3 day workshop at the Dept of Architecture
InSituPoetry
International Workshop about Poetry writing, reciting and recording in the monastery of Paou
University of Thessaly, Department of Architecture
Monastery of Paou, Argalasti, 6-12thSeptember 2010.
Contributors:
Vassilis Amanatidis (poet, Greece)
Iana Boukova (poet, Bulgary)
Valerie Coulton (poet, USA)
Ivan Hristov (poet, Bulgary)
Katerina Iliopoulou (poet, Greece)
Dimitris Leontzakos (poet, musician, Greece)
Edward Smallfield (poet, USA)
And from the Department of Architecture:
Phoebe Giannisi
Giorgos Papaconstantinou
Guests:Nadia Kalara (artist, University of Thessaly)
Dimitra Kationi (poet, Greece)
Dimitris Martidis (artist, University of Thessalonica)
Objectives
An international workshop which included architects and poets on the subject of writing, reciting and recording poetry in a specific outdoors natural site environment. The participants cooperated with each other and also with the Workshop of Environmental Communication and Audio Visual Recording of the Architectural Department and produced as a result a series of texts and their recordings and videos. A final public reciting which took place in the Paou Monastery closed the event.
The workshop introduced a small scale research concerning the relationship between writing, space and reciting as a reaction to a very specific landscape, within a frame where poetry meets with contemporary art through the environment and the synthesis of voice, sound and image.
The participants stayed and worked in the monastery for 7 days.
Organizers from the University of Thessaly: Phoebe Giannisi, Giorgos Papakonstantinou
For a complete listing of all activities that took place prior Sept 2010, please refer to the old website
Commissioners - Curators: Phoebe Giannisi, Zissis Kotionis
http://www.arch.uth.gr/greekark
The oldest meaning of the ancient greek word for the activity of building, ktisis, is “weeding, preparation of the soil for sowing, planting“, while the meanings of ‘foundation’ and ‘construction’ are subsequent. Sowing and Construction introduce at the outset a dual function for architecture as the activity of organizing both buildings in space and, also, of open, natural spaces. By means of the present project, we seek to reintroduce into contemporary architectural practices the spaces of culture in its double meaning, of agriculture and of civilization. “People meet within culture”.
The economic crisis under way in Greece and in Europe is simultaneously a crisis of production and of employment and, overall, a crisis of human performativity within metropolitan and, indeed, any man-made environments. Beyond the bounds of the metropolis, the agricultural sector is also undergoing a crisis after the collapse of mechanized monocultures and of the European subsidies. The crisis in agriculture affects the availability and quality of nutrition. At the same time, the harsh conditions of the economic crisis in the cities turn all heads to the countryside and to the land available, which thus assumes the value of vital resource with the potential of providing employment, quality of living, alternative structuring of production and of motivating networking, the forming of communities and the development of communal living practices.
The responsibility of architecture goes beyond the bounds of the constructed edifice. It is being defined anew as a set of practices for the planning and management of land spaces. Land is tantamount to cultivation: cultivation of seeds and plants but also of civilisation, interconnections, communication and exchange. The architecture of cultivations, landscaping, the determination of performativity within given spatial fields, all these derive from the software programs which we designate as seeds and, generally, as biogenetic plant material.
The project of the ‘Ark’ attempts to point out, synaesthetically, the relation between, on the one hand, the biogenetic plant material and the seeds which are cultivated and, on the other, the kind of landscape in which we live and the way(s) in which we are metabolised. Metabolism itself is not a biological but a cultural process. The deterioration of nutrition is synonymous with the deterioration of memory and of history which, in the case of Greece, is rich both in terms of diversity and temporal continuity.
The Ark which settles on the Pavilion of Greece becomes a condenser – a bank of seeds as well as a field of exchange of both information and plant-seeding material. In addition, the Ark is a kitchen, a space where food is produced out of seeds. Eating brings people together and architecture frames this intimacy. The seeds, plants and fruit are gathered, bearing evidence to the rich Greek biodiversity. The responsibility of showcasing, preserving and restoring the biodiversity within the contemporary urban-agricultural space, is symbolically taken up by the creation and operation of the greek Ark of seeds-come-kitchen, at the 12th architecture Biennale of Venice.
Collaborators:
Ark Design: Zissis Kotionis, Phoebe Giannisi
Ark Construction: Gavrilos Michalis
Collection of Biogenetic plant material: Orestis Davias, biologist
Layout of Exhibition of Agricultural Landscape: Kostas Manolidis, architect
Video & sound installation: Yannis Isidorou, visual artist
Information layout: Alexandros Psychoulis, visual artist
Installation Consultant: Maria Papadimitriou, visual artist, responsible for the actions/workshops in the city, and the performance of catering and cultivation action
Catalogue editors: Phoebe Giannisi, Katerina Iliopoulou, Zissis Kotionis
Catalogue Design : Michalis Paparounis, publisher
Website design & development: Alexandros Psychoulis, George Kalaouzis
Communications manager, Venice project: Alexia Katsigera
Assistants: Vasia Lyri, Thaleia Melissa, Artemis Nikolopoulou, Alina Orfanou, Nikos Platsas, Michalis Softas, Anna Vasof, Niovi Zarabouka
10 day Erasmus Intensive Programme Student Workshop
Virtual spaces have become a major economic growth factor in many contexts. As a consequence, the design of experiential rooms opens up new opportunities to architects for work and employment on aesthetical and concept design of these virtual environments. Contemporary society demands flexible urban and architectural responds. Continuation of DIVE programmes addresses new contexts, new social and urban structures and new patterns which are avoiding the established concepts about scale and physicality.
Bringing the trilogy of DIVEs together it is time to address one of the elusive issues: "bridging the gap between physical and virtual".
A decade ago the informational era has shown glimpses of what the future might hold for us a unified and continuos world without divisions between physical and virtual envrionments. Couple of years later we are nowhere near that vision. What do we have to do to to bridge the gap? And are we still the believers? The IP is setting off in the direction of bridging the gap between physical and virtual, asking questions of what do we need to do, in which direction we have to act, and how can we connect the separate entities into one unified whole, not forgeting the achievements of recent DIVE IPs crossing scales and humanization of virtual environments - on the way.
Conecting the physical and virtual environments has proven elusive and undefined at best. The questions still remain: can we move beyond mere prototypes and concepts? Can we omit the word imagine and if and just make the transition from physical to virtual as real as we want it to be? What is phyisical and what is real, where are the boundaries, what defines them and can we bridge them? What does all that means for the users? Is the transition as smooth as they would hope it can be? Should they be aware of it or not? Is it possible and plaussible at all? How do the identity, culture and other means play the part in unifiying digital and physical worlds?
Second semester field trip to Holland in spring 2010.
The International Nicosia documentary Festival “Views of the World” is the biggest documentary celebration organized in Cyprus with a various projection programme and special guests from Cyprus and abroad.
Its mission is to present contemporary films stemming from the “documentary cinema”, the “direct cinema” or the “real cinema” as we mainly call it. This event makes the local cultural actions internationally known, while it functions as a bridge between Cyprus and the rest of the world. The programme focuses on the contemporary world’s views and mainly on themes such as human rights, minority issues, ecological issues, contemporary art, contemporary portraits etc. We tend to present films which activate nowadays people offering to them stimuli and contact with the esthetical, cultural and social evolutions, as they are recorded through the style and the opinions of the film-makers. We intend to discover and to meet directors/artists who risk, innovate and dare through new ways of expression in order to ensure the renewal of this cinematographic art genre. Their films become the medium through which ideas and opinions are recorded and communicated, an educational approach about issues that concern every modern and sceptic citizen who chooses the unprofitable and the active and dynamic participation at events around the globe. This festival is not only a cultural expression, it is also a place where all of us, organizers and observers, directors and spectators, “authors” and “protagonists” of this world, can discuss and be entertained through what is created out of us and also what creates us, meaning the Documentary Film.