Press Release

Bringing together new works by Maria Spivak,  Androula Kafa,  Dιmιtris Tampakis, Christos Kyriakides and Panayiotis Andreou, the exhibition comes together through a process of attunement to different modalities of sound, the group exhibition “Sonic Entanglements: Phenomenologies of Sound” curated by Evagoria Dapola, is asking the audience to trace the liminalities and sonic qualities of the works. It  is a stark reminder that listening is a full-bodied and tran/s/ensorial practice of tuning into relational signs of the contemporary sensorium, urging us to be attuned to frequences both familiar and unfamiliar, considering the ambience by tuning in to the known and unknown, recognizing familiar and infra-ordinary frequencies. A soft suggestion to privilege sound over silence, reconsidering the meanings of rhythm and vibration.   

Text – Curatorial Essay:

Upon entering the exhibition, the viewer encounters a suspended old bell: hanging midair, it seems to retain the ghostly imprint of its unique history, of an absent body, a gesture frozen in time. The rural legend claims that this bell, the central axis of Maria Spivak’s Untitled, was part of a found sculpture, transformed into utility objects like bells due to the state of life at times of critical need.  Bridging her music practice and her artistic research, the work uses commonplace devices and materials including DC motors and cable ties to create an artwork made of absences and silences, focusing on subtraction than with addition. Creating thus a ‘relational space’, her work is a trace, a relic, a remnant, which holds a memory we may not access.

This initial encounter immediately sets the unique tone for the exhibition, immersing us in the distinctive visual and sonic language of the works. In ‘Sonic Entanglements: Phenomenologies of Sound’, objects exist in a state of ambiguity and transformation. Every artwork unearths new dimensions in a perceptual space where auditory, performative and visual elements interweave and resonate, building a polyphonic sensorium.

Moving further into the space, the viewer is met with works, bridging the auditory and visual aesthetics. The body of the viewer becomes unconsciously integrated into the artwork as one is encouraged to become conscious of the soothing and a slow-burning unrest inducing presence of a sharp spear that is rotating around its own fragile ceramic axis slowly, yet treacherously, as it holds the possibility of piercing an adult’s leg or a child’s heart. The work seems to be creating into the space a linearity that feels like spinning the arrow of time, suggesting that the horizon is only interrupted by the presence of the viewer. The duality of Christos Kyriakides’ work Roughly 1°, filled with surface tension, delivers an experience of art one experiences with eyes, ears, and the whole body. This work encapsulates Kyriakides’ artistic oeuvre: he does not transform objects but relocates them, reintroducing them into new creative contexts where their meaning wavers.

The deeper we go into the exhibition space, the stronger the sense of suspension grows. Dimitris Tampakis’ FORTUNE DILEMMA, defensive pieces, are casted aluminium sculptures that seem full of energy, ready to bounce, yet they are devoid of movement, weapons stuck and stripped from their function. When the viewer steps closer to them can barely hear their sound ramifications. Aestheticized violent objects, making us admire them while thinking of absent bodies, from weapons to spectacles: interrupted forces. Their faint conceptual and sonic echo in the space, has a mysterious aura that is energetic, aggressive and exhausted.

Near them, Panayiotis Andreou’s 7m of love, challenges expectations as the vibrator motors serve as conductors of energy and subtle yet perceptible sounds and movements. As the two vibration motors seem to be dancing and fighting till death, the sounds and gestures they produce, render audible the passions and desires behind them. His work PERFORMER, the lone work in the space outside, creates a symphony and at times cacophony of sounds that reflect the friction and abrasion between objects. The materials and objects he uses for his sculptures seem to have evolved, as if they have undergone organic mutations. His selection of DC motors, wires and magnets, is both poetic and practical, introducing sound and vibratory elements that add a performative dimension to the sculptures. There’s a faint echo of science fiction and romance in his work, without aestheticization as he reveals instead of hiding the banality of things embedded in everyday life.

As the viewer arrives at the final section of the exhibition inside the space, encounters Androula Kafa’s Lull, asking for the viewer – turned listener to meditate with it.  In this new adaptation of her ongoing practice on sonic meditations with real groups of people, each speaker represents a real person as its a deconstructed choir. The 6-channel audio installation is the result of a critical and long process of togetherness improvised through recorded vocal meditations of 5 invited people, allowing the listener to engage and participate by witnessing the intimacy and vulnerability of the group. Asking for the listener to engage meaningfully through deep listening, allowing oneself a brief moment of rest, the experience of the work is both personalised and personal. Moving beyond witnessing a flow of vocal sounds, a healing practice, translating the physical into sonic textures that vibrate with both beauty and unease, the work is a gesture of care. The unique individual voices coming off of each speaker create a unique sonic atmosphere- a vocal texture filled with vulnerability as one can hear them tinted with emotion.