We Are All Cities: Electricities

“what could be the fate of an instant luminous gesture within a city of electrified storms?”

artist’s notes (We are all cities: Electricities notes and sketches, January 2018)

“initiate a transient luminous event: strangers as fireflies sharing light bulbs and memories before disappearing”

artist’s notes (We are all cities: Electricities performing score, January 2018)

Concept

We Are All Cities: Electricities constitutes a series of participatory walking performances accompanied by objects and attached technologies into different sites of cities (Athens, Corfu). The work forms a participatory walking performance of 10 people (participants) provided with handheld light bulbs and wearable sound recorders. They walk together silently, developing a sensory attentiveness to the site (place). They walk with the hand-held light turning it on as visual sign of their instant memory/thought while they whispering it in their microphone. In this site-oriented work, people walk with a common object (light bulbs) together yet keeping their private zone (recording their memories), forming a silent evolving ritual of light, a poetic situation. The artist explores the poetics and politics of collective walking with an object as sensory, semiotic and performative extension of the body, the psyche and the mind.

Description

Participatory walking, 10 hand held light bulbs, 10 sound recorders, GPS data

Technical: Full HD video documentation, 16:9, colour, single channel, stereo sound,

Subtitling: English subtitles

Year: 2018

Credits

Concept - Creation: Bill Psarras

Participants/Co-walkers: 10 people (Corfu, CCS2018, Ionian University)

Documentation filming: Evangelos Bezevegkis

Performance Documentation: Alkistis Pappa, Isidora Avraam

Artwork: https://vimeo.com/308194959

Info

The participatory site-oriented performance took place in Corfu (June 2018) as part of the arts-based workshop ‘Site-Specific Arts’ of 2nd Corfu Summer School of Hybrid Arts, run by the artist. The site was selected taking into consideration its C-shape as two magnetic poles facing each other (a site where someone is able to see both beginning and end).

©2020 Bill Psarras