Monday 27 February 2012

Beautifully 'Meaningless' (posted on 26/2/12)

Lydia Pape, 'Livro do Tempo' (the book of time). Installation view, Serpentine Gallery, London, UK.

















Lygia Pape's 'Book of time' doesn't achieve communication, and quite frankly, I don't think communication was amongst the artist's intentions. So, why should I be interested in that kind of personal interpretation when it doesn't invite me to participate, in one way or another? Or, why should I be interested in something that 'I may not like' since, the only basis for dialogue that offers to the public, lays entirely on personal taste and aesthetics?

Lydia Pape (1927-2004) was a Brazilian Artist active in both the Concrete and Neo-Concretist movements in Brazil. Earlier on this year, a retrospective of her work took place in London's Serpentine Gallery, showcasing a wide range of her work. Admittedly, what made a massive impression to the audience -including the writer- amongst the exhibits, was a large scale installation called the 'Livro do Tempo' (The book of Time).

The installation consists by 365 wooden objects. The critic Adrian Searle notes: 'Each of these objects (or 'pages' of a book) represents a day... even though there are 365 of these, none of them represent a specific day of the year.' He continuous by saying '... but the more you look and wonder along between them, you begin to get the sense of the passing days as they turn'.[1]

As far as I am concerned, Lygia Pape's 'Book of time' (1961-1963) doesn't achieve communication, and quite frankly, I don't think communication was amongst the artist's intentions; if it was, it failed massively. For instance, why is this yellow and not red? Or why is this is like that and not like this? In my view, Pape's intention was to express herself and her feelings in relation to her life, memories, sentimentality etc. through fragments as An alphabet of feelings. And that is interesting, fascinating and sentimental! But it's not intended to communicate her feelings or some kind of an idea similar to commemoration, personal documentation etc. She did something beautifully crafted but it's not intended to work, or to function in any other way. This is exactly what consists the fundamental difference between art and design.

On that basis, why should I be interested in that kind of personal interpretation when it doesn't invite me to participate, in one way or another? In other words, why should I be interested in something that I may 'not like' since, the only basis for dialogue that offers to the public, lays entirely on personal taste and aesthetics?

Lydia Pape, 'Livro do Tempo' (the book of time). Installation view, Serpentine Gallery, London, UK.

















Because, the alphabet has a specific function to deliver; that of the composition of meaning. To visualize the meaning that an individual wants to communicate. However, the aforementioned installation stays still at the stage of the fragments. Clearly, she is not interested in elaborating on, or in communicating the most important thing, the feeling of self awareness; the state of mind that she acquired through such a -psychoanalytic dare I say- process. And don't tell me that this (image 1) is the state of mind. This is the fragments that compose a totality; a corpus if you like. By placing them all together, it doesn't feel like a corpus. It feels like a collection. But the corpus is not just a collection of things. The corpus, is a symbolic solid form that looks how it looks, because if you deconstruct it conceptually, constructively or sequentially, you will get a very clear sense of the process that was followed by its creator. These fragments though, are beautiful arbitrary shapes that doesn't necessarily carry any form of meaning.[2]

In conclusion, even though the 'Book of Time' is beautiful, it doesn't make any sense. It is beautifully 'meaningless'. In my view, beauty derives from the meaning in relation to the form, and therefore, that kind of beauty is objective -as opposed to ' I like this/ I don't like that' subjective, non-justified statements; thus, fundamentally ultimate.


Nikos Georgopoulos
London,
February 2012

Thursday 23 February 2012

'Capturing', fish eye photographic series No1 (posted on 23/2/12)

Camberwell College of Arts, London, 30/JAN/2012. Photo by N. Georgopoulos















Nikos & Mike, Brick Lane, London, 04/JAN/2012. Photo by D. Marketou















Canal, Islington, London, 31/JAN/2012. Photo by N. Georgopoulos















Nikos & Dylan, Camberwell College of Arts, London, 30/JAN/2012. Photo by L. Kym















Camberwell College of Arts, London, 30/JAN/2012. Photo by N. Georgopoulos
















Wednesday 22 February 2012

Jens Brockmeier on the narrative fabric of autobiographical memory; the elective affinity of film and memory (posted on 22/2/12)

Orson Welles, print screen from Wikipedia.
























Jens Brockmeier is a Senior Scientist based at the Free University Berlin, with a background in psychology and philosophy. He also is a Visiting Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Manitoba, a Honorary Professor of Psychology at the University of Innsbruck, and a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Narrative Research of the University of East London.

This afternoon he gave a talk under the title The art of remembering and forgetting at Chelsea's lecture theatre about the narrative fabric of autobiographical memory and what gives narrative, visual, and performative artists privileged access in exploring it. In particular, he mentioned that 'the reason why we remember or forget is not in psychology, nor in neuroscience, but in narrative art'. Acknowledging that many contemporary artists use film in their research of autobiographic memories[1], he talked about films as forms of narrative[2].

Brockmeier divided his presentation in 3 chapters. The first one was called Remembering (a) film, the second one Filming memory and concluded with the last chapter of Films as remembering and forgetting.

Nikos Georgopoulos

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Notes
1. The killing maschine, installation, 2007. Jannet Cadiff & Burres Miler.
2. 'A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet', Orson Welles.

Tuesday 14 February 2012

'All passengers ready for disembarkation; it's 1945' (posted on 14/2/12)

Mataroa vessel, (C) NZ Maritime Museum

























'All passengers ready for disembarkation; it's 1945' is an essay on the New Zealand 'liberty ship' Mataroa, and more specifically, on a particular voyage realized in the 22nd of December, in 1945. About 200 young Greek intellectuals embarked on it, in order to travel from Greece to Paris, at a time where the Greek civil war burst out, and in that respect, to save their lives. The essay aims to provide information on the historical context of the aforementioned journey and, more importantly, to elaborate on the view that Mataroa came to be a medium for salvation and thus, it can be seen a symbolism to self awareness.

The term Liberty ship refers to cargo ships developed in the United States of America during the second World War. Producing them under a single design, the aim of the US Maritime Commission was to reduce their cost and speed of construction in order to built cargo vessels faster than German U-boats could sink them. 'A Liberty ship was designed to carry about 10,000 tons of cargo, but in wartime conditions often carried much more'[1].

After the World War II was over, Greece was in a very bad condition[2]. Two months after the invading army left the country and the streets of Athens were gradually stopped being crowded, by dead bodies of civilians -who starved to death or got executed by soldiers, in retaliation for rebel attacks against them- a civil war between the Communists and the Right wings burst out, regarding who would going to be in charge of the country. Having said that, from December of 1944, Athenians experienced further chaos: bombings, assassinations, arrests and battles in between the debris and the barricades. Due to the war, everything was out of order; people would postpone academic education -if not cancel it permanently, and Universities were occasionally open. By that time, it became clear enough that anyone -either Left or Right wing supporter- who would wish to survive and to be developed intellectually, artistically or politically had to leave the country. The artist and writer -and currently, one of the few remaining passengers of Mataroa- Nelly Adrikopoulou wrote in her book ''.. we had to postpone our lives indefinitely. But life is not the sort of thing you can postpone. Either exist or not.''[3]

During that time, the internationally spoken language -of Diplomacy[4]- was French and the most relevant and active foreign cultural institution in Athens was the Institute Francais d' Athenes[5] -something like a French British Council of the time- and on that basis, Octave Merlier[6] who served as its director from 1938 until 1961 was a very powerful man. Considering the fact that Merlier was a Left wing supporter himself, and that he was aware that many educated and promising young people in Greece were leftists and, therefore, they were in danger of being lost in one way or another, he convinced the French Ministry for Foreign Affairs to assign him all of the unrealized -due to the war- scholarships[7] of the previous academic years -ranging from 1939. As a result of that, in August of 1945, the Institute Francais d' Athenes called for entries and 800 young people applied for a scholarship to study in Paris. Eventually, there were selected people from 60 different specialties and fields, ranging from architects, fine artists and composers to archaeologists, social scientists and doctors.

One of the most interesting points, is that the criteria for the selection of the people who would be awarded, was not how good users of French language were -since most of them were very poor and thus, the same applied for their education- but how good and talented they were in their field and practice. To make a long story short, the aim of this operation was to select a representative sample of people -both Left and Right wing supporters- who deserved to be saved from oblivion. Amongst the people who were selected for embarking in the 'arch' included -the youngsters at the time- Social Science graduate Cornelius Castoriades[8], Historian Nikos Svoronos[9] and many others.

The selected applicants were informed that a New Zealand ship, called Mataroa, would be the one on which they would embark on, in order to start their journey towards salvation. Nelly Adrikopoulou comments that '' the lucky ones who got the scholarship started to pack their stuff; books, manuscripts, typewriters, music records, clothes, all sort of stuff they where emotionally attached with.'' She continues by stating that ''we wanted to leave... for various reasons... each one of us had their own.''[10]

Early in the morning of the 22nd of December of the same year, Mataroa sailed from Peireus, Greece and arrived to Taranta port in Italy in the 24th. After the passengers disembarked they travelled by train during the night of the same day to Bologna (26th). At this point Nelly Adrikopoulou comments ''we were very hungry and it was very cold... When the train passed through the Swiss boarders I saw an intact world, untouched from the war and the hunger, with Christmas trees and snow all around.''[11] Finally, and after all sort of difficulties in the Swiss boarders they arrived in Paris at midnight, in the 28th of December.

At this point, we should probably say that not many things has been written for the ship Mataroa -as well as this particular journey; not even the omniscient Wikipedia has a single article regarding that ship. One could possibly find documents related to the background story and preparation of the aforementioned voyage, in the archive of the French Institute, in Athens. In addition to that, documentary material and digitized photographic post cards of the ship can be found through the website and online archive of the New Zealand's National Maritime Museum (NZNMM) and various other related web sites. Does that mean that Mataroa is not relevant? I think not. I, myself  am not a ships enthusiast -at least not before this project, neither I am particularly interested in the maritime history. But, I am interested in life and in the discourses that leeds people to the condition of being able to live their lives. Even if that is a literal journey -e.g. immigration- or an existential one -e.g. Psychoanalysis.

Everybody has or had in the past a family or a personal album. Everybody has a personal history. Is he or she aware of their discourse, of the sequence of the hidden meanings that lay beneath their everyday life and all sort of expressions of themselves. In fact, what drew me to the journey of this vessel in the first place, is the potential symbolism that this journey can acquire as well as the parallelism with a small existential trip that people embark on, in order to become really aware of themselves in order to live in a more conscious way, and therefore, potentially more free. And that potential is what consists salvation. Because today, 67 years later, we now know about Cornelius Castoriades, the internationally famous Marxist philosopher and writer of the Imaginary Institution of Society (1975) and many other theories and books and we are still studying in the cultural departments of -the Greek- Universities the history books written by Nikos Svoronos.

In conclusion, from the engineer's point of view, Mataroa was not literally what it can be described as a Liberty ship, but it can be seen as a 'liberty ship'. As a Passenger-cargo ship, she carried -at different moments in history- thousands of people including troops, men, women and children. As far as concerns the voyage of the 22nd of December in 1945, she saved the life of 200 young people by giving them the opportunity to escape and thus, to live their lives free; as they had dreamed of. She came to be the medium for individual salvation and therefore, freedom. As it is mentioned earlier on, 'a Liberty ship was designed to carry about 10,000 tons of cargo, but in wartime conditions often carried much more' than that.


Nikos Georgopoulos
London,
February 2012


-----
Notes.
1.  Unknown (2007) 'Capacity of one Liberty Ship' [Online]. American Merchant Marine at War. Available at: http://www.usmm.org/capacity.html [Accessed 10 February 2012]
2. Extremely worst than the current socioeconomic and debt crisis.
3. Adrikopoulou, Nelly (2007) The journey of Mataroa, 1945: The mirror of memory. Estia Publications : Athens. p55
4. The English language became the internationally spoken language after the war. Before this happened, French was the official language in the west as well as the official language of Diplomacy, of which still is.
5. Institute Francais d' Athenes (the French Institute in Athens) had each year around 600 applications for students to study in France, whereas the British Council around 200 at that time.
6. Octave Merlier (1897-1996), was born in France and studied at the Sorbonne and Ecole pratique des hautes etudes.
7. Due to the war, the scholarships for Greeks students to study in France were untouched. In that respect, Merlier asked the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs to assign him the current one as well as the previous ones. He gathered 50 scholarships each one per one academic year. He then, divided each one per 3 months of academic study. Τhe 200 scholars managed to stay in Paris because the universities wanted them.
8. Cornelius Castoriades (March 11, 1922 - December 26, 1997) was a Greek philosopher, social critic, economist, psychoanalyst, author of The Imaginary Institution of Society, and co-founder of the Socialisme ou Barbarie group.
9. Nikos Svoronos (1911-1989), was a Greek historian. In 1975, he was named Docteur des Lettres in Sorbonne. He served as course director in Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (IV Section) for the Institutional History of the Byzantine Empire.
10. Adrikopoulou, Nelly (2007) The journey of Mataroa, 1945: The mirror of memory. Estia Publications : Athens. p37
11. Adrikopoulou, Nelly (2007) The journey of Mataroa, 1945: The mirror of memory. Estia Publications : Athens. p102
 







Monday 13 February 2012

Writing about writing; Record your experience of writing while writing -inspired by an essay of Villem Flusser[1] (posted on 13/2/12)

No one cares from an English speaking audience if your writing in your native language is captivating and emotional and creative because, they can only respond to what they see and what they hear from you, in English.

It's 6 o' clock in the afternoon and I am back in Athens for Christmas. Today is Tuesday, still not very confident writing in English. I suppose... I suppose it doesn't matter. So, what on earth could I write on such an abstract subject; 'Record in writing your experience of writing while writing'. If the first 'writing' was missing -for example if the brief was 'Record your experience of writing while writing'- I could elaborate and work on this project towards a different direction and I could work further on ideas such as creating a single-shot video or, a sound piece like Susan Stenger's 'Soundtrack for an exhibition'[2] or even, I could compose a musical piece which would reflect my own personal needs and experiences while writing -I could do that by setting a brief. Obviously, it must not interfere with the level of  attention needed for someone in order to write; it should last for a very long time -without frequent transitions and rests. Anyway, the task is quoted though the brief in a very clear and coherent way; 'Record in writing'.

At this point, I am starting slowly to realize that, whatever this... text -I am not sure if it can be seen as one- is, at the end of the day, it is a reflection of my experience on writing; recorded in writing; definitely while writing. Having said that though, I am not sure if I have to make any corrections and further editing to this 'text'[3], if I am supposed to present it as a text, a written essay or as a deliberate raw-written text towards writing. I think the latter is more interesting to me -having reached to this point- because it connects better with the sound scape I mentioned before and therefore, with exciting potential interpretations of the task. It is more provocative to me since a text elaborating on my experience of writing would mean to write an essay on writing. I think that a very good name for such an essay could be 'Essay on writing'. Other titles also could be 'Towards the experience of writing' or 'Thoughts on writing'. But the problem still remains; 'what kind of writing?' Are we talking about an article or a novel? A research paper or a critique? A poem or a play? Well, I suppose the answer to this question would be 'your experience of writing'; my experience of writing. No, it is not clarified.

Definitely not. -My mom is preparing dinner in the kitchen, my father just came back home and he is having a short nap and I am writing. Right now I felt a little bit weird because, I was asking myself about what it is that the brief asks by saying 'writing' -and I just realized that I am actually doing it. Neither we talk about an article nor a story; even though i could publish a book having written a story like that. Neither we talk about a research paper nor a critique; even though in the beginning of the.. text I am gently criticizing the abstract nature of the brief. Last but not least, neither we talk about a poem nor a play; even though it could be a theatrical monologue, similar to those plays which have some roots regarding their concept, on the avant-gards.

I think I know what it is; it is a collection of notes towards writing. A brainstorming. It is a monologue but I am not sure if it is a pure reflection of my 'working process' because, I know this is a project that probably each one of us will present at the studio, in front of our peers. It is similar to a situation where someone is in front of a camera, making a statement. During an interview. Partly, you are yourself but you are acting as well. It is like you directing the whole scene -by placing yourself in it, in a specific way. You guide your moves, your expression, your attitude in a way -or towards a way- of creating a character which of course is yours, but at the same time it is not exactly you; sitting at your desk, at 6 o' clock in the afternoon while your mom is preparing dinner and your father -who probably just got back from work- is having a short nap. It is spectacle and it is fascinating. It's branding; you improve and you use the best and most powerful and potentially more popular characteristics of your personality by editing their sequence, choosing their order, isolating expressions to create tension and, employing techniques in order to create what, as well as how other people will think of you.

I think it's the same. Don't know really. Doesn't matter either. 'No prior knowledge of Flusser's work is necessary in order to participate.'[4] That is the best title.

PS: In my view, 'record in writing your experience of writing while writing' means: 'Record your thinking while writing'.


1. Vilém Flusser (May 12, 1920 – November 27, 1991) was a Czech-born cultural theorist and a media philosopher. His early work was marked by discussion of the thought of Martin Heidegger, and by the influence of existentialism and phenomenology.

2. 'For 96 days in 2006, a continuous musical work by composer Susan Stenger formed the major part of a show in Lyon's Musee d' art contemporain, curated by Mathieu Copeland and entitled 'Soundtrack for an exhibition'. The long duration of the piece resonated with the exhibition's exploration of temporariness and process.

3. -'I did'

4. In the 10th of November, 2011, Sandberg Institute -part of the Rietvelt Academy- in Amsterdam hosted an introductory workshop to the thought of Vilem Flusser, entitled 'From the technical image to technoimagination in the universe of Vilem Flusser'. The main objective of the workshop is to introduce the participants to some of the main concepts that run through the work of Vilém Flusser and it will be run as a reading group focusing on three essays. The workshop's notice was reading:

''Essays:
1. Imagination
2. The Photograph as Post-Industrial Object; An Essay on the Ontological Standing of   Photographs
3. How Technoimagination Might Work (From Communicology)
No prior knowledge of Flusser's work is necessary in order to participate. 

Thursday 10.11.2011 from 10-2, 3-5 p.m. Sandberg Instituut, Fred. Roeskestraat 98 1076 ED Amsterdam.''


Nikos Georgopoulos
Athens,
December 2011.