The artist Nikos Papadopoulos calls upon the Athens audiences to take part in a virtual reality workshop. Bringing back to the collective memory emotionally charged monuments, he reconstructs the predominant narration by using counter-monument aesthetics. The performers with their voices, a paddle and a head-mounted display, will navigate a utopian virtual space which questions traditional perceptions: the voice as a means of elevation in a falling environment, the paddle to move through horizontal levels with a feeling of sailing. The user-performer navigates a utopian space, where the sense of sight is totally isolated from the natural world and his body. The visual information from the head-mounted display moves him into the utopian world, which he is able to virtually explore, with his voice and the paddle.

 

The audience will be able to observe, photograph and create archive material. In the natural environment of the workshop a part of the visual experience of the user is recreated in real time and space. The performer’s experience is recorded in order to create a source of images and sounds like a box of memories. The observers, passively perceive, aesthetically, through sight and sound, the fluctuating activity in the space, interpreting reality at will. Following prior arrangement, anyone of the audience who wishes may participate in the navigation as a performer. The virtual space has been constructed with references to monuments in Athens and Paris, such as the equestrian statue of Karaiskaki in Zappeion and Jeanne d’Arc at the Place des Pyramides etc. Charged with emotions of nations, of destruction, of salvation and death, public monuments often function as a fundamental identity indicator onto which collective emotions and conflicting social standards are projected. Employing the technique of photogrammetry, the monuments have been fragmented and recreated in a virtual version which is intangible, see-through, empty. Rowing Lessons brings us face to face with a new interpretation of the reality of the world and its objects where natural law has been recreated.

The sound was composed by the musician and artist, Thodoris Pistiolas

The programming was developed in cooperation with Stavroula Zoe.

(Dr in IT, NTUA, School of Fine Arts, Member of Faculty at the Joint Greek-French Master Programs)

Lysandros Spetsieris (actor, director): performance

Vasiliki Tzouti (artist, theatrologist): workshop animation

Costas Voulgaris (artist): website supervision

Giorgos Apostolakos (artist, musician): integration VR

 

 

Nikos Papadopoulos lives and works in Athens. He studied sculpturing at the School of Fine Arts in Athens, under the professor Giorgos Lappas. He is a post-graduate student of the Université Paris 8 and the department of Visual Arts of the School of Fine Arts under the subject “Art, virtual reality and multi user systems of artistic expression”.

His work has been presented at numerous exhibitions in Greece and abroad, amongst which: “Ex-ils, visual notes concerning emigration” (Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art (Thessaloniki, 2016), Epilogi in Crisis, Collaborative Virtual Reality Project (Digital Storytelling in Times of Crisis, Hellenic American Union (Athens 2014), “12 New Artists VIII”, The City of Athens Cultural Centre “Melina” (Athens 2014), “Giorgios Karaiskakis”, The Athens School of Fine Arts VR, (thesis) (Athens, 2013), “The death of the creator”, Beton7 (Athens 2012), “Leaders, animals and tools”, Kappatos Gallery (Athens 2011), “Megalh Karamela”, The Greek Film Archive (Athens 2011) etc.

Résidence: Delphus project, from the physical to the virtual world” (Delphi, 2010).

Publications, Avgi Newspaper, Anagnwseis, Lida Kazantzaki.

www.nikospapadopoulos.eu