Natural History | OPEN ART III | Ionian University |Angelos Floros

Open Art iii | Ionion University (GR)

The event “Natural History” includes sound installations implemented under the Artisti Lab 2022 of OPEN ART program, a Lifelong Learning program of the Ionian University. The works were curated by Angelos Floros, Assistant Professor of the Department of Audiovisual Arts of the Ionian University, scientific director of OPEN ART within the Artist Lab 2022. The Artist Lab 2022 program was made in collaboration with the Athens Digital Arts Festival. https://openart.avarts.ionio.gr/

Soundscape BlackBox
SoundScape BlackBox is a light-sensitive control surface consisting of 4 photocells, and headphones. As parts of darkness and light are cast over the 4 photocells, SoundScape Black Box tracks photocells voltages, digitizes them and continuously transmits a corresponding collection of numerical values over a computer network. Into this computer network, the numerical values can be received and arbitrarily mapped onto sound parameters. In this installation, the real-time photocells data is used to control different aspects of the recorded soundscape. The soundscape is composed from two recording. The first one from a sea recording and the second one from a wind recording. The purpose of this interactive installation is to urge the user to use his hand for the sound transformation. The “human hand” is so powerful here who can change entirely the soundscape of sea and wind. Every gesture is important. Every gesture makes a significant change

Angelos Karelias
Angelos Karelias is a post-graduated student at Music Department of UOA. He also studies the classical guitar at NCA. He has obtained the Degree of Advanced Music Theory. His artistic practise comprises algorithmic and electroacoustic compositions and real-time computer music involving acoustic instruments. This year Angelos writing his thesis for gestural controller and how they can work as musical instruments. He was a member of Leme, Music Department’s Live Electronic Music Ensemble.

AMORGOS NOISE – mixed technique, sound and body
The work raises the issue of the reception (acoustic and visual) of the transition of a place from one era to another in parallel with this effect on human biology. The main tools used are stereoscopy and stereophony – “binary” systems to which the stimuli image & soundscapes that could be characterized as “natural” (elements of nature, man) and “artificial” (mechanical and digital noise) – as well as the nerve cell but also the color psychology and chromesthesia. These audio and visual states are reproduced in alternating and concurrent modes provoking the viewer’s / listener’s sensory response but also an unconscious comparison with the activity of “objective”, culturally isolated, nerve cells that “dance” according to their frequency content. In three immersive “closed” systems of virtual reality and in an open system of sound and image, the poetic ontology of the place Amorgos in a cultural transition is presented.

Kostis Gardikis
Kostis Gardikis was born and works in Athens. He has studied classical guitar, harmony, composition and vocals. He has a degree in pharmacy, MSc and doctorate in nanotechnology from the University of Athens, Department of Pharmacy and works as a musician and researcher in the field of natural product innovation. Under the moniker “Dance with Invisible Partners” he composes records and performs sound design, composition and production for theater, cinema and visual poetry while performing live performances of dark electronic pop either solo or as a quartet. His works have been presented live in Greece, France, Italy, England, Switzerland, Malta, Lebanon, Serbia and Japan. He is also a founding member, composer, sound designer and producer of the experimental group “lokatola”, with which he released in 2020 the album “monotonia roth” from the label “A Man out of a Man” and the album “Nekyia” from Same Difference Music in 2022.

Equilibrium
The size of the audio installation is 2.00×1.00×0.58. Materials: clay (1000co) rope, wood, metal container, pulleys. The ceramic elements of the work are created in organic forms. They are made in such a way that they are intertwined with each other but at the same time they are tied to the rope braided in chain formation and they coexist as a single form. Two different sets are created which hang on two pulleys that allow them to rise and fall depending on the force exerted on one side by an external observer, a spectator, and on the other by the force of gravity. Relationships are created between them and the other materials of the construction (water, metal container, wooden floor). The resulting sound is a result of these relationships. The precondition for these relationships to exist, to be created, is the action of the spectators on the work. Otherwise the work remains stagnant and silent. A dialogue is created between the materials, their weight, their movement, the collision between them and the sounds they produce. The work negotiates the choices, the balances that arise or not, the contrasts, the relationship of the pieces with each other and the creation of sets when they intertwine with each other and interact. The relationship that arises when these sets, the societies of organizations, come into contact with physical elements or not. They are all created and they are there whether we observe them or not.

Katerina Karavasileiou
She grew up in Amygdalonas of Kavala. Studies in sculpture at the Department οf Fine and Applied Arts at the School of Fine Arts of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Before that she had completed the specialty of illustrator – cartoonist at the Cultural IEK of Thessaloniki and attended audiovisual media courses at the “Iris” workshop. She has experimented with drawing, ceramic clay, construction and materials in space as well as video art. She participated in group exhibitions and festivals. She has worked as a child and adult art teacher, among other things. She lives in Thessaloniki.

[TRANSITION_2*∞]
Digital replicas, provide fragmentary information of an original by inserting, distorting or omitting data. They thus form differentiated versions of the prototype from which they drew by reinterpreting it in a new simulation space. Communication defined by the transmission and reception of information as reversible actions. Inspired by Shannon and Weaver’s model of communication, through code, the audio and visual information becomes simulations which are mutated in relation to the environment they are into. Then the information is retransmitted. Through video projection our bodies are multiplied. The camera is positioned at a specific place in order to capture the projected elements of the video and the body at the same time. Then, an infinite loop is projected. Simultaneously, the playing sound immerses us. It has been created by utilizing a one-minute recording which developed into a composition with various distortions. Its result now sounds in a loop and engages the surrounding noise, creating a new composition with each playback.

Georgia Mantalia
Georgia Mandalia, is an undergraduate young artist. She is studying at the Department of Visual and Applied Arts of U.O.W.M. with a direction in painting and a specialization in printmaking. Her visual research utilizes digital media that converse with constructions in space where the relationship between analogue and digital is researched. She has participated in workshops such as the 6th cycle of the WORKSHOP of ΠΟΙΩ MAKER SPACE of the municipality of Athens. Group exhibitions include the exhibition ” The sea is always far away” at TECHNOHOROS art gallery, the ”snap” exhibition of the Printmaking Workshop of the T.E.E.T. of P.D.M., at the Athens printmaking art center Pandolfini & Siaterli C.N.P.P. as well as that of MOMus, Together, so Far so Close (“Together, So Far so Close”). At the same time, she participated in extended artistic projects, in the mapping projection DIKTYA at the Gounari building, in Platform Project 2021 and Liminal Point, at the Folklore Ethnological Museum of Macedonia-Thrace and at the Muzeul Satului Bănătean in Timisoara, Romania.

Footsteps – The Iron Project
The footsteps of humanity through time with the aim of survival and the improvement of living conditions on the planet. The path set by man using materials that “carve” our ears and the sound landscape of nature. Man – host – although he belongs to nature, benefits from it without any return. It acquires the scientific-technological ability not only to use the matter-energy of nature as it is, but to transform it into other forms and to store it. It gradually begins to be “alienated” intensely and also the reversal of roles appears more often, that is, to become the same host for nature as a biosphere or “biogas”. Interesting – for about half a century – is the holistic theory of “Earth” by J. Lovelock which considers the planet (atmosphere, water, earth, living nature and man) as a “living” organism and in the original version provides it with a “Immune” mechanism. The host-planet interactions in the harmful “virus” -human involve many levels such as e.g. the climate change that is manifesting in our time.

Rene Nikolaou
Rene Nikolaou is a Greece based composer. She has been awarded by the National Academy of Music of the State of Colorado, USA with the title “Finalist of the International Music Award for Excellence in Composition” in the years 2010 and 2011. Her compositions include works for piano and other solo instruments, choral music, symphonic music, string quartet and also chamber orchestra works and electroacoustic music . She’s engaged with the film scoring of the movies “The Next Day” and “The Face Of The Ash”. Her discography includes the cd/book entitled “Synaesthesia” which contains a collection of works for solo piano and duets for piano and cello by “Cambia Publishing”. She also participates in the CD Gimel (2018) with her work “Miriam” for alto flute, in “Lament for Theodore Antoniou” (2020) for solo flute and with the “String Quartet no. 1» (2022) produced by “Phasma Music Foundation”. In November 2019 she presented the work INTO THE DEEP for alto saxophone – violin and piano composed by request of the Thessaloniki Concert Hall in collaboration with Aristotle University. Papagrigoriou-Nakas published the score of “YRIA – Suite for two guitars”, composed for the ALEA III festival of Boston University.

Can you hear the Oracle?
When all else fails, one should go spiritual…

Manos Paterakis
Born in Athens Greece Guitarist, Santourist, Multi-instrumentalist. Co-founder of gravitysays_i. Α post-prog-rock group based in Piraeus. Release three records through various labels, including Sirius (Manos Hadjidakis label) Perform to Herodion, Barbican (London), Epidayrus small theater and various locations all around Greece with various artists. Mixing and original sound for Faster Than Light. A film about LGBTQI+ people and Zak Kostopoulos -Zackie Oh-. An HIV+ activist and drag performer. Sound Design for SGT. Make a living as production manager / imaging director / sound designer for Frontstage. Νo.1 radio group in Greece.

Eternally Present – Eternally absent
Nektarios Pachiadakis
Nektarios Pachiadakis is Greek and lives in Crete. He is restless and unconventional ,qualities found in his art, that is not limited to painting . He is also a musician and a poet having released two record works and a poetry collection so far. However painting is the field that helps him most to be expressed. He is a member of the Chamber of Fine Arts of Greece since 2010 having participated in various exhibitions and got really good reviews. Currently he is attending Visual and Applied Arts in Aristotlean University where he Immediately attracted the interest of the senior proffesors and excellent degrees. In his paintings there is a constant search for childlike simplicity in viewing the word together with the need of emerging the subconscious either self or collective. Sometimes he seems to be fighting rationalism and reality seeking for the truth beneath the surface. Strong brushstrokes, solid paints, vivid colours characterize the majority of his works making the identity of the creator easily recognizable.

Sonic Emissions
“Motifs” is an audiovisual immersive video art installation. It calls its audience to be a part of it. The installation is in constant motion and repetition. Just like our world. From lichens to forests to clouds to waves to sand to the universe and vice versa. The beginning is the end, and the end is the beginning. The reverse motion of the image that emphasizes the harmony and the interconnection of the patterns of nature. However, each visitor can experience their own beginning and their own end. An audiovisual pendulum. Its purpose is to immerse visitors in its environment. In a natural pattern’s environment. Our reconnection with nature. Our need to reflect on our deep connection with the environment. Our inspiration from the constant flow of the world. The realization of small truths of our existence through the observation of a complex of lichens on a rock or the night sky. To mark the interdependence of our human life with the unquestionable symmetry of the physical world. In the end, to wonder. Coincidence?

Eleni Kavouki
Eleni Kavouki is currently based in Athens, Greece, and is involved in exploring and recording urban narratives. She is a graduate of the Film School of AUTH and has worked mainly with sound in productions for film, television, theater and installations.

Patterns
Giorgos Karamanlis
George Karamanlis a.k.a empty is a young Sound Artist. He is born in 1998 and grew up in Thessaloniki. He has been involved in music since childhood and has classical music education. He studied Music Technology and Production and for the last five years has been exploring multiple aspects of sound as a Sound Designer, Composer, Field Recorder and Sound Engineer. He blends and combines his knowledge of classical music with that of electronic. Also he works as a sound designer for animations, composer and experiments with audiovisual performances. While in the last year he has been working on electro-acoustic soundscapes and audiovisual installations. His sound is characterized by drone sounds, complex atmospheres, field recordings, urban and natural soundscapes.

Melting figure
The project ‘Melting Figure’ has been created from materials I found in my daily environment. I used a tin utensil, a set of metal tables in increasing size, a few pieces of mesh with different thickness and opening to create the feeling of refining and a few pieces of ice. I used materials in a completely improvised way without knowing their potential for the result and the project was created by trial and error.

Alexandros Hadjitimotheou
Alexandros Chatzitimotheou is a graduate of the Department of Music Studies of the Ionian University where he studies composition of instrumental and vocal music. His works have been presented at the Municipal theater of Corfu, the Ionian Academy and the Museum of Asian Art of Corfu. In June 2022, his work ‘Riverphonics’ will be presented at the annual ‘Soundpedro’ festival at the Angels Gate Cultural Center in Los Angeles. His work is influenced by Maurice Merleau Ponty’s book Phenomenology of Perception.

The Choice
The artwork is a commentary on the ethics of everyday human choices, those that are related to non-human animals. Through the economic model of supply and demand, a specific fate has been predetermined by humans for all farm animals, that of exploitation, oppression and death, depriving them of the rights of autonomy, choice and control of their bodies and their lives, just because they belong to certain species. The visual element of the installation comes in contrast with its sonic, consisting of the soundscape of Vrouva Farm Animal Sanctuary for rescued non-human animals and of the narration of the stories of some of them. The beauty of the rescue makes the tragedy of the daily lives of all the victims of the animal agriculture industry even more intense. With this information, visitors are asked to consider whether they will choose habit and pleasure over life, and consequently whether because of them the grave will be filled with more victims.

Michalis Kounelakis
Michalis Kounelakis is a sound artist, experimental electronic musician and sound engineer. He has graduated in Sound Engineering and Music Technology at SAE Athens. He attended the Electronic Music, Philosophy and Aesthetics Lab with M. Koutsomichalis (with the former teaching staff of CMRC). He has participated in Elementi 8: EKRAN – HEVRExINTERMEDIA (Kraków, 2020) with the sound installation “μV?•R?’’’μ«Z¶¶¶?U’μj?”©J?UT•*T©”H”¥U»AD¶i¶” and his audiovisual project “Cyber-Proxemics”, in collaboration with Lia Mori, has participated in Tiny/Massive (Winter Lights Festival, 2019). Other participations of his include the Art Practice and Research Program ARTIST LAB 2022 (Open Art and Ionian University), the DIY Instrument Making & Hacking (Onassis Stegi, 2019) and Transmedia Labworks (Greek National Opera, 2018) during which he and his team created the interactive audio visual installation “Liminal”.

Untitled
The size of the audio installation is 2.00×1.00×0.58. Materials: clay (1000co) rope, wood, metal container, pulleys. The ceramic elements of the work are created in organic forms. They are made in such a way that they are intertwined with each other but at the same time they are tied to the rope braided in chain formation and they coexist as a single form. Two different sets are created which hang on two pulleys that allow them to rise and fall depending on the force exerted on one side by an external observer, a spectator, and on the other by the force of gravity. Relationships are created between them and the other materials of the construction (water, metal container, wooden floor). The resulting sound is a result of these relationships. The precondition for these relationships to exist, to be created, is the action of the spectators on the work. Otherwise the work remains stagnant and silent. A dialogue is created between the materials, their weight, their movement, the collision between them and the sounds they produce. The work negotiates the choices, the balances that arise or not, the contrasts, the relationship of the pieces with each other and the creation of sets when they intertwine with each other and interact. The relationship that arises when these sets, the societies of organizations, come into contact with physical elements or not. They are all created and they are there whether we observe them or not.

Katerina Karavasiliou
She grew up in Amygdalonas of Kavala. Studies in sculpture at the Department οf Fine and Applied Arts at the School of Fine Arts of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Before that she had completed the specialty of illustrator – cartoonist at the Cultural IEK of Thessaloniki and attended audiovisual media courses at the “Iris” workshop. She has experimented with drawing, ceramic clay, construction and materials in space as well as video art. She participated in group exhibitions and festivals. She has worked as a child and adult art teacher, among other things. She lives in Thessaloniki.

Technical Difficulties
The conceptual framework is about the manipulation tactics, the spatio-temporal boundaries and the communicative politics of the society’s dominant logic. A contemporary reality exists, where puppet masters maintain this dominant logic over their sheep-like followers, a society sunk in silence. Whatever is communicated concerns ordinary behaviours which are subconsciously followed by the submissive individuals. Moreover, the dominant information system aims to dull the mind of the masses. In terms of morphology this installation features a sound recording during a walk in the city. The recording is paused every time a talk takes place. These pauses are seen as technical issues of a rather problematic transmission. What occurs is a non-logical and meaningless urban soundscape. A lighting signal emphasizes the controlled sonic discontinuity. The latter is denoted as a technical difficulty needing a resolution urgently. But this is just a fake indication of care.

Thanassis Sampaziotis
Thanassis Sampaziotis was born in 1992 at Kalamata, Greece and grew up in a small town of Greece, Kyparissia. He entered the university the fall of 2012, at the department of School of Visual and Applied Arts, faculty of fine arts, AUTH and specially at the fifth lab of painting. He graduated in the fall of 2017. The year of 2019 he enters the interdepartmental master, “Art and Public sphere”, of the departments of political sciences and visual and applied arts. Thanassis is also a musician and part of various bands. In this field he is involved in the creative part, the concerts and also the discography. He lives, works and is active as an artist in the city of Thessaloniki.

A Artificial Framework of Symbiosis
The installation is comprised from a combination of artificial and nature based media for the representation and the visual and artistic depiction of an artificial microecosystem. More specific, this has been accomplished by using : two sculptures made of plaster representing two organisms in their natural habitat and the composition of vegetation comprised by tree branches in combination with dry plants and moss. The base of the installation has been created from plant soil in function with some parts of moss placed on top of remaining pieces of plaster, to give the essence of organic matter in the natural environment of the sculptures. Furthermore in the base of the installation that it is the inner part of the soil and it is referred to the sound, there has been an effort of digging and then bury the sound source, that is comprised by two small wired speakers that are easy to cover. The burial of the speakers in the base of the installation has the result of transforming the sound to the foundation of the constructure and the unification of the sound with the visual characteristics of the installation.

Robi Ehiwe
Robi Ehiwe is a DJ and producer from Thessaloniki, Greece, active for over a decade. He has passed through different sound crossroads, stimulated by a wide range of musical influences, he has participated in many compilations by various artists and also releasing his personal solo albums. Through the years he has create the music and the sound design for several Art Videos and performances. To date, his sound could be characterized as electronic, as his sets are comprised of electro, breakbeats, experimental techno and many more.

Thoughts
Tzeni Argyriou
Tzeni Argyriou (b. 1977, Kavala, GR) She is a graduate of the State School of Dance, Athens, a scholar from Onassis Foundation, New York and the co artistic director and funding member of amorphy.org. For more than 15 years her interest in engaging the performing arts with new technologies and other artistic genres, generating choreographic artworks, multimedia installations as well as in situ actions. Collaboration is an essential part of her creative process and many works has been co-created with other artists. Selected works: Phrasis, Αποθέματα:Inventory, ΑΝΩΝΥΜΟ, Stigmiographies, Face to Phase, Untitled, Memorandum etc. has been presented such as: Onassis Cultural Centre (GR), Athens and Epidaurus Festival (GR), Festival Rencontres chorégraphiques internationales de Seine-Saint-Denis (FR), Kalamata International Dance Festival(GR), Benaki Museum (GR), MIR Festival (GR), Arc For Dance Festival (GR), Judson Church at Movement Research (U.S.A.). She has been an invited artist in residency from international art institutions and has received support from Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports, The non Profit Organization NEON, Duncan Dance Research Center. www.tzeniargyriou.com