What we saw on the 6th Week of AGORA

The sixth AGORA week opened with original collages with words taken from the speech of George Provopoulos, Governor of the Bank of Greece, turned into poems at Bankpoetry by Suvi Nurmi in the Machine room of Sofokleous. On the same day Giorgos Papadakis approached in his talk the role of innovation skills in contemporary times and how these skills can be cultivated through educational programs that combine art, technology and science. On Wednesday Fotini Gouseti and Taxideftes Politismou brought in AGORA the story of a collaboration that was triggered by research in Kalavryta for the creation of a cloth made of ties, following the steps of a narrative that comes straight from American aid to postwar Greece. On Thursday Nazima Kadir presented the Sitcom: Our Autonomous Life introducing the audience to the contrasts of social and squatters movements in the Netherlands, while on Friday Leda Papaconstantinou and Eleftheria Koheila revived moments, stories and scenes of the Spetses Players in the auditorium of Sofokleous. On Saturday Katerina Zaharopoulou conducted her first in situ performance at Varvakios Central Market, while at Sofokleous the afternoon started with the sixth meeting of the Value workshop in the Machine room, continuing with a lecture by Nazima Kadir, who revealed through her research issues of xenophobia that appear even inside radical movements, and moving on to the lecture performance Explaining the Crisis to a Young Dancer by Konstantinos Mihos, to close with the rock n' roll sounds of Caveman Joe. Sunday started with Soo-Young Kim considering an array of future-making practices in the context of the crisis, in order to examine how the construction and circulation of distinct futures serves as a crucial site for both establishing and contesting claims to knowledge and authority in the Greek present, while on the first floor of AGORA, Opsis in the context of the Pre-institutional Critique Workshop brought in the center of the discussion the work "Profligate Conqueror" by Arbit City Group. The week closed with KYKLOS, which this time evolved around Politics. Members of the teams Join Our Space, Vouli Watch, Referendums for Greece, Klirosi (Raffle), Dimovoulio Politon, Dimokratia Ideon (Democracy of Ideas), Protovoulia gia Riziki Syntagmatiki Allagi (Initiative for Radical Constitutional Change) and Politeia 2.0 joined in a discussion in AGORA that opened with a common observation about the lack of democracy in the country and wondered if there are any suggestions and models that provide a possible solution.

The program of the seventh week of AGORA:

For a detailed program of the seventh week of the 4th Athens Biennale AGORA, please visit our Calendar.

Cactus Network, Occupied Times, Skart, Falενα

Developing a Visual Voice: Radical Print Workshop

This five-day workshop aims to enable participants to express their anger and concerns at the current social and economic situation and through discussion and creativity, develop them into a visual manifestation that communicates on the streets. We will be setting up an instant screen-printing area to mass produce your voices and distribute them wide and loud.
You don't have to be an artist or a designer to take part! All we ask is that you come along with passion and an opinion to "shout about". Participants should come with ideas and images and be prepared to discuss them collectively and work in collaboration to develop these ideas into visual form.

Tuesday 12, Wednesday 13, Thursday 14, Friday 14, 17:00 – 21:00 και Saturday 16/11, 12:00-17:00 8–10 Sofokleous st.

Workshop Timeline:

Tuesday 12/11, 17:00-21:00, Machine room: Intro and Agora.
Wednesday 13/11, 17:00-21:00, Machine room: Ideas and designs developed
Thursday 14/11, 17:00-21:00, Machine room: Designs / printing
Friday 15/11, 17:00-21:00, Machine room: Printing
Saturday 16/11, 12:00-17:00, Main hall: Printing, show results
Sunday 17/11, Take the results on the streets

Tony Credland and Glenn Orton have worked together as Cactus for 25 years. Collaborating with many other creative projects / activist groups such as Indymedia, Reclaim the Streets and the Occupy movement. Tony teaches on the MA in Graphic Design at LCC and Glenn is the art editor of the satirical magazine Private Eye. http://www.cactusnetwork.org.uk/

The Occupied Times of London is a not-for-profit newspaper born out of the Occupy movement and it is dedicated to socio-political, economic and environmental justice. The newspaper was founded in October 2011 during the first week of the occupation of St Paul's as an alternative to the mainstream media. Today it is still being produced collectively by activists, journalists, artists and designers and it is totally self-funded through donations. It has been developed into an independent publication and after 22 issues the paper is gaining publicity and provoking debate about the contribution of design to the contemporary protest movements. http://theoccupiedtimes.org/

Skart collective is founded in 1990 at the Faculty of Architecture in Belgrade. Focus of the collective is primarily between poetry and graphic design. Skart Collective is involved in several socially engaged actions and actively collaborates with few activist groups from Belgrade. http://www.skart.rs/

Falena was created in October 2013. It is an open group active mainly in Athens. Its purpose is to participate in the socio-political discourse through collective creativity in various artistic ways and expressive means. https://www.facebook.com/falena.falena.75?fref=ts

Art Bank

Art Bank will conduct in AGORA an art cash auction during the presentation of its action, which aims to the circulation of art money.
The creations of the Art Bank visual artists are works of art in the form of cash. During the auction, the artists will offer their works in exchange for products and services, like long lasting organic food, spirits, fish, cat food, fuel, nights in a hotel at Loutraki, photographic material, tutorials, renovation and restoration of the facade and stairway of a building, ornamental plants, bust (preferably cycladic head) and more.

Participating Artists:

Alira Kalogera, Anastasia Kapiniari, Aphrodite Goula, Giannis Antonopoulos, Despina Pantazi, Diamantis Staggidis, Eleni Polychronatou, Elli Chousou, Theofanis Konstantinou, Ismene Bonatsou, Kimon Axaopoulos, Kosmas Lilikakis, Cosmochaos, Christie Petropoulou, Litsa Mousouli, Maria Apostolopoulou, Maria Doukaki, Maria Liakou, Marili Zarkada, Marios Paschalis, Babis Karalis, Bettie Tsigarida, Nikos Pressas, Rena Avagiannou, Stelios Makrygiannis, Jimmy Efthymiou, Triantafyllos Eleftheriou, Fotini Alexopoulou..

Tuesday, 21/11, 18:00–20:00, 8–10 Sofokleous st.

Zafos Xagoraris - "L'Ecran Noir"

With the collaboration of Marios Papageorgiou and Leonidas Kakaroglou

This ongoing project focuses on the historical event of the cancellation of the Cannes Festival in 1968 as an act of solidarity to the students and workers of Paris and other cities of France. Installations including interviews, film footage and other documentation material have been presented at Embros (2011) and Broadway theaters "Exchange", curated by Sofia Dona, 2012)
Although all films were eventually screened in different venues and audiences and each was received differently, in the context of the 4th Athens Biennale L' Ecran Noir attempts to reconstruct their sequence as conceived for the 1968 Cannes film festival.
The project re-raises questions related to the role of art and artistic practice during a crisis or periods of political action. It aims to bring to the front issues and dilemmas of participating or withdrawing, the relation between art and industry as well as visibility or obscurity, and showcase that they are as urgent as in 1968.
The project will begin on Wednesday, 13/11, at 6:30 pm, with a presentation and will be followed by the screening of Rozmarne leto (1968) by Jiri Menzel (with greek subtitles).

First Week Program:

Wednesday, 13/11, 18:30-20:30, 8–10 Sofokleous st.
Rozmarne leto (1968) by Jiri Menzel (greek subtitles)

Thursday 14/11, 17:00-19:00, 8–10 Sofokleous st.
Yabu no naka no kuroneko by Kaneto Shindo (english subtitles)-(100')

Friday 15/11, 17:00-19:00, 8–10 Sofokleous st.
Banditi a Milano (1968) by Carlo Lizzani (english subtitles)-(98')

Saturday 16/11, 16:00-18:00, 8–10 Sofokleous st.
Das Schloss (The castle)-(1968) by Rudolf Noelte (greek subtitles)-(93')

Sunday 17/11, 16:00-18:00, 8–10 Sofokleous st.
O slavnosti a hostech (The party and the guests)-(1966) by Jan Němec (english subtitles)-(71')

Theatre of the Oppressed

No to Racism From the Cradle
play
Wednesday, 13/11, 19:00–21:00, CAMP, Efpolidos & 2 Apellou

Brief Scenes of Everyday Violence ΙΙ: Nothing might as well happen...
play
Friday, 15/11, 19:00–21:00, CAMP, 4 Efpolidos & 2 Apellou st.

No to Racism From the Cradle
Citizenship, residence permit, bureaucracy, institutional racism, dead end, injustice are some of the keywords of the Forum Theatre play No to Racism From the Cradle. The play was created by a mixed group of women who participated in a Forum Theatre workshop under the European Lifelong Learning Grundtvig program "Ariadne – Arts and Intercultural Adaptation".
Concoction – Creation: The whole team
Support – Direction: Christina Zoniou, Naya Boemi
Production – Communication: Gianna Papadopoulou, Melina Plasti
Playwrighting: Katerina-Mariola Chaska
Sets: Francesco Moretti.
Playing: Lynn Edmonds, Monika, Lauretta Macauley, Hawa Sanko, Katerina Kalogera, Sergios Kobogiorgas, Katerina Stefanou, Pepi Marioli, Katerina–Mariola Chaska Organization: Osmosis – Centre for the Arts & Intercultural Education - United African Women Organization,n collaboration with the Activist Group of the Theatre of the Oppressed.

Brief Scenes of Everyday Violence ΙΙ: Nothing might as well happen...
Violence, emerging fascism, homophobia, racism, escalating tensions in everyday life, fear as a consequence of all the above compose action in the play. The questions that emerge through the play are posed to the audience, which is called to change the flow of the play by putting its suggestions into practice.

Concoction – Direction: The whole team
Support: Christina Zoniou, Naya Boemi
Poster: Francesco Moretti
Production – Communication: Gianna Papadopoulou, Melina Plasti
Playing (in alphabetical order): Alejandro Gomez, Katerina Kalogera, Sergios Kobogiorgas, Maria-Artemis Kolliniati, Babis Koutounidis, Pepi Margioli, Gianna Papadopoulou, Hera Papageorgiou, Nadina Tsekeri, Pandelis Zafiriou

The Theatre of the Oppressed was developed by Brazilian director Augusto Boal aiming to the active participation of the citizen in the commons, regardless of origin, education and social status. Basic principle of this theatrical method is that theatre can be used as a tool for change in a personal and social level. More specifically, with the technique of the Forum Theatre the audience is actively involved, the spectator becomes spect–actor, participating with his proposals to the removal of the oppression. The Forum Theatre is based on a brief improptu theatrical scene, which is connected to a broader social problem and depicts an unresolved conflict, an oppression or dead end. As the citizens gathered in the ancient agora to discuss the current issues of the city, the forum theatre grants a safe meeting place: the aesthetic-theatrical reconstruction of the oppressive reality. Through dialogue and interaction both audience and actors can explore, analyze and transform the living reality, so as to manage it outside this space as well.

Τ23VAK

Music

On Thursday, 14th of November, at the Athens Biennale auditorium, T23VAK will take place, a musical event that will involve participants from the wide electronic spectrum. The audience will synaesthetically co-react with the sounds, the visuals and the general symbolic stimulus. The aim is to create an opticoConcoctionaccoustic happening with experimental intervals and soundscapes that will be in a dialectical relationship with the historically charged location and the people.

Participants:
Theodoris Lazopoulos: Theodoris Lazopoulos' music has influences from noise, kraut, drone and early electronic sounds. He has been creating music and expressing himself through it. Insertion, attention, abstraction, distraction, chaos and separation from structures and concretes are the main elements that influence his aesthetics.
http://www.mixcloud.com/lazostheo/

George Anifantis: George Anifantis a.k.a. ANFS is a laptop electronics composer from Athens and co-owner of Modal Analysis Imprint.
http://www.modalanalysis.net/
https://soundcloud.com/anifas
https://soundcloud.com/modal-analysis

Nokalypse: Nokalypse, known Themistoklis Pantelopoulos, was born in Athens where he also lives. He creates electroacoustic music with the use of computers and digital components from 2000. In his few live appearances (three per year) he uses laptops with AudioMulch application and occasionally synthesizers.
http://nokalypse.gr/
https://soundcloud.com/nokalypse

Talos abstracts: Talos abstracts is an independent audio visual project duo. They aim through their releases, who have been curated by layer based human activities (original package design, idea, audio mix and mastering), to promote electronic music and its aesthetics, as well as the abstract graphic static and motion design. Their EPs' are designed based on Russian language and in cyrillic typography. Talos' music is made up by synthesizers and MaxMSP programming. They also use small electronic sound generators for the creation of unmistakable tenor timbre. They have released 2 EPs with layer based human activities.
http://www.talos-project.info/
https://soundcloud.com/talos-abstracts
http://www.lbha.gr/

Curated by Ioanna Gerakidi and Elena Poughia

Thursday 14/11, 19:00-21:00, 8-10 8–10 Sofokleous st.

Katerina Zaharopoulou

In Agora (x) 4
Performance

Can an interview stand outside the media context? What is an on the road interview, apart from a reportage or opinion poll? How much can an everyday person, a person who lives, works or does not work in this contradictory city, penetrate the context of art and its structures? To what extent can artists dynamically infiltrate society? What exactly do they want to indicate with their images? Can we bring to the Athens Biennale people who do not know about it, people who simply do not know how to approach it? Is the relatively new trend in art for structures borrowed from other activities, like lectures, teaching etc., capable to involve the world inside and outside of it?
The visual artist Katerina Zaharopoulou conducts in situ interview performances at four Athenian markets (street market – Varvakios, ancient agora – Plaka, commercial market – Ermou, agora of the 4th Athens Biennale – Sofokleous) over four consecutive Saturdays (9, 16, 23 and 30 November).
Participants in the performances are people that either work or hang out in these places, giving answers to a series of questions that are related to the AGORA thematic, especially to "Now what?".

Saturday, 16/11, 12:00–14:00, Ancient Agora – Plaka

VALUE

Locating value, Presentation of the CHOROtAXIA Team
workshop

The VALUE workshop organizes its seventh meeting between 5–8 pm, in the Machine room (mezzanine) of the former Athens Stock Exchange:

Presentation of the CHOROtAXIA Team: Eleana Yalouri (coordinator), Christina Aggoura, Sofia Grigoriadou, Dora Zakka, Anastasia Kaisidou, Despina Maraki, Eliza Neofytou, Nicolas Papadimitriou.

Locating value. Discussion coordinated by Kostas Giannakopoulos (social anthropologist). Participants: Amalia Zepou (Kerameikos resident-Municipality of Athens networking manager with groups of citizens), Panos Lappas (resident and cafe owner in Kerameikos), Olga Balaoura (architect), Alexander Vaitsos (architect), Pausanias Karathanasis (social anthropologist) and Cacao Rocks (street artist).

Are the different aspects of value (economic, moral, aesthetic etc.) connected to each other and if so in what ways? Is the present situation experienced as a multilayered "crisis of values"? How does the "market" redefine today the value of life along with the value of things? The VALUE workshop proposes a two months' collaboration of visual artists, social scientists, and theorists from different fields, who will take the anthropological perspective on "exchange" as a point of reference, while attempting to comprehend and comment on the ways value is created and experienced in everyday life. Visitors to the 2013 Athens Biennale are invited to participate in the weekly meetings, in the discussions and production of artistic work by the workshop's curatorial team, as well as by invited artists and theorists. The workshop's program can be found online at valueab4.wordpress.com.

Coordination: Elpida Rikou (social anthropology / visual arts).

Saturday, 16/11, 17:00–20:00, 8–10 Sofokleous st. (Machine room)

Center for Research and Dissemination of Music Scheming

Cobra
music

The Center for Research and Dissemination of Music Scheming introduces for the first time in Greece the game piece Cobra, by John Zorn. A set of musicians and a teleprompter are involved in a 'creative play' of improvisation, with rules, cards and gestures, whose flow and evolution is determined at any moment by the participants. Composition method, improvisational game, performance or social experiment; no matter how it is described, the key feature of Cobra is that each performance is unique, even performed by the same people. Cobra was created in New York in 1984. Since then it has been played by many musicians in various parts of the world, being the most popular game piece by John Zorn. The performance of the song coincides with the 60th birthday (September 2013) of its creator John Zorn, an emblematic figure of the avant-garde scene of New York, a highly influential composer, orchestrator, improviser, distinguished for his ability to elaborately handle different musical genres. New York celebrates with a festival (Zorn@60) that runs through his work, with perfomances from summer until autumn 2013 in conjuction with events in Europe, Asia and America. The Center for Research and Dissemination of Music Scheming aims to organize regular workshop experiments and sporadic artistic events.

Playing: Giorgos Stenos Frantzios, Giorgos Stavridis, Fotini Diakaki, Nicolas Anastasiou, Matthew Karras, Spyridon Mitsoulis, Nikolaida Krasaki, Nikos Antonopoulos, Alexander Aggelakis, Giorgos Mizithras, Rezarta Krougia.

Saturday, 16/11, 21:00–22:00, 8–10 Sofokleous st.

OPSIS

Antonis Pittas

The 4th Athens Biennale activates the artworks of the exhibition with the participation of the public. A series of meetings among public, curators and artists will take place in front of particular works aiming to an interpretational approach. An analysis of the relations among works, artistic practices will emerge through dialogue, while their connections to the thematics of this year's Biennale will also be discussed.
On Sunday, 17 November at 5:00 pm, the work of artist Antonis Pittas will be presented in the context of Pre-Institutional Critique Workshop that is realized with the cooperation of the ASFA Department of Theory and History of Art.

Sunday, 17/11, 17:00–18:00, 8–10 Sofokleous st.

AGORA – KYKLOS

Internet
Series of discussions

Kyklos is a series of loosely structured and pluralistic approaches on crucial issues that take place in AGORA Every Sunday afternoon. Invited to Kyklos, the teams and initiatives that actively touch these subjects will have 10-15 minutes in order to share their practical approaches as answers to the question Now what?

On Sunday, 3 November, at 6:00 pm, Internet will be at the center of the fifth thematic unit of Kyklos, with the discussion enhancing placements by the teams Fab lab, P2P LAB, Common Fest, EL/LAK, Creative Common Greece, The omikron project, Labs.opengov.

Sunday , 17/11, 18:00–20:00, 8–10 Sofokleous st.

The program of the seventh week of AGORA is as follows:

TUESDAY 12/11

WEDNESDAY 13/11

THURSDAY 14/11

FRIDAY 15/11

SATURDAY 16/11

SUNDAY 17/11

4th ATHENS BIENNALE 2013 AGORA

OPENING HOURS

ADMISSION