The balcony

THE BICYCLE


Email to Elena:

"Your bicycle fits perfect at my balcony and it's true that makes me also feel nice, it fills in the empty space of the wall and makes my view more beautiful! Adds to the house a new aura. As if from "house" it became "home" . Very strange. I am thinking even to buy it from you after your performance, just to have it in my balcony to decorate it!"


Before: After:




THE CACTUS



Today I planned a cactus in the flower-pot that was in the balcony. I purred some water. The only problem is that it has already started to wither because we ate the pineapple two weeks ago, apart from that it looks very nice!

Room Situation - 1970 - Vito Acconci

"Room Situation documents a performance entitled Room Piece that was staged over three weekends in January 1970. Each weekend, Vito Acconci moved furniture and objects from his New York apartment to a gallery eighty blocks uptown. If he needed any of these items, he would return to the gallery to borrow them, and take them back when he had finished using them. The distinction between the artist''s home and his gallery, and between his private and public activities, became increasingly blurred." Retrieved June 10, 2009 from Tate Web Site: http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=27383&searchid=15156&tabview=text

"...the desire to look at the ordinary is to reassert 'a non ironic kind or realism' and to 'express what it's like to be in the real world'; a desire to communicate what it really feels like 'to be here, now'. This everyday realism is also linked to 'efficacy and unpreciousness' in the way art looks, and a new concern with 'the power of relatively simple gestures' as art connects with lived experience. Such works are 'unforced artistic statements, incidentally profound observations on our lives as lived everyday'." (Johnstone, S. 2008: 16)

Hostel room in Katmandu.

In Madrid.

This is the house of some people that I don't know. The house is in Madrid. A friend of mine stayed in there for 2 nights. He took these photographs with his mobile on Saturday the 13th of June.

From Upsala - to Bilbao.

Photographs from Upsala.



Two weeks later, a Spanish friend came from Sweden, on his way back to Spain he stayed for almost 5 nights in my house in London. I had asked him in advance to take some photographs in order to present to me his place in Upsala. He was living there for 6 months and now he was returning to Spain.






I photographed his belongings. This was everything he had taken with him after moving out form his 6 months house in Upsala.

London - 21-24 May 2009

When I came back from Bilbao, the 21st of May, a Greek couple came to my house in London. They stayed in my place for 4 nights. They had brought their own sheets. One of them had a painting of Monet on it but they didn't know that. They brought me for present two books in Greek, one piece of 'spanakopita' (A traditional Greek spinach pie), and typical Greek coffee (frappé). They left the 25th of May very early in the morning for Edinburgh.

In Bilbao - 15-19 May 2009

The week after Chester I went to Bilbao where I stayed for 5 nights. There I didn't take photos of me sleeping I rather asked from the person that hosted me in his house to present me his home and record in any way his presentation. He made a video, he took some photographs of the house and he drew a plan of it. I was interested to see how does someone present his private space, what he chose to present and how. What is important and what is not important in this space.

In Chester - 8 & 9 Μay 2009

I haven't been writing for long time now. So I should go back to the past a bit to continue more or less from where I left...

It was Friday the 8th of June that I went to Chester. Another Spanish friend is living there. I slept there two nights, on a mattress on the floor. It was comfortable but a bit cold cause the house was quite big and I had forgotten my pyjamas. Next to me on the sofa was sleeping another Spanish man who I had met once before. In that house live normally 4 people, 2 French and 2 Spanish. Those two nights we were 8.

Reading - 3 & 4 May 2009

This is my very first attempt. I went to the house of a Spanish friend who lives in Reading (UK). We cooked at his home the 3rd at night, I slept there one night and I left the day after.

(Cooking)

The kitchen was new and big, with a view to a small garden. We started by putting some pieces of chicken in the oven and then I cleaned and cut some potatoes. I fried them while Ion boiled some pasta. After having fried the potatoes and boiled the pasta he suggested putting the pasta in the pan with the fried oil (this is actually an old fashion way to cook pasta in Greece). I didn't really like the idea (too much cholesterol!) but I didn't feel comfortable to say no, so he went on trying it. Unfortunately, he didn't succeed because by the time he placed the pan with the fried oil on the gas-ring it flamed up! We were shocked and for some seconds we were just standing there and looking at it! We stopped the fire by covering the pan with a top. We opened all the windows but was already late so the fire-alarm started ringing. Ion, being new in this house (just his 2nd day he had moved in!) had no idea of how to turn off the fire-alarm but fortunately it automatically stopped before him calling his flatmate to ask about it. Later on, while I was cleaning the kitchen, and the cupboards from the black dust of the fire, I found out the the fan was not working anymore. I opened it to check and I saw this: (photo : melted fan)

(Eating)
Inspite of all this unexpeced experience we had a nice meal around the dinner table in the living room, with normally cooked pasta, chicken, potatoes, bread, bears to drink and chocolate brownies for dessert.

(Sleeping)
The house was very big, normally there live 3 people (Ion, and two more men). During that weekend his flatmates where not in the house. Jon had a bedroom on the second floor with a large double bed. I slept in the living room on the 1st floor on the sofa.

Photo: At night just before getting asleep.

The sofa was not very comfortable but it was ok.

Photo: In the morning 2 minutes before waking up.

By the morning I couldn't remember my dreams...

proposal (draft)

Outline of the topic
Being influenced by the works of Sophie Calle and Rirkrit Tiravanija I intent to investigate the notion of public and private through the actions of cooking, eating and sleeping. Calle with her work crosses private boundaries to explore the meanings which might be hidden there and exploits public spaces, investing them with a sense of intimacy. Tiravanija talking about his work has said ‘The situation is not about looking at art. It is about being in the space, participating to an activity. The nature of the visit has shifted to emphasize on the gallery as a space for social interaction. The transfer of such activities as cooking, eating or sleeping into the realm of the exhibition space put visitors into very intimate if unexpected contact; the displacement creates an acute awareness of the notion of public and private, the installations function like scientific experiments: the displacement becomes a tool and exposes the way scientific thought processes are constructed. The visitor becomes a participant in that experiment.’ (artist’s text in www.culturebase.net)

In connection to the works of the artists above what is important for my work is not what you see but what takes place between people, through different ways of interaction such as eating together around a dinner table or sleeping in the same room. Wanting to emphasise on the process rather than product of a performance I wish my work to unfold as I go through each stage of preparation and execution. Finally, I intent to carry out my performance research wherever I go in different cities around Europe as an attempt to blur and destroy the borders between life and art but also as an investigation on the differentiation of the limits between private and public spheres in different cultures.


Methodology
I intend to create different experiments based on my previous works on food and on sleeping. I will continue on my work on sleeping by inviting people to come and sleep in my house but also I will sleep in other people houses and in public spaces. My research on eating and cooking will be based on my current collaboration with Gemma Craddock on food performances in alternative spaces. In addition to this I will make a one week trip in 3 different countries in Europe during which I will create different environments based around food and sleep through which I will explore the areas that lay in between private and public spheres and I will encourage the interaction and communication between the participants.

On cooking and eating:
1) I will ask people in restaurants to let me eat with them in their table.
2) I will make one dinner in each country using traditional products from another country and I will invite my guests to cook with me.
3)I will cook with people in their place. For the documentation I will take videos of them while they are cooking focusing on their body movements rather than the food itself.

On sleeping:
1)I will sleep in other peoples’ bed entering by this way in their most intimate environment; I will share with them my dreams during that night as an exchange of intimacy. I will also ask them to give me something from their home and I will give them back something I have found in public places. For documentation I will take a photo of the different bedrooms with the two exchangeable objects and I will write down my dreams during that night.