The chained elephant
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."
Direction and animation: Papa Alkistis, Music and composition: Nicky Kokkoli, Sound engineer: Chrysanthi Matsagka
Related Works
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.
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 quarantine's experience time has functioned as a humanized time. Its previous social barbarity was imprisoned in the familiar cage of my soul and became my creation time. Each day was my friend, an eternal circular and dynamic present, a consciousness without conflicts. It was like an eternity that is experienced differently every moment. An unprecedented form of stillness gripped me and perpetuated in many abstract fragments which finally formed the new texture of my existence, in this peculiar isolation. I became from the carcass of time I was before, its qualitative disintegration… Reality was distorted and experienced illusively. The time from the alienation that was before, was transformed and became the cover for the scratched truth of myself. This kind of time my conscience had dreamed to live.
This is the first video of my audiovisual installation entitled "Riot Strike Riot". The audiovisual installation entitled "Riot Strike Riot" is based on the political repression and social disorders of recent years with a focus on Greece, but also with influences from abroad. The installation has presented from a subjective point of view, the socio-political image of today through audiovisual digital media, interactive systems, and objects.
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?
The AVARTS team's project "Filter Bubbles" aims to raise critical reflection on the extent of the responsibility attributed to algorithms and technology for the formation of these "isolation bubbles". Furthermore, through the artistic process, it aims to weaken the positive feedback loops that gigantize imperfect information, foster fear and undermine creativity.
BRAINRINTH is a multi-channel video installation. The work attempts – through technology – to approach brain-related functions of memory, drawing on material from personal experience of the body in crisis. The title BRAINRINTH –from the words Brain and Labyrinth – is a play on the intractable riddle of an archetypal Greek structure (the labyrinth) and the labyrinthine processes of the human brain. The BRAINRINTH installation seeks a poetic mapping of the human brain.
Due to the shock of trauma, our understanding of the functioning of the body, and of nature itself –which we are trying to dominate – seems desperate and full of anxiety. Taking this into account, if we adopt a position in which we keep a distance of aesthetic neutrality, perhaps this reality begins to look less frightening.
It is an Interactive Installation that deals with the issues of immigration, wars and surveillance of citizens on a global scale.
