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A memory of, memory of, memory of (2022)

Sound installation

Do you ever think about everything we do as an echo of something?

Like how everything we’ve done is going to happen again and everything we’re going to do has already happened somewhere else. Like every action we take is a consequence of a thousand different actions and will result in a thousand more actions after it. That every tiny, split-second decision we make could potentially have a vast profound effect on everyone around us.

Joe Barton (screenwriter)

In certain mountainous areas across the Mediterranean, villagers have inherited from their ancestors an ancient language that uses whistling as a means of communication. Originated as a way of messaging across mountains, this whistling technique can enunciate any word in any vocabulary in the world.  A memory of, memory of, memory of (2022)  is a sound work in which a poem on Echo and Narcissus is being whistled. This poem is an assemblage of existing texts written by poets such as Ovid and W. B. Yeats. The installation is presented in a corridor of an old tobacco factory. This corridor is transformed into a water stream and is filled with the sound of birds chirping. This sonic stream meandering through a bleak office corridor, refers to the stream where Echo and Narcissus meet. Via their smart phones the audience can access a real time  translation of the dialogue in the whistling tongue, connecting one of the most ancient ways of communicating with the most contemporary one. Additionally, cutting edge sound speakers are interspersed throughout the space and behind closed doors to construct a very realistic natural audio environment without any apparent source. 

Whistlers: Panayiotis Tzanavaris, Giannis Apostolou, Kostas Giannakris, Panagiotis Bournousouzis.

Sound design: Spyros Tsitsis

Software development: Gijs de Heij

Editing: Despoina Kontargyri

Production: Stelios Apostolopoulos - AORI Films

Presented at 

Dream on

Curated by Dimitris Palaiokrasas.

Old public tobacco factory, Athens.

Hellenic Parlament, NEON Organisation.

2022

 

A previous version entitled "memory of, memory of, memory of" was presented at 

Gods and Mortals at Olympus

Curated by Amalia Cosmetatou.

Onassis Cultural Centre, New York. 

2016

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