Diploma Thesis
EX-SITU[existing situations] is an interactive installation that incorporates a computer, sound, and lighting technologies in which users/ viewers take part in the destruction of the painting by stepping on it. At the same time, a motion tracking system marks visitors and a light spot tracks them.
The content of EX SITU calls for awareness of social indifference, self-promotion, and their impact on society. The structure of EX SITU is intentionally ambiguous, revealing the obsession/fascination for the protection of material in contrast with the empathy for other people.
The interactive installation underlines the responsibility of individuals in society. The theoretical part analyses the Destruction in Art Symposium in 1966 and The bystander effect, or bystander apathy, in which individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim when other people are present.
"Dharmadhatu" is an experimental audiovisual video with linear narrative. It has been created with an original experimental technique, where each frame results from a live recording of the behavior of flowing colors on a painted surface.
Τhis piece refers to a suffocating relationship between a father and a son. This oppressive relationship is expressed by the father’s obsessive calls to the son to come and eat his food warm. The son lives in an imperative rhythm of breakfast/lunch/dinner with few getaways because his father never stops calling him, while having a piercing voice. The father lives in a rhythm of constant orthostatic food production. A very elastic son, a very rigid father. A piece of wood, also rigid, who attracts the son. She had been washed by the sea. The highest boiling temperature is at sea-level. Splashing and seething became one. Apnea and immersion in his father’s pot, which is the symbol of his influence, eventually are leading to his release. He tightened so tight on her that for the first time he was stabilised. They were swept away from the waves and while floating they turned into furniture.
The current project is a digital, interactive, audiovisual application that can be used either as a virtual installation accompanied by a simultaneous projection of its content in the physical space or be distributed as an executable digital medium on any computer, compatible with its technical specifications. It examines the flow of information, its creation, collection, storage, interpretation and utilization through perceptual mechanisms that mutate -enhance or degrade- with the available tools of digital reality and its transformation from a sequence of serial, adjacent and referential values to one unified context, what is usually interpreted as meaning or significance. The participants of this reality are called upon to engage at the degree of signification that expresses them better, ranging from a purely perceptual and empirical viewing to a frantic clarification of everything included.
One week in ten minutes is a video in which the recording of unboxing, the act of opening the boxes, confronts the viewer with the repeated search in empty boxes that contain absolutely nothing. Each box is the promise of a gift which is to come, promising a gift whose dispatchment is always deferred.
The title of this artwork is "Where Do I Exist?". This is a virtual space that explores the relationship between reality and virtual reality. Moreover, it the result of a pandemic society that tends to communicate through social media. It is the impression of our lifes into a virtual world, free from our body and the stereotypes it might follows it. Could we be free from our body and ideas such as gender identity and death? What is the meaning of touch into an immaterial world? Anyone can be part of this artwork with a twitter hashtag of the word #immaterial.
The present postgraduate thesis was prepared in the context of the completion of the postgraduate program of the Department of Sound and Visual Arts of the Ionian University.
The study of the subject will be the facts and data on the occasion of the completion of 200 years since the Greek Revolution.
The present work aims to enrich the theoretical framework of study. Its structure is based on data that I have collected (rare photographic material, letters, etc.), from the Public Archives of the State, the Kapodistrias Museum and the Reading Company.
The video is a documentation of a spatial installation with a dual role, through viewing / observation and participation. The investigation of the relationship that develops between digital and real space, acting in it, as the main axis of the narrative, the human being is the framework of the research with object of study the concept of metaphor to the coexistence of experience as a narrative and of the experience of the present as a fact of performance. The real environment through recording projected into an analog painting and transferred to a digital environment (images-video- video projection) connecting the real, the digital and painting form. Respectively, the natural environment of the installation transferred to the projection surface, in a digital space, via the camera and projector.
An experimental workshop was realized at the Corfu Archaeological Museum, on May 2019. The workshop was designed within the frames of interdisciplinary learning and participatory art, based on Maker culture and STEAM education, willing to highlight the importance of arts and technology in learning. The participants, children and adolescents 11 to 15 years old, were initially guided to an important archaic find at the Archaeological museum of Corfu, a pediment depicting ancient Greek goddess Artemis-Gorgo, and got acquainted with the myth surrounding it. In two groups the participants made
1. electronic circuits which produced sounds via photo resistor and conductive paint and
2. conductive drawings inspired by the archaic pediment imagery.
The two groups combined their work to create interactive installations were circuits and sensors were used to “read” the tonal variations and line elements of the pencil drawings. Documentation indicates the childrens’ immersion into the experience.
Blah as an artwork that interacts with the phenomenon of the speaking subject. The artwork responds to the human voice with air, and the intensity of the air is proportional to the volume of the voice.
Borrowing immersive practices from physical theater and the Black Box framework, the project seeks to create a liberating condition where visitors have the opportunity to experiment with their voice outside the system of organized language.
Blah is the artistic part of my master thesis on the problematic behind the three dimensions of organized language: communication-expression-meaning.
1x1x0.4
The compositional method is based on the incorporation of sound material of cultural background into an electroacoustic piece. By drawing a linear narration, my aim was to demonstrate a unity, an imaginary community, which characterizes the Romani culture, despite the hybridic, complicated and diverse traditions deriving from the various European and Asian countries its people live in. A central question behind the making of this piece is what kind of role can a civilization have today, when the concept of space is eliminated by time- a key element in the dynamics of capitalism. What are the cultural consequences of the so-called annihilation of time and space, as materialized and tangible dimensions of social life? Are historical tradition and the search for roots promoted and reorganized as simulacra, imitations or/and museum culture, thourgh the demonstration of a partly deceptive past?
When the observer is standing in front of a work of art and is trying to comprehend it, they are consciously entering a recognition process. This is achieved because the brain recognizes the relationship between some shapes or colors in the piece of art and, automatically, recalls them from memory. This procedure creates the necessary conditions for the creation of new neural synapses. Using these facts?, the artist suggests an audiovisual performance that includes an interference of audio to the visual aspect? in real time.
Undergraduate Works
A short documentary, based on the theory of Observational Cinema. It is the portrait of the caretaker of the British Cemetery in the island of Corfu, Greece, Mr. Yorgos Psailas. The documentary deals with his daily life in the cemetery. Mr. Psailas also recounts the most important moments of his life as well as his thoughts about life and death.
A documentary about Lazaretto, the desert islet near the city of Corfu that functioned for centuries as a quarantine station as well as a place of execution for political prisoners during the Greek Civil War. The identity of the place is approached through fragmentary testimonies and original sources.
A journalist, who has lost his identity, visits an uncanny land, in which the smile is banned by law. He feels lost in its dystopia, consisted of self-destructive people, who deplore the smile. He gains many personal experiences that make him unaware of his aim and his human state as well. Will he eventually be able to find a way out?
Presentation of 3d projection mapping, on Church of Panagia ton Xenon, Kyra - Faneromeni (Old Town, Corfu, Greece), October 2, 2020 at 10:00.
In the dissertation, following the strategy of deliberate ambiguity and crossing different eras, we go through a path of images and information, which express hope and fear in various fields and they characterize every culture and every society.
At the same time, moving from formalism to realism, it emerges that the Aristotelian definition of the representational unity of space-time-action is no longer valid in art. Undoubtedly, the formalist movement has shown that planes are understood not only as sequences of logical units, but also as theoretical or ideological conceptions, where their connection is not legitimized on the basis of the principle of space-time unit, but by some abstract theoretical model, such as is the model of metaphor, the path through contradictions, symbolism and anything else that enhances the removal of the theoretical model. But also internal realism, which is not a theory of truth, highlights the convergence of two seemingly incompatible ideas.
The short documentary focuses on the preparation of the solo performance "EVA", performed by the dancer and performer Evangelia Randou. The project is based on her personal experiences and has been created and staged by her. The film reveals the moments when the dancer works with her body, experiments, creates and improvises. The documentary is a portrait of the dancer herself, but also of the work she creates.
Zoe is a 25 year-old student, living in Corfu island, Greece with her only friend and roommate Anne. Waking up late an afternoon Zoe realises that her friend is missing and she goes out at night alone in search of her. The strangely empty and quiet town, a series of bizzare events and the sense that she's been followed gives her the realization that something strange is going on and her eager to find her friend grows stronger.
At that time she comes across a dark human figure that wants to capture her. Trying to escape, Zoe ends up in a white room with nothing but a mirror inside.
As she walks closer to the mirror she sees that someone is trapped inside a room. Thinking that it's her friend Anne she reaches and goes through the mirror into that other room.
As she sits down next to the other person, thinking that she is Anne, she realizes it's her own self. In a desperate and decisive moment she tries to save her double, only to realize that her double can not cross to the other side of the mirror. Realizing that there's no way out the double lets go of Zoes hand.
Zoe wakes up in her room in the morning, gets dressed and goes for a walk by the sea in the now fully alive and noisy town. As she stands and stares at the waves she meets a girl named Anne sitting nearby. After the two girls meet they sit by the sea talking.
As Vincent van Gogh's "Starry Night" is one of my favorite paintings, I created an acoustic composition with the main goal of creating an atmosphere with a freer and more abstract approach. The small touches, the colors, the swirling flow, the natural landscape of the painting and the psychosynthesis of the artist are captured. The piece in combination with two images consists of three parts. In the first part, the night landscape is presented, in the second the intense emotions of the artist and in the third the nature with its power that calms the human soul.
Aynadamar: An important place as far back as when the Arabs were in the area. The whole region of Andalusia was supplied with water through that spring, reaching as far as Madrid. Several years later, the poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca is taken there to be executed. His work in turn supplied the whole Spain and spread to the rest of the world. The documentary intertwines significant events of his life with dramatised excerpts from his work, aiming at achieving Duende (as Lorca used to say), the quintessence of all things.
The cinematic portrait of a visual artist, Demetris Papazachos, a senior student of the Fine Arts School in Thessaloniki, is about featuring an artist without just showing his artwork but emphasizing at his personality and his artistic thinking instead. Through his internal journey, gay culture elements are projected while an interesting question is raised: Who is "A Visual Artist" at last?
Myths are living stories that grow with time, change, adapt, but continue being a source for research, inspiration and creativity. The interactive audiovisual theatrical performance INRIRI questions the adaptation of an archetypal myth at a time of many dimensions and levels with elements from physical theater and embedded interactive technology in the performing space. Parts of the story are a Caribbean myth which transforms the body, a woodpecker and some new experimental technologies. On stage two bodies try to communicate with themselves and the environment around them and to discover anew what a body can be, what the relation and connection with the other body and which are the influences of the surrounding space on them.
The project is the animation of the fairy tale "The chained elephant". "The Chained Elephant" is one of the stories of psychiatrist Jorge Bukay from his book "Let me tell you a story" which he tells to his client. It refers to a child' s question who notices that a huge circus elephant remains tied to a small stick without trying to free itself and without protesting. The circus elephant remained tied to his tiny stick because "the memory of the weakness he felt shortly after his birth is etched in his memory."
A freediver transforms into water while he dives beneath the surface, connects with nature and becomes a part of the underwater environment by hunting like a marine predator.
The mesmerizing underwater world is accessible to those who overcome fear and dare to push their human limits a little further in order to explore it. The passion with the serene world beneath the surface becomes a lifestyle for those who surrender themselves to negative buoyancy.
A professional electrician works in the villa of the rich professional actor. The electrician is also an amateur theater actor. The love of the amateur actor seems to be greater than the famous actor. The famous actor tries to make money but the amateur tries to do what he loves.
This thesis is about the production, direction and animation οf a contemporary dance music video lasting four (4) minutes. Its title is "OBLIVION: Music video using the Rotoscoping technique". Its subject is the loss of a great summer love and the pain that comes when this love is over. Its goal for all of its elements be to harmoniously joined together i. e. the dance, the surroundings, the colors, the music and the animation so as to make the viewer feel nostalgic and melancholic.
Animation Works
The project is the animation of the fairy tale "The chained elephant". "The Chained Elephant" is one of the stories of psychiatrist Jorge Bukay from his book "Let me tell you a story" which he tells to his client. It refers to a child' s question who notices that a huge circus elephant remains tied to a small stick without trying to free itself and without protesting. The circus elephant remained tied to his tiny stick because "the memory of the weakness he felt shortly after his birth is etched in his memory."
This animation is a short presentation of moments from the lives of the residents of an apartment building. The central theme for the development of the story was to capture the image of some people living in an apartment building. Occupants of a building, people living next to each other and at the same time far away from each other. A situation that prevails in all big cities where the phenomenon of alienation between the inhabitants is very intense, especially in the buildings where they live, made me interested in creating this story.
To tell my story, I choose the windows of the apartments as a place to present the heroes. Windows have always been an element of the house, apart from the door, which connected the outside with the inside. Also, their role in earlier times was to communicate between the inhabitants, as well as many times they were used for pumping "gossip" between neighbours. In recent years these habits are not as strong as they used to be, but they still persist in some small areas, such as on the islands.
The animation was made as part of the course digital narration. The animation is about a story of a painting of a woman, it saws how an object that people admire it can capture thoses who see it, how it can become alive and inspire curiosity.
Between 1920 and 1930 the writer Ernest Hemingway was at a bar in Paris with other artists. When he claimed he could write a story in just six words, everyone in the company made fun of him. Then he made a money bet with them, that he could indeed write a story formed in three sections - beginning, middle and end - in just six words. So, he took a napkin and wrote: "For sale: baby shoes never worn". He definitely won the bet, since his story was complete.
I closed my eyes and images began to flood my mind while hearing a sound. After many visualizations of the images into drawings I chose this narrative.
I chose to emphasize the vortex I was feeling.
It was a spontaneous way to record what I experienced.
Each person through his own sensors experiences the ambience of each condition. It all depends on the self, the internal, the mind, the way of perception, action, perspective.
So my own images, were born from my mind for my mind.
Maybe it is paranoia of the mind and one can emigrate it.
This is the most difficult,
the deconstruction of atmospheres - experiences - memories that contain emotion.
Because emotional paranoias are shadows nourished by repetition and persistence.
They dance as if they are Erinyes of the mind and the body gets to be an eradicated observer.
Audiovisual work about postmortem punishment as it is depicted in the cultural conscience of the western world, using atmosphere as a narrative tool.
This is a short film created in a lightbox and inspired by the song ‘Kemal’, written in 1968 by Manos Hatzidakis and lyrics by Nikos Gatsos. The song is about a hero, a guardian, a prince of the East, Kemal. His courage, his hope and valour to change the world depicts the lack of limits. Along with his naivety, the cruel reality of a world that never changes, lead him to his death. This song was written by Manos during his stay in New York. The version used in this film was performed by Mario Frangoulis, from the album “Feggari Erotevmeno”, 1999, Sony Music Entertainment Greece Α.Ε.
Where do memories go when they are lost? Are they still where we left them, if we don’t recall them? In this room, as private and irrevocable as our memory, objects animate a series of scenarios. A memory floods the room, another struggles to disclose itself, another one leaks back and forth in time. The idea of the ‘other’ hovers between what has already passed and what is reminisced every time. We never recollect events and spaces as such. We always enliven recollections in our own way. Through constant evocations that seek to perpetuate the existence of the ‘room’, memories converse with space and time, as well as with a part of ourselves. Either as past, forgetfulness or loss, they always contain something that is already gone.
This project is an attempt to visualize the experience of lucid dreams. Psychologists such as Carl Jung and visual artists such as Salvador Dali believed that dreams are a gateway to exploring the individual and the universe, leading to a better knowledge of oneself. Using cartographic projection of a two-dimensional animation, and referring to the work of Klaus Obermaier and Nobumichi Asai, a body is separated from the soul which tries to escape into the imaginary universe, outside its natural bonds. Only a small part succeeds, thus offering the person the experience of LUCID DREAMS.
