Panel Statement
Chair Person: Helene Black
Presenters: Iannis Zannos, George Katodrytis & Yiannis Colakide
This panel will discuss how orality and technology in the arts, through social narratives and urban determinants, transmute resulting in localised adopted new forms. The profound changes that have influenced artistic creative processes by digital technology are leading to a redefinition of both the role of the artist and the relationship between artist and audience. It has been thoroughly discussed that digital media art forms have a tendency to abandon the clear-cut division between individual creator and audience and move towards collective situations where authorship is shared between many. (Alexander 2007, Austin 2007, Bakioglu 2007, Pettitt 2007). This panel discusses how electronic arts and technology relate to collective and non-written aspects of culture. It examines both spontaneous processes supported by the nature of digital media and conscious strategies that build on perception and orality in glocal culture. The panel will present and discuss issues related to this topic central to their collaborative research as participants in the NeMe initiated project Through the Roadblocks which was first presented in May 22, 2009 at the e-MobiLArt conference during the Thessaloniki Biennial. This project investigates how ideas and concepts are adopted and assimilated regardless of political, cultural and spacial boundaries. A team of curators, cultural managers, scholars and artists located in 10 countries spanning from Australia to UK and from Turkey to Israel and Palestine have been invited and their proposals are currently under development promising a rich variety of interpretations which will define the second stage of the project. The third phase is planned to take place in Cyprus in 2012.
- Helene Black is an artist and cofounder of NeMe. To date, she has many one person shows and group shows both in Cyprus and abroad. In addition, she has curated and co-curated several exhibitions such as “In Transition Russia 2008” with Sheila Pinkel and Alisa Prudnikova (Museum of Modern Art, Ekaterinburg and National Centre of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia), “In Transition Cyprus 2006” with Sheila Pinkel, (Lanitis Centre, Cyprus) and “Isolomania” (NIMAC, Nicosia) 2008. She has also co-curated the following shows with Yiannis Colakides, “…SO NOW WHAT?” (for Scope New York and Basel), “COR UNUM” 2008 (NCCA, Moscow), Margins of Time, 2008, (Lanitis Centre, Limassol) and Dialogues with the Machine (Sala Berlanga, Madrid, Spain). At present, Helene is co-ordinating with Yiannis Colakides, the three year NeMe project, ‘Through the Roadblocks’ (2010 – 2012). This project, initiated by Peter Lyssiotis, George Alexander and Helene Black in 2009 has now grown into a large cross disciplinary project involving many collaborations from 10 countries at this stage, with emphasis on contributions made by participants from countries which immediately surround Cyprus in the Eastern Mediterranean region. hblack.net neme.org