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

Research Project, Concept 3.2: 'June X, 2012', installation-performance (posted on 30/4/12)

'June X, 2012', installation-performance. Preparatory drawings.

While reassessing the idea of creating a sequence (Concept 3.1) composed by a family album and a yearbook -as a symbolism of the journey through which an individual acquires progressively his or her identity, I realised that what this sequence was lacking about was the actual journey. Through this process it became clear that you cannot really communicate a concept that -de facto- presupposes experience without its actual experience. On that basis, I reworked the aforementioned sequence and came up with a new idea that emerged through the self-critique and reassessment of the problematic aspects of Concept 3.1.

In particular, this concept (3.2) refers to the design of an installation, which aims at communicating self-awareness by setting up a context for an existential journey. Its visual form will be composed by a bookshelf full of things and a photo booth, symbolising respectively the concept of 'background' as well as that of 'identity'. By inviting people to participate and explore the bookshelf in order to choose an object that they realise it has contributed to who they have become, I will ask them (image 8) to take it into the photo booth and take a picture of them with it (image 4-7), hence, reproducing into infinity ''... what has occurred only once and cannot be repeated existentially''; the moment that they became aware about an aspect of themselves. Thus, conceptually the installation will be composed by our experience of an (allegorical) itinerary that goes progressively from our background to the acquisition of our identity.

On that basis, the installation (the context) will (hopefully) trigger an open and random (but designed as such) performance that will be filmed as a single shot video (image 3) in order to culminate into the final outcome of my research project that will be exhibited in the degree show as a video installation and a publication. The former will be the documentation of the journey from 'embarkation' and the latter will contain all the photographs that people took in the photo booth (image 16-18). This concept will be titled after the date that is going to take place (e.g. June 25, 2012) re-enforcing the idea that a moment which cannot be repeated existentially has been captured in time.

As far as concerns the space that this participatory installation can take place and be recorded, Camberwell Space (image 9) is one of the most suitable, since lots of people can access it, as opposed to an isolated studio somewhere in the college. In addition, Camb Space has the infrastructure for accommodating such an installation in terms of lighting, status and so on, so forth. What is more, there will be a 4-member supporting team (including the writer) for 'controlling' the whole situation.

In conclusion, the two problems that emerged out of Concept 3.1 such as the difficulty of organising different photo shoots for handling so many different people as well as the exclusion of the feeling of a journey and that of it’s experience seem to be resolved by the current concept -June X, 2012. Despite the fact that this may go horribly wrong, I strongly believe that this idea is very relevant; minimal; strong and –if designed and implemented carefully will- address exactly the objectives of my research project. In other words, I believe that this is the core idea of this research project.

'June X, 2012', installation-performance. Preparatory drawings

'June X, 2012', installation-performance. Preparatory drawings

Photo booth tests

'June X, 2012', installation-performance. Research for a space suitable for the installation. Photo by N. Gergopoulos.

'June X, 2012', installation-performance. Research for bookshelf systems. Print screen.

'June X, 2012', installation-performance. Research for bookshelf systems. Print screen.

'June X, 2012', installation-performance. Research for bookshelf systems. Photo by N. Gergopoulos.

'June X, 2012', installation-performance. Research for bookshelf systems. Photo by N. Gergopoulos.

'June X, 2012', installation-performance. Photo booth study. 'Rough Trade', Brick lane, London. Photo by N. Gergopoulos.

'June X, 2012', installation-performance. Photo booth study. 'Photo Centre', Oxford covered market, Oxford. Photo by N. Gergopoulos.

'June X, 2012', installation-performance. Photo booth study. 'Tesco', Angel, London. Photo by N. Gergopoulos.

Installation-performance catalogue., layout and typography tests. Camb MA Graphics studio, Wed-3-May. Photo by N. Georgopoulos

Installation-performance catalogue., layout and typography tests. Camb MA Graphics studio, Wed-3-May. Photo by N. Georgopoulos

Installation-performance catalogue, layout and typography tests. Camb MA Graphics studio, Wed-3-May. Screen shot.

'June X, 2012', installation graphics. Instructions on how to participate.

'June X, 2012', installation graphics. Identification for the supporting team.

'June X, 2012', Installation-performance catalogue. Mock-up.

'June X, 2012', Installation-performance catalogue. Mock-up.

Nikos Georgopoulos
London,
May, 2012

Research Project, Concept 3.1: 'Identity', family album & year book (posted on 21/4/12)

'Photos', family album, 21.5 x 28 cm, ready-made.

After the artist book I came up with in order to test the idea of Stream of consciousness (concept 2) it became clear that it was not the most suitable format for exploring an itinerary towards a state of being such as self-awareness. On that basis, I continued researching on how artists and designers communicate various states of being within visual culture. Inspired by Ed Ruscha's 26 Gasoline Stations, I came to the conclusion that an existential itinerary such as the one through which an individual acquires progressively the state of self-awareness, is about the acquisition of his or her's identity. And at the same time, if we assume that a person is embarking on a psychoanalytic process in order to gain a deeper understanding of the unconscious process that happen into our minds, they do that in order to understand themselves better and to acquire and/or accept who they are; hence their identity and hopefully live free.

Having said that, I came up with the idea to create a sequence that would symbolise the existential itinerary through which an individual becomes progressively aware of themselves. This sequence is composed -and it is being composed at the time being- by a family album and a year book. A family album is connected with the concept of family, home and protection whereas a yearbook is inextricably linked with that of graduation and, therefore, leaving home...

Since this project aims at communicating the concept of self-awareness to people by inviting them to experience a journey, I filled the album with (google) images that does not constitute a man's personal memories but with 'events' that people tend to connect their own memories with. In that respect, the imagery was selected out of 10 categories from the 1960s onwards: social and political events; sports; films; technology; cars; tourism; book titles; dancing and European advertising. For example, the 8-year-old Macaulay Culkin (Home Alone) himself, is nobody's personal memory. However, his portrait encapsulates some of the childhood memories that people have: a specific event of their childhood; the love and sensitivity of their family that they have 'attached' on that image -since human beings tend to do that while growing up in a fundamentally 'spectacular' epoch.

I invited people to take this potentially collective 'family' album and think about which one of these images they feel it is connected and/or it has contributed to who they are at the moment. The next step it is to choose the aforementioned image and get captures by holding the image and hence, reproducing to infinity a moment of awareness through an identity photograph, which will culminate into the synthesis of a yearbook.

'Photos', family album, 21.5 x 28 cm, ready-made. 'Movies' spread.

'Photos', family album, 21.5 x 28 cm, ready-made. 'Technology' spread.

'Photos', family album, 21.5 x 28 cm, ready-made. 'Cars' spread.

'Photos', family album, 21.5 x 28 cm, ready-made. 'Music' spread.

Year book, mock up, 17 x 24 cm. Spread.

Photo shoot, backstage, Camberwell College of Arts, Graphic design studio, Thu-19-Apr.

Work in progress, Camberwell College of Arts, Graphic design studio, Fri-20-Apr.

Work in progress (Layout & typography tests), Camberwell College of Arts, Graphic design studio, Thu-26-Apr.

Work in progress (Layout & typography tests), Camberwell College of Arts, Graphic design studio, Thu-26-Apr.

Year book, mock up, 17.5 x 24.3 cm. Cover.

Year book, mock up, 17.5 x 24.3 cm. Spread.

Year book, mock up, 17.5 x 24.3 cm. Spread.

Concept 3.1 Reassessment:
Design wise, this idea is very interesting and it seems working really well as a project about personal awareness. Things that need to be considered though is that the photo shoot needs to be done on a photographic studio in order to use a standardised background and lighting. What is more, it needs to be taken into account the fact that in order to make a year book I will need at least 100 people as volunteers to participate, so as to create the sense of continuity that a year book has.

However, my view is that the current status of this idea has 2 problems -a practical and a conceptual. The former is referring into the difficulty of organising many different photo shoots for so many different people where I will have to explain the idea each time in order to invite them to undertake this allegorical itinerary. The second problem, and probably the most crucial to be considered is a conceptual one. More specifically, it is the fact that the fundamental composition of this sequence excludes 'the experience' and the sense of a progressive itinerary through which a person acquires a state of awareness, since it represents 'the embarkation' (family album) and it goes straight to 'the destination' (year book).

In conclusion, the realisation and testing of this concept is still in progress. What is more, the conceptual problem that arises out of the 'absence' of a progressive journey could be resolved with the verbal description that each person -included in this book- could provide on why they chose a particular picture. This description could be a few lines of text and could be included in the back pages of the year book.


Nikos Georgopoulos,
London,
April 2012