famous since the ancient years as aphrodisiacs. A young girl devours the figs from the bawl under her thighs. She flirts with the audience and offers them the luscious fruits. Figs’ shape looks also like a vagina or sperms. Under a white sheet, the girl becomes a woman through her first sexual intercourse. A mourner cleanses with red wine the woman’s corpse and endows her with her last garment. She completes the following food ritual: she lays on the eyes and mouth of the departed, unleavened small breads with wishes written on the top of them, addressed to the dead. She puts on the decedent’s hands a circular bread roll, with a black cloth and hair from the deceased, so her spirit will recognize herself, on the first days on earth, and not heart the family. In ancient years, the black color was considered to have magical powers and protect from the demons. Finally, she puts three cups stuffed with red wine, wheat and sweets, offers for the asleep. The performance is being accompanied by wonderful traditional Balkan melodies from Bosnia, Albania and Greece that reflect in their own archaic sound, the perpetual story of life, love, sex and death.” Battle of Sexes
Video performance:”Battle of Sexes-The Cost of Beauty” (2013) Concept: Katerina (Titina) Fanouraki Performance:Titina Fanouraki Petros Triantafyllopoulos. Choreography:Elena Prapidi. Video Direction:Aris Lechouritis-Michail Mavromoustakos Music: “Romeo and Juliet” Suit No.2 for Orchestra Op. 64 ter “Montagues and Capulets” Sergei Prokofiev. WOMEN:Red stiletto heels.Corsets and garters. Red lipstick and platinum hair dye.Plastic surgeries. MEN:Leather jackets and helmets. Expensive suits and watches, briefcases. Penus enlargement. Hair transplant.Tatoos, six packs and quadriceps. BEAUTY:Male and female stereotypes.Desired images.Seductive fantasies.For Us or for the Others? |
Returning / Recitation / Washing / Angeliki Avgitidou
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Returning
2010 A performance about loss and separation, the impossibility of going back in space and time. A series of family photos are placed in various sites, at the old city of Nicosia. In every site I stand still while I count, in a ceremonial way, from 1 to 42 (my age at the time). At the last site on the Green line, I place a photo of my parents while I count backwards to one. Recitation
with Tatiana Tsigaridis 2009 [… the artist, dressed in a red, fancy gown, tears up huge sheets of paper, pasted in multiple layers on the wall of a small, neoclassical building located at the port. The performance started with a little girl reciting a poem by Ioannis Polemis. Parallel to the recitation, the artist is destroying the sheets of paper, where the word “HOMELAND” is written in several languages. The performance allows the audience to contemplate the meaning of the word “homeland” – not as an abstract national idea but as a multidimensional experiential reality, which at times becomes attractive and at other times repulsive. The performance makes also a critical statement on issues of history, individual and collective memory, authority, racism and Diaspora. …] from the festival catalogue part of the 1st Performance Festival 2nd Biennale of Contemporary Art of Thessaloniki Washing
2010 The ritual of singing while washing by the riverside, is used in this performance of sharing and catharsis. While sited I hum the song “Asma Asmaton” by Mikis Theodorakis. After some of the handout papers have been collected by the viewers, I put the tablecloth into the basket and walk by the riverside while I continue to hum the song. I descent to the waterfront where I start washing the tablecloth and singing the song. When I am finished I take down my hood and drink from the river. |
Revenge Fuck / Maria Karatzi
A surface, loosely imitating the pattern of the hazard tape, is extended, folded and put away. This brief action demonstrates the ways in which matter and volume can be manipulated and readjusted to respond to the artist’s intentions of expansiveness and simplification while it juxtaposes hollowness to density alongside with a light-hearted approach towards prohibition, exclusion and what is predefined.
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Das Paradies in a moment of Crisis / The Link / Fotini Kalle
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Das Paradies in a moment of Crisis
Gemäldegalerie Berlin, October 2013 Performance duration 2 hours and 20 minutes Video duration 8’ 31’’ The performance was inspired by the painting of Roelant Savery: Das Paradies, painted in 1626. The paradise represented in this painting consists of a rich natural environment full of birds and animals that are conquering the canvas. Centered, but in the background, Adam and Eve, next to the forbidden tree, are only barely visible. On the contrary the big brown bull dominates in the image. The painting refers to the ideal world of paradise using the image of a harmonious nature. Though at the same time this harmony already shows signs of the fall of mankind.. The bull, symbol of power, greed, violence and sex in many cultures together with the apple in the hands of Eve, built the ground for the inevitable moment of crisis. Hiding under the colorful alteration of plant and animal kingdom, the world as we know it is about to collapse. The idea of Paradise oppressed humanity for many centuries, either used as a tool of manipulation, or as a hunted idea of utopia. With this performance, the artist tried to make visible this crucial moment of crisis when harmony and beauty start to produce repression more than enjoyment. The time for a change has come, but body and mind still resist. The performance was presented as the final work of a one week workshop on long duration performances with the artist Nezaket Ekici and organised by the International Summer Akademy, KlangKunstBühne, Universität der Künste Berlin. The Link
London, 2007 Performance duration 10 minutes Video duration 1’ 33’’ Golden color on the spine, golden thread and scissors. A poetic reference to all the imaginary attempts to connect oneself with the cosmos. |
Behind the Showcase / Maria Iliopoulou
Performance (3/2015)
Original duration approx. 30’ Video duration 2’ 31’’ In a limited space, behind a showcase, i am not able to come in direct contact with the outside world. One of the main sensations, essential for communication, hearing is cancelled. The same applies to touch and smell. Vision is the only way of communication left. Tearing the paper dress i’ m wearing, i write on each piece of it any of my thoughts emerging at the moment and then I stick it on the showcase, covering gradually its entire surface. As I struggle to communicate, I reveal my nature externally and internally in a attempt to release myself in something that I consider being the driving force of man, the (spontaneous) thought. |