Sara Cwynar, 'Accidental Archives', exhibition project, 2012. (posted on 16/8/12)

Sara Cwynar, 'Accidental Archives', 2012. Cooper Cole Gallery, Toronto.

Sara Cwynar (Vancouver, 1985) is a New York-based Graphic Designer and artist working in photography, book-making and digital media. She studied Graphic Design and Photography at York University and English at the University of British Columbia.

Having previously worked on the New York Times re-design she launched Accidental Archives, a personal project through which she ''... explores all the junk and souvenirs and photos we accumulate... also the collective body of photographs we see and understand in our culture.” Clearly influenced by the concept of Archiving within visual culture, she uses objects that she has been accumulating over the course of the past decade, she sorts them out by colour and photograph them as beautiful syntheses, producing thus, a series of somewhat eerie Still Lifes.

Cwynar's project is on show at the Cooper Cole Gallery in Toronto until the 18th of August, 2012. See more for this project here.


Nikos,
London
August 2012

Metahaven, 'Signal (Murcia)', installation, 2010. (posted on 13/7/12)

Metahaven, 'Signal Murcia', installation at the former Post Office, Murcia
(ACAF), Manifesta 8, 2010. Original photo by Ilya Rabinovich. Print screen.

Metahaven is a studio ''for design and research'' based in Amsterdam. Founded in 2007 by Vinca Kruk and Daniel van der Velden, their work -both commissioned and self-directed- focuses on identity while reflecting political and social issues through its provocative graphic design schemes. Amongst the studio's research projects are the Sealand Identity Project as well as the celebrated Uncorporate Identity (Lars Müller, 2010), a self-initiated book on politics and visual identity.

In 2010, Metahaven were invited to participate in Manifesta 8, Murcia, Spain. Perhaps, in order to gain a deeper understanding of the concept that Metahaven came up with for their Manifesta project we should take into consideration that Murcia is a very important region for the European fruit and vegetable market. Having said that though, some of the production -eg. lemons- has moved to Northern Africa or even to other places outside Europe. The issue of Manifesta 8 was suggestively titled to be “in dialogue with Northern Africa.”

Through an interview taken by the Highlights, an online art journal, Metahaven observe that ''... fruit has an origin. From that origin it travels in a network, between nodes of distribution, until it ends up at the place where it is eaten.''[1] The designers came up with a fruit-market installation -with fresh fruit provided by a cooperative of organic farmers who run a self-managed business, exporting throughout Spain and to some other European countries.  As a project, Signal (Murcia) is considered to be an alternative labeling system for the fruits; one that is based less on the characteristics of the product but more on the sociopolitical situation of the place they have been produced at. Through the same interview, Metahaven pointed out that they ''.. love fruit labels as devices that contain information, ideas, and dreams... Unlike packaging, fruit labels do not overshadow the product. Often, all they do is convey the origin or name of the fruit, as well as a certain atmosphere... ''.[2]

To sum up, Kruk and van der Velden ''.. are interested to voluntarily approach the constraints of commissioned design, while operating in an art context...''.[3] And I suppose that by now, the seemingly weird title  -Signal (Murcia)- just started to make some sense. 

Metahaven, 'Signal Murcia', installation at the former Post Office, Murcia
(ACAF), Manifesta 8, 2010. Original photo by Ilya Rabinovich. Print screen.

Notes:
1, 2, 3. The Highlights.org ‘Interview with Metahaven’
< http://thehighlights.org/wp/interview-with-metahaven> [Accessed on 25.07.12]


Nikos Georgopoulos
London,
July 12

Cardiff & Miller, 'Opera for a Small Room', installation, 2005. (posted on 7/5/12)

Cardiff & Miller, 'Opera for a Small Room', mixed-media installation, 2005. Screen shot.

Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller are 2 Canadian artists who work together primarily producing sound and sculptural works. I have included this particular project of theirs in my research because of some similarities that my research project and their installation share with each other, not on the basis of concept and/or content, but on the basis of the materials that have been used in order to compose a context. Opera for a Small Room is a mixed media installation including sound, record players, records and synchronized lighting.

At this point, it would be very usefull to concider a small extract from the project's description that is available through their website: ''...There are twenty-four antique loudspeakers out of which come songs, sounds, arias, and occasional pop tunes. There are almost two thousand records stacked around the room and eight record players, which turn on and off robotically syncing with the soundtrack. The sound of someone moving and sorting albums is heard. The audience cannot enter the room. To see and hear his world, they have to look through windows, holes in the walls, and cracks in the doorways and watch his shadow move around the room.'' 

In conclusion, while that sort of construction of a situation is very interesting and provoking(image 2), personally I find a bit frustrating the fact that one does not really understands what this situation is about -beyond the obvious- and most importantly, what is the outcome -visual, conceptual or other- seeking to communicate. You can see more about this project here.

Cardiff & Miller, 'Opera for a Small Room', mixed-media installation, 2005. Screen shot.

Nikos Georgopoulos,
London,
May 2012

Dimitris Papaioanou, 'Inside', performance, 2011. (posted on 7/5/12)

Dimitris Papaioanou, 'Inside', performance, 2011. Screen shot.

Dimitris Papaioanou is a Greek stage director, choreographer and visual artist who drew international media attention with his creative direction of the opening ceremony of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games.

In 2011 he conceived and directed 'Inside' as 6 hour stage work with no beginning, middle or end. Surprisingly, he presented it for a limmeted number of performances in a contemporary Concert Hall-music theatre in Athens, as opposed to some sort of a squad that one would expect for such an avant-garde, weird spectacle. Here it would be very helpful to consider a small part of the press release:

''... You can watch as much as you like, sit wherever you like, exit and re-enter as many times as you like. INSIDE is a work born where two situations come together: a performance that runs endlessly meets audiences who come, go and switch seats whenever they like. On stage the work constantly recycles itself. It makes use of the same material in different ways that are never repeated. A single simple series of personal, everyday actions is combined and superimposed to create countless compositions. A bedroom in the heart of a theatre transforms a personal place into public space. A theatre in the heart of the city opens its doors to the public and invites audiences to watch the action as if gazing at a landscape. INSIDE treats the theatre as an exhibition space, the work as an exhibit, and invites audiences to act as visitors.''

As far as concearns the performers they are all professional dancers. But, in each performance a limmted number of people from the audience are encouraged to participate in the performance with a short rehearsal before hand. Because, that kind of interaction makes sense and offers to the format of the performance the conceptual validity that needs and perhaps, it is designed for acquiring progressively. ''...  a place in the performance has been set aside each day for one audience member. If INSIDE appealed to you and you can see yourself inside the room, talk to one of the ushers to sign up. We’ll decide together which day you’ll join us on stage. On that day you’ll rehearse with us for about an hour to learn the same sequence of movements that everyone performs. Then you’ll be ready to come inside. We’ll give you one free ticket for a friend to come see you, and a 15-minute DVD of your time on stage to remember us by when you leave.''

Nikos Georgopoulos,
London,
May 2012

Dimitris Papaioanou, 'Inside', performance, 2011. Screen shot.

Dimitris Papaioanou, 'Inside', performance, 2011. Screen shot.

Dimitris Papaioanou, 'Inside', performance, 2011. Screen shot.

Interview with Dimitris Papaioanou about 'Inside'.

Stefan Sagmeister, 'Deitch Steam Room', installation, 2008. (posted on 7/5/12)

Stefan Sagmeister, 'Deitch Steam Room', installation, 2008.

Stefan Sagmeister is a very well known Austrian Graphic Designer who lives and works in New York. Through out his career, Sagmeister lectures regularly and he has worked across all kinds of platforms, from the Casa da Musica identity and Lou Reed's record sleeves to Aiga Detroit poster and various large scale, public or site specific installations.

As part of his show called 'Things I have learned in my life so far', which was shown at Deitch Projects on Grand Street in New York's Soho district, Sagmeister and his team created a small steam room in the storefront of the gallery that kept the windows permanently fogged up. They invited an entire array of New York designers (each one every hour) to come and write any of the exhibition's maxims (such as: assuming is stifling or worrying solves nothing) into the steamed up windows.

Stefan Sagmeister, 'Deitch Steam Room', installation, 2008.

In my view, it is fascinating how this installation works in conjunction to the rest of the show, or as a sort of viral performance for the exhibition. Apparently, the theme of the exhibition is about things that the designer learned in his life and have kept in his diary -as he had pointed out repeatedly while giving lectures. In that respect, the whole show was a visualisation of these things, which came out of his diaries as statements, e.g. 'Everybody thinks they are right' or 'Trying to look good limits my life' and so on, so forth. What is more, it's a very interesting notion if one thinks about how the installation was 'visualised' since it's very concept is about memories, experiences, life and death, oblivion, desperation, struggle, salvation, story-telling, remembrance, redemption etc. All of these things can fit in the conceptual or literal context and circumstances of that small steam room.

Nikos Georgopoulos
London,
May 2012

Sulki & Min, 'Office for Archival Reproduction', installation, 2006. (posted on 6/5/12)

 

Sulki & Min, 'Office for Archival Reproduction', interactive installation, 2009. Screen shot.

Sulki Choi and Min Choi are 2 Korean Graphic Designers who set up on their own in 2003 in order to work together on various commissioned and self-initiated projects. I first learned about the couple a few months ago when I was doing some research on the Jan van Eyck Academie identity, Maastricht, NL.

The 'Office for Archival Reproduction' (from now on referred to as OAR) is an installation that the couple produced as a contribution to ‘Frame Builders’, Insa Art Space (IAS), Seoul, 24 May – 2 July 2006. The installation aims to become a temporary office responsible for documenting how the IAS Archive is used during the period from 24 May to 2 July 2006. The central activity of OAR is to collect photo-copied pages of the Archive’s materials, made by its visitors, staffs, or any other users. The collected copies will be organized into a book afterwards as a record of the IAS Archive’s life: without any central planning, it’s going to be an almost random archive of the Archive itself. I am attaching hereto a small part of the text, which was posted as part of the installation.

''... Although the OAR is physically inhabiting the IAS, it’s not part of its official organisation: the office has no employees, and its operation is completely reliant on visitors’ – your – participation. We encourage you to freely browse the Archive, find materials that interest you, or the ones for any reason you think worth highlighting, then duplicate and contribute the pages to OAR.''

In my view, this work is very interesting and the concept that the final outcome of this installation is '... completely reliant on visitors’ participation' is fascinating. However, for some reason I feel that this usefulness that nowadays seem to accompany some fine-art projects is accompanying this one as well. In particular, the way that this project is installed and/or conceived, inevitably raises questions; the usual unanswered ones that emerge out of various projects within visual culture such as 'what was the original idea of your project?'. In other words, 'what was the question or issue that your concept attempted to address?' 'What is the use of this 'temporary office -if any?'. 'Is it going to be something like a publication that reflects something relevant and therefore useful to the organisation? 

Nikos Georgopoulos,
London,
May 2012

Blitz theatre group, 'Guns! Guns! Guns!', theatrical performance, 2009. (posted on 6/5/12)

 

Blitz theatre group, 'Guns! Guns! Guns!', 2009. Presented at the National Theatre of Greece. Screen shot.

Blitz theatre group was formed in 2004, in Athens, Greece. In 2008 they conceived and directed a theatrical performance in the National Theatre of Greece called 'Guns!Guns!Guns!' In the press release they use a Jean Baudrillard's quote which reads that ''... since the world follows a delirious path, we have to adopt a delirious point of view.''

'Guns! Guns! Guns!' is a delirious review of the 20th century. Using various means, 6 performers, one after the other, sitting behind a big table in front of the audience, present and re-present crucial -for them- moments and characteristics of the century. Historical personalities, audio documents, romantic heroes, moments, public speeches, guns, movements, songs, flags etc. are the raw material of the performance.

Unfortunately, I haven't seen the performance when it was elaborated in Athens. Therefore, I can't really analyze it on the basis of its production. What I can say though, is that the concept is very very interesting and if produced and directed very good, I can imagine being brilliant!

Nikos Georgopoulos

London,

May 2012

John Smith, 'Associations', 16mm film, 1975. (posted on 6/5/12)

John Smith, 'Associations', 1975. 7 mins, colour & Sound, 16mm. Screen shot.

I saw John Smith's Associations an evening at Camberwell Space during the 2nd week of the Into the Fold exhibition, organised by the Camberwell Press. I was shocked -it was that good! 

''... Images from magazines and colour supplements accompany a spoken text taken from ‘Word Associations and Linguistic Theory’ by Herbert H Clark.  By using the ambiguities inherent in the English language, Associations sets language against itself.  Image and word work together/against each other to destroy/create meaning.''

I have included it into my research because its concept is inspired by Psychoanalysis, stream of consciousness writing as well as free writing in order to build an amazing 'narrative'.
View extract here.

Nikos Georgopoulos
London,
May 2012

Martin Arnold, 'Piece Touchee', 16mm film, 1989. (posted on 6/5/12)

Martin Arnold's 'Pièce Touchée',16mm Film, b&w, 16 min. Screen shot.

Martin Arnold is an Austrian experimental filmmaker know for his obsessive reworkings of found footage. Lots of critics conccider him as a representative of the generations of artists making the transition between experimental film and video art.

In 1989 he did an 16mm film called 'Piece Touchee' based on a single 18-second shot from a 1954 film called 'The Human Jungle' (directed by Joseph M. Newman). What was the original movie about is irelevant -at least for his piece. By editing and stretching out the 18-second sequence into a 16 minutes piece.. he is attempting to create, or possibly unearth, narratives concealed within the mundane film from which he sampled. Thus, in 'Piece Touchee' are fitured a man and a woman. Their figures on the screen flip back and forth between frames as the motion is repeated and reversed and therefore, one can conceptually translate these movements and/or to identify through out the densification and dilutions hidden meanings that reference to the overall arising visual context of the movie he sampled.


In this one, a woman is reading something on the sofa. A man -husband- enters the room. By the editing, we can see the mans figure going back and forth and therefore, entering (the house) and stepping back (leaving the house). He might have a girlfriend, he might want to say that in his wife but he doe not have the balls to do that. Whereas, in the original movie he (the man) enters and kisses his wife straight away, Arnold calls him a liar and he proves his point through reworking his spectacular, stereotypical male entrance as the 'Piece Touchee.

View an excerpt here.

Nikos Georgopoulos
London,
May 2012

Virginia Woolf, 'Mrs Dalloway', film adaptation by Marleen Gorris, 1997. on screen (posted on 6/5/12)

Mrs Dalloway, 1997. Directed by Marleen Gorris. Print screen.

Recently, I have been doing some research on the Stream-of-Consciousness writing for my project at Camberwell. In literary criticism, Stream-of-Consciousness is used as a method to portray an individual’s point of view by giving the written equivalent of the character’s thought processes, either in a loose interior monologue, or in connection to his or her actions. But how is it translated when integrates into visual culture?

I discovered that one of the most important novels that use the Stream-of-Consciousness writing, Virginia Woolf's 'Mrs Dalloway'(1925) was adapted into a film by director Marleen Gorris in 1997. The whole movie was characterised by flash backs, parallel narratives, voice superpositions etc. I must admit that, even though Vanessa Redgrave was excellent as Mrs Dalloway, and the film was good and strong as well, its direction was a bit looser than I would have expected it to be. It wasn't clear enough some times and some times it was very coherent and therefore, the movie developed some sort of inconsistency.

In my view, the context of the film should be much more edited in a much more experimental way; not noisy, nor deconstructed. It could be as minimal as a very show, whitish single shot minimalistic video. It needed a little bit of Martin Arnold's approach. Other than that, as a film it was very much enjoyable.

Nikos Georgopoulos
London,
May 2012

On Guillermo Kuitca's 'Untitled', 1992. (posted on 16/3/12)

Guillermo Kuitca, 'Untitled', 1989. Oil on vinyl covered mattress. Taken from the book 'The Atlas of Emotion' (Giuliana Bruno)

Cartography is increasingly becoming a very popular and central locus of contemporary visual culture, not only because artists are making maps -travel or subversive ones- but because ''... artistic endeavors are curatorially measured and exhibited as maps that chart the trajectory of a movement''.

In 1992, Argentinian artist Guillermo Kuitca, produced a series of works under the title 'Untitled'. The main themes underpinning Kuitca's work is the mapping of history and loss. In this particular series, the artist depicts imaginary maps by painting them on mattresses. The mattress' buttons link areas and territories. The maps emerge in the surface like a stained memory. Hence, the mattress becomes a living document of one's personal history; of what he or she is dreaming of during the night or of which memories recalls when he or she is going to bed. In Guiliana Brunos' words ''... the mattress was a witness. It absorbed a story, some event -perhaps too many events or not quite enough of them. Now, inevitably, it recounts the tale of what was lived, or unlived''. 

This project can be seen as a form of tender mapping. Not because visually it depicts a map. Rather, because it associates an object that symbolizes home and sleep with an image that in real life can not exist there, but emotionally does. This project is an emotional map because ''... travel and home has been in constant interaction''.


A perfect name for his 'untitled' works could be 'burning beds'.

On Guy Debord's 'naked city' (posted on 16/3/12)

'The naked city', Guy Debord & Asger Jorn, 1957. Print screen.

Back in the 50's, through the Lettrist group, a forerunner of the Situationist International, Guy Debord introduced the term Psychogeography whose definition describes '... the study off the specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organised or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals'.[1] ''Pick up the map, go out into the city, and walk the circle, keeping as close as you can to the curve. Record the experience as you go, in whatever medium you favor... Complete the circle, and the record ends. Walking makes for content; footage for footage.''[2]

 Tender mapping, a cartographic genre established by Madeleine de Scudery's map of Tenderness in 1654[3], played an important role in the Situationists' psychogeography. Inspired by a 1948 American detective film called Naked City (directed by Jules Dassin), Guy Debord and Asger Jorn designed in 1957 a subversive map of the same name in order to remap Paris on the basis of 'a mobile architecture of living'. The map of The naked city was brought into being by 19 fragments, cut out from a travel map of Paris, whose montage remakes ''... an urban topography into a social and affective landscape''. Through the fragmentation of Paris and its situationist re-construction, the map forms new relations among the city's parts and their inhabitants and reconfigures them with red directional arrows that link the cut outs. In short, through the map of The naked city, the Situationists attempted a remapping of Paris by considering the relationship between spaces and emotions, and as Guy Debord himself stated ''... spatial development must take into account the emotional effects''(Guy Debord, Report on the Construction of Situations, 1958).

In that sense, Situationists' geography of 'lived situations' consists a tender cartography, very similar to the allegorical tactics featured in de Scudery's map of Tenderness, and as Guiliana Bruno puts it ''... in its exploration of the emotional edge of lived space as an affective traversal of the street, situationist mapping constituted itself as a socio-political psychoanalysis of urban space''.


Notes:
1. Debord, G. Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography
2. MacFarlane, R. A Road of One's Own. Times Literary Supplement, Octomber 7, 2005
3. Bruno, G. (2002) Atlas of Emotion: journeys in Art, Architecture, and Film. New York: Verso.

On Madeleine de Scudery's 'Carte du pays de Tendre' (posted on 15/3/12)

'Carte du pays de Tendre' (the map of the land of tenderness). Designed by Madeleine de Scudery in 1665 for her novel 'Clerie'. First engraved by Francois Chauveau. Taken from the book 'The Atlas of Emotion' (Giuliana Bruno)

Nowadays, people are very much familiar with maps, since such cartographic schemes are inextricably related to the concept of a journey.  Having said that though, there seem to be another genre of cartography with which we may not be so familiar with. Such geography is not intended to identify an existing geographical territory of the world, rather it is about representing the experience -gained through the journey- as a journey.

Tender geography; imaginary cartography; emotional mapping; tender cartography; allegorical geography, all of these terms are indeed very much relevant to be used for describing such navigational schemes. The map of the land of Tenderness (carte du pays de Tendre) is one of the very early examples -if not the first- of such cartographic approach. Designed in 1654 by Madeleine de Scudery for her novel Clelie[1], and first engraved by Francois Chauveau, the map of tenderness is a geographic allegory of emotions and 'relational space'. It is ''... an imagenary cartography of intimate space, where emotions take place and are spatially represented in their motion...''[2].

As far as concerns the narrative context of de Scudery's novel Clelie, the map is said to be a plan designed by the eponymous character in order to show the way to the land of Tenderness. In particular, one can observe a landscape composed by allegorical fixtures, such as imaginary towns, rivers, sea, lakes, trees and mountains. To name a few, there is the 'River of Inclination', 'the Sea of Enmity', the 'Dangerous Sea', the 'Lands Undiscovered', the 'Town of Oblivion', 'the Town of Tenderness', the one of 'Alacrity' and so forth.

Through her book 'Atlas of Emotion', Guiliana Bruno comments that ''... there are no fixed directives for this map tour. In the undetermined itinerary, several movements are possible and encouraged. There are even different destinations.'' For example, if one wants to reach the land of tenderness and approach the undiscovered lands, there are 3 possible itineraries to follow, along which emotional states, in the form of towns, rivers, lakes etc appear. As Bruno notes, ''... these  routes are a spatialized representation of the stages of love''. One can reach 'tender upon inclination' by following the 'river of Inclination', which then leads into the 'Dangerous sea' and beyond, into the amorous 'Lands Undiscovered'. The second possible itinerary to follow in order to reach the aforementioned destination would be to reach 'tender upon Esteem' (respect). Furthermore, one can reach 'tender upon Recognizance' (gratitude). Even though, the aforementioned imaginary itineraries are drawn as 3 different routes which lead to a destination, all 3 of them connect at some point. Exactly, as it happens in real life and in real emotional relations between human beings. ''Time and discourse are not only understood spatially but are mobilised in imaginative ways''.

In conclusion, as Bruno puts it, Madeleine de Scudery's map of tenderness ''... embodies a narrative voyage. That is, it visualises, in the form of a landscape, an itinerary of emotions which is, in turn, the topos of the novel.'' In that sense, ''... the exterior world conveys an interior landscape... ''  and the way ''... to traverse that land is to visit the ebb and flow of a personal and yet social psychogeography.'' Hence, the map itself becomes the voyage and the spectator, its passenger.

Notes:
1. Madeleine de Scudery, Clelie, histoire romaine, 10 vols, Paris: Augustin Courbe, 1654-60
2. Bruno, G. (2002) Atlas of Emotion: Journeys in Art, Architecture, and Film. New York: Verso

On Ed Ruscha's 'Twentysix Gasoline Stations' (posted on 11/3/12)

Ed Ruscha, 'Twentysix Gasoline Stations', cover, 1963. Print screen.

Ed Ruscha (b.1937) is an American artist who is working with subject matters such as the banality of everyday life. Born in Nebraska and raised in Oklahoma City, throughout his work, Ruscha ''... consistently combines the cityscape of his adopted hometown with vernacular language to communicate a particular urban experience.''

In 1963, Ruscha published his 1st photographic book -which is considered as the 1st artist's book ever been made, a 48-page publication called 'Twenty six Gasoline Stations'. Through out the book, Ruscha documents various of his trips along Rout66, between Los Angeles and his hometown, OKLAHOMA City. In the book 'Ed Rouscha and Photography' it is written that by ''... using his Yashica camera, he took the pictures from across the street, mostly during the day, with the light either behind him or to the side, which emphasized the stations' facades''.

In an interview to Paul Karlstrom between 1980-81, Ruscha said that the title for the book came long before he started taking the pictures. Having said that, it is very much important to consider at this point the fact that the artist belongs to a generation that grew up in an era where the automobile was the symbolism of freedom, and therefore, roads that connected small places with bigger ones seemed to be the medium for 'individual salvation'. ''Ruscha, however, was not interested in cars themeselves as much as in the ride...'' In his essay 'Words as landscapes', Kerry Brougher notes:

''Back in 1956, in the days when those filling stations still pumped ethyl, two 18-years old 'Okies' were making their way across country in a black 1950 Ford. Stopping at nearly every filling station on Route 66 to put another quart of oil in the car, Manson Williams, who would go on to write the hit song 'Calssical Gas', and Ed Rouscha were moving to Los Angeles, aiming straight toward the sunset... the warm weather, beaches, girls and art school =and away from the small-town, repressive environment of Oklahoma City.''

Ed Ruscha, 'Twentysix Gasoline Stations', spread, 1963. Print screen.

Ed Ruscha, 'Twentysix Gasoline Stations', spread, 1963. Print screen.

So, in that sense, when Ruscha made this book through which he showcases (only) photographs he took of Gasoline Stations during his trips on Route 66, he attempts to compose and/or to archive an existential journey through which he broke with his Catholic past and begun his life to become who he is now. He attempts to compose an existential journey -by archiving landmarks of such journeys- for all of us who have been through such itineraries. Gasoline stations are crucial points in a road trip, since without them such journeys would not have been possible. By using his camera more like a capturing device rather than an expressive tool, and by documenting Gas Stations, he attempts to document all these things and meanings that they (Gas Stations) encapsulate. By creating a sequence composed by fragments he observes during his journey, through his right window, he is creating a map; a very subversive one.

In conclusion, as Brougher notes: ''In one of his early paintings, 'U.S. 66 (1960)... still has its feet.. in Abstract Expressionism; but the hovering 'US 66' which is superimposed over the sky... with its missing periods, can be read not only as 'United States' but also as 'us' -we are Route 66''. We have become who we are because of that journey, which 'saved' our lives. While we are approaching our destination we are starting to realise that. And that 'particular urban experience' is the very essence of an existential journey; that of the acquisition of our identity.




Nikos Georgopoulos
London,
March 2012

On Jonathan Ellery's '136 Points of Reference' (posted on 11/3/12)

Jonathan Ellery, '136 Points of Reference', 2005. Print screen.

In 2005, London based Graphic Designer, Jonathan Ellery, released a book through out which he examined the influences ''... that have informed and defined his and the studios’ work.''[1]

Through the book, Ellery is attempting to testify his points of reference; images and objects, books and photographs that, in one way or another, had an effect on, or they are connected to him. It is a personal archive that he wants to celebrate but at the same time to let go. Hence, in order to do that, he has to be sure that he will save it from oblivion by documenting it through photography, since photography's very essence is to reproduce to infinity ''... what could never be repeated existentially.'' [2]

So, in a sense, Jonathan Ellery is immortalizing 136 Points of Reference of his. On that basis, it seems that as a designer, initiates a project that shares the same ideas, in a different form though, with Gerhard Richter's 'Atlas'. It is this very human impulsion for individual commemoration as well as the fear of death and destruction -which oblivion stands for in this particular context- that creates this framework from which such projects emerge within contemporary visual culture.


Notes:
1. http://jonathanellery.com/projects/?id=6&subcat=&cat=3&i=27
2. Barthes, R. (1981) Camera Lucida. New York: Hill and Wang

Nikos Georgopoulos
London,
March 2012

On Gerhard Richter's 'Atlas' (posted on 11/3/12)

Gerhard Richter's 'Atlas', Sheet No 3. Print screen.

In ancient Greek mythology, Atlas was a Titan whose duty was to hold in his arms the sky -in contemporary terms one could translate the word 'sky' as 'the universe'- and thus, preventing it by falling on earth. However, as Buchloh observes in his essay 'The Anomic Archive', ''...in the 19th century, the term was increasingly deployed in German to identify any tabular display of systematized knowledge (image.1), so that one could have encountered an atlas in almost all fields of empirical science...''.

Gerhard Richter (b.1932) is a world acclaimed German visual artist whose work has helped re-define contemporary painting. In 1962 he begun working on a personal project, called 'Atlas', exhibited for the first time in public in 1972, at the Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst, in Utrecht (image.4). Its synthesis begun with everyday life photographs (sometimes found, sometimes the artist's work) that Richter was collecting as well as donated by friends. Post cards, images extracted by newspapers, pornographic ones as well as historical images such us ''... shots of emaciated concentration-camp inmates...''.

Since its 1st exhibition, Richter's 'Atlas' has been exhibited several times, in different places of the world including 5.000 fragments as well as changes and re-arrangements of its content ''... as an organism that continues to evolve and change''[3], depicting aspects of his personal life, memories and experiences as well as sketches, studies or the artist's various states of being. For instance, when Gerhard Richter was working on the Titian's Annunciation, he did not included in his 'Atlas' the photographic sources and studies that he did on it, while being on Venice, but he included the photographs he took during his stay there, as a tourist.

The whole 'Atlas' is characterized by such configurations and relations between Richter's body of work (public) and its backstage cosmos (private). On that basis, the 'Atlas' is the artist's world, and as much complex and discursive as it appears to be, it is organized into a system (image.3a.b) -that doesn't necessarily follows an order in terms of chronology, but that of content and form- that allows the viewer to observe fragments and through which, to perceive the artist's personality and psychic processes. It is a synthesis, transformed progressively -and conceptually- by fragments into an identity; his identity, as much complex and discursive as a man's identity can possibly be.

In December 2003, 'Atlas' was exhibited for the 1st time in the United Kingdom, at White Chapel gallery, London. The press release, published on the occasion of the exhibition, noted amongst others that the ''... 'Atlas' maps the ideas, processes, life and times of one of the most important painters of the late 20th Century.''

'Atlas of the world'. Print screen.

Hanging plan of the 'Atlas', Gerhard Richter. Taken by the book 'Gerhard Richter: Atlas' (1997)

(detail) Diagram of the 'Atlas', Gerhard Richter. Taken by the book 'Gerhard Richter: Atlas' (1997)

Gerhard Richter's 'Atlas'(1972), exhibition catalogue. Print screen.

Gerhard Richter's 'Atlas', installation view, Stadtische im Lenbachhaus, Munich, 1989. Photocopy.

Nikos Georgopoulos,
London,
March 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

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.

'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


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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
 

Eternity is ephemeral (posted on 1/1/12, happy new year!)

'Eternity', 2010 / 78" x 96" x 3" / by Alicia Eggert & Mike Flening. Screen shot.

Eternity is an installation created by artists Alicia Eggert & Mike Flening in 2010 consisting of 30 electric clocks rear-mounted to a large sheet of white acrylic. The black hour and minute hands of the clocks are aligned to spell the word ‘eternity’, and the clocks are plugged in to a series of power strips on the floor. As soon as they begin moving, the word almost immediately becomes a jumble of moving black lines.

'Eternity', 2010 / 78" x 96" x 3" / by Alicia Eggert & Mike Flening. Screen shot.

'Eternity', 2010 / 78" x 96" x 3" / by Alicia Eggert & Mike Flening. Screen shot.

Source: Design boom
Read more here. 

Nikos Georgopoulos