Katerina Apostolidou
03 Apr - 10 May 2008
KATERINA APOSTOLIDOU
"Displacements"
03.04.08 - 10.05.08
Katerina Apostolidou presents her new work at gallery Loraini Alimantiri Gazonrouge.
The term Displacements, is used as defined in psychoanalysis as: ...a metaphor of transferring the energy of the psyche into objects that substitute or symbolize others, similar to what usually occurs in dreams. These transitions are often expressed through images, in other words displacements of the abstract concept into equal visual results.
In this series of works, Katerina Apostolidou presents spaces that range between the real and the fantastic, spaces that transport the viewer into a field with psychological extensions. The space and objects are used metaphorically, through association setting in action the feeling of loss, isolation, the peculiar, simultaneously posing questions concerning our relation to space, identity and memory.
In Displacements 2008, Apostolidou presents four video works.
In The Hotel 2008 she borrows elements from the filmic vocabulary of cinema with the clear intention to minimize narration. The central space of an abandoned hotel is reshaped with digital interventions. The walls and other parts of the building are moved or repeated, the openings and escape routes are closed, blocking the exits. Its’ original functional purposes are cut off allowing for a shift towards the building’s interior. In a constant travelling, the space overflows with water while sinking furniture throughout the duration of the work, provoke a feeling of suffocation and relief. They transport a feeling beyond time, give the space an additional dimension that is identified with a human interior situation. The material used for the video, was shot in 2007 at Hotel Triton, a work by Aris Konstantinidis, in Andros.
In The House 2008 the video takes place in an abandoned house that had last been used as a primary school. It manages the story of a space through its different functions and metaphorically the way in which our memory manages its’ personal stories. The camera broadens the interior until it reaches the small central room of the house. There, the space slowly begins to fill up until the roof is covered. In the flooded room, cups, teapots and an endless series of cutlery sets sink adding to space another dimension, changing it into an imaginary restless landscape.
In The Storage the image carefully scans a commodities warehouse as if it were looking for something, while the sound of a jumping ball directs the sequence of the shots and rotates the camera like an eye that guards it in order to search for its’ origin. The sense that the viewer gets that something is about to happen, gives its place to a smiley face image on the children’s ball which blinks in a sense of urgency, like the light of a siren, a unexpected and ambiguous relationship. The warehouse is perhaps the most obvious metaphor for the space of the unconscious, where things that we do not comprehend occur and in the same way as the smiley imposes its presence decisively and inevitably, we only hear their echo, reveal themselves, shine momentarily and finally enforce themselves on us.
In Tracing Tracks 2008 the work develops in two stages. The artist designs with her hands the routes that a couple of black fish follow as they move in the water. In the ambiguous image, the lines seem to follow and dictate the paths of the fish and the opposite. In the duration of the video, the fish increase in number, over flood the space and finally make it disappear. In Traces, the image of the fish and its relation to the designing action is used as an allegory. The question they pose is whether we can direct our choices and aims if our course is predetermined from all that has been imposed on us and shaped us. The repetition of this action is similar to a kind of self-punishment as the question is finally repeated constantly without ever receiving an answer.
"Displacements"
03.04.08 - 10.05.08
Katerina Apostolidou presents her new work at gallery Loraini Alimantiri Gazonrouge.
The term Displacements, is used as defined in psychoanalysis as: ...a metaphor of transferring the energy of the psyche into objects that substitute or symbolize others, similar to what usually occurs in dreams. These transitions are often expressed through images, in other words displacements of the abstract concept into equal visual results.
In this series of works, Katerina Apostolidou presents spaces that range between the real and the fantastic, spaces that transport the viewer into a field with psychological extensions. The space and objects are used metaphorically, through association setting in action the feeling of loss, isolation, the peculiar, simultaneously posing questions concerning our relation to space, identity and memory.
In Displacements 2008, Apostolidou presents four video works.
In The Hotel 2008 she borrows elements from the filmic vocabulary of cinema with the clear intention to minimize narration. The central space of an abandoned hotel is reshaped with digital interventions. The walls and other parts of the building are moved or repeated, the openings and escape routes are closed, blocking the exits. Its’ original functional purposes are cut off allowing for a shift towards the building’s interior. In a constant travelling, the space overflows with water while sinking furniture throughout the duration of the work, provoke a feeling of suffocation and relief. They transport a feeling beyond time, give the space an additional dimension that is identified with a human interior situation. The material used for the video, was shot in 2007 at Hotel Triton, a work by Aris Konstantinidis, in Andros.
In The House 2008 the video takes place in an abandoned house that had last been used as a primary school. It manages the story of a space through its different functions and metaphorically the way in which our memory manages its’ personal stories. The camera broadens the interior until it reaches the small central room of the house. There, the space slowly begins to fill up until the roof is covered. In the flooded room, cups, teapots and an endless series of cutlery sets sink adding to space another dimension, changing it into an imaginary restless landscape.
In The Storage the image carefully scans a commodities warehouse as if it were looking for something, while the sound of a jumping ball directs the sequence of the shots and rotates the camera like an eye that guards it in order to search for its’ origin. The sense that the viewer gets that something is about to happen, gives its place to a smiley face image on the children’s ball which blinks in a sense of urgency, like the light of a siren, a unexpected and ambiguous relationship. The warehouse is perhaps the most obvious metaphor for the space of the unconscious, where things that we do not comprehend occur and in the same way as the smiley imposes its presence decisively and inevitably, we only hear their echo, reveal themselves, shine momentarily and finally enforce themselves on us.
In Tracing Tracks 2008 the work develops in two stages. The artist designs with her hands the routes that a couple of black fish follow as they move in the water. In the ambiguous image, the lines seem to follow and dictate the paths of the fish and the opposite. In the duration of the video, the fish increase in number, over flood the space and finally make it disappear. In Traces, the image of the fish and its relation to the designing action is used as an allegory. The question they pose is whether we can direct our choices and aims if our course is predetermined from all that has been imposed on us and shaped us. The repetition of this action is similar to a kind of self-punishment as the question is finally repeated constantly without ever receiving an answer.