Angelikiwed27sept

VERSION 2

Sound acts in Victoria Square

The project is about a participatory sound installation and action in Victoria Square at Athens, realized in 2015. It was designed in two phases. In the first phase I realized series of conversations with women in the square, which I recorded with their permission, for two months, as well as collected the derived audio material in a private website. In the second phase I broadcasted in-situ the collected material and directed the new correlations occurred with the public, as a kind of performance, one Sunday afternoon of June 2015. The broadcasted devices, which were hacked sound devices, were placed in five trees around where men usually gathered.

For the first phase I borrowed methodologies from the field of social anthropology related to sound, after I got in touch with relevant experts. The collected audio files were archived and taxinomized in categories in a digital platform. For the second phase the installation was designed according to the sound sources used by different groups of people in the square, which I hacked and rebuilt for the project's purposes. My physical presence in the space provoked questions on the gender issues in the public space and was also a way to deal with it, not only as an architect but also as a visitor.

The actions were an outcome of a research on architecture and public space and had the intention to interrogate and discover new architectural and artistic practices into public sphere. Specifically, the project addresses two issues: first, the fragmentation in isolated public spheres from culturally diverse groups where the male presence was dominant. Second, the powerless womens' appropriation of the specific square. That means that their presence was brief in time and manifested itself with a “weakness” in their voice, which was usually soft and low, and with creating small groups of social interaction. The reason I chose to work with the medium of sound was that it could be used as a tool to create a culturally isolated space and could represent anonymously someone, who would like to talk about private subjects and problems.

My Way Home

My Way Home is about a participatory project based on soundwalks. Since June 2016, we have been collecting and archiving, online, personal audio routes from participants around the world. These audio files are instructions recorded and created by them, as they are going back home from any place they like, and are similar to the experience of a GPS aural guidance. The audio output, which has been recorded by their cellphones, consists mainly of their voices and the soundscapes surrounding them. In another time and another place different people are invited to follow the routes by listening to the sound files with their cellphones or MP3 players. The result of these performative acts is that unpredictable wanderings and random encounters are emerged in the new places, revealing hidden aspects of them by the simple action of walking.

We realize this project in heterogenous places under the context of festivals, that we find interesting and related to our project, or by indepedent occassions. In these places we invite people (friends, visitors, artists) to walk while listening to the instructions of the route they have chosen, with personal headphones. Each route is represented with an abstract line of its direction, the name of the participant, the duration of the route and the city. The participants choose one of the lines on printed material or online and then they are given, or they find in the website, the corresponded audio file. At the end of their route they are asked to take a photo from their last destination and write down one word that could describe their experience.

The idea of My Way Home was born by a combination of our different interests, previous work and ideas in a residency workshop in Athens called Becomebecome. Our intention was to create two parallel experiences focusing on the walking and listening as actions of exploring and performing. Just as the title of the project implies, our intention was the participant to trust the voice of another invisible and unfamiliar person, his/her ears and his/her walking. During the actions the unexpected narratives and the simultaneous audio presence of the environment of the first participants created the conditions of an augmented reality (AR) and therefore an active memory field, bringing together their daily routine with the other participants' temporary locus action. We realized this project for the first time in an abandoned village, known as Old Vlachata in Kefalonia, within the framework of Saristra Festival (5-7 August 2016).

VERSION 1

Sound acts in Victoria Square

The project is about a participatory sound installation and action in Victoria Square at Athens, realized in 2015. It addresses the issue of fragmentation in isolated public spheres and the powerless women's appropriation of the specific square. By visiting regularly the square for almost one year I observed that the frequent visitors- mainly immigrants from Middle East, Balkan, refugees and Greek inhabitants- were gathering in separate and isolated spaces where the male presence was dominant. The presence of women was brief in time and manifest itself with a “weakness” in their voice, which was usually soft and low, and by creating small groups of social interaction.

It was designed in two phases. In the first phase I realized series of conversations with women in the square, which I recorded with their permission, for two months, as well as collected and archived the derived audio material. For this actions, I borrowed methodologies from the field of social anthropology related to sound. In the second phase I broadcasted in-situ the collected material and directed the new correlations occurred with the public, as a kind of performance, one Sunday afternoon of June 2015. The broadcasted devices were placed in five trees around where men usually gathered. The installation was designed according to the sound sources used by different groups of people in the square.

The actions were an outcome of a research on architecture and public space and had the intention to interrogate and discover new architectural and artistic practices into public sphere. My physical presence in the space provoked also questions on the gender issues in the public space and how to deal with it, not only as an architect but also as a visitor. The reason I chose to work with the medium of sound was that it could be used as a tool to create a culturally isolated space and could represent anonymously someone, who would like to talk about private subjects and problems.

My Way Home

My Way Home is about soundwalks. Since June 2016, me and Ivana Pinna have been collecting ‘returning back home’ audio routes from participants, we call "Supporters", from all over the world (Paris, Barcelona, Helsinki, Athens, Naples, London, etc). Participants, that we call "Performers" were invited to follow these routes. The routes from an ‘another place’ are shifted to ‘here’ in the form of auditory instructions, resembling the experience of a GPS aural guidance. As a result unpredictable wanderings and random encounters were emerged.

Each "Supporter" recorded his/her voice on mobile by describing a route by walking back home and giving instructions at the same time, like a GPS aural guidance. In another time and another place "Performers" realized these routes by following the instructions and took a photo from the obstacles or their last destination. They were, also, asked to write only one word on a paper describing their personal experience. We realized this project for the first time in an abandoned village, known as Old Vlachata in Kefalonia, within the framework of Saristra Festival in 2016. The photographic imprint of the final destination highlighted the absence of habitation in this village and the personal perspective of every participant on that locus through a practice of everyday life.

“My Way Home” was born as a combination of our different interests, previous work and ideas.