The 59th Venice Art Biennale: The Greek participation with a VR video-installation

A contemporary take on Sophocle’s Tragedy through augmented reality and with Roma protagonists

DS.WRITER:

Σοφία Θρουβάλα

Image source: theartnewspaper.gr | Image courtesy of Loukia Alavanou

Milk of Dreams is the title of this year’s -59th- Art Biennale in Venice, curated by Cecilia Allemani. It’s a historic art festival organised biennially, always in Venice, Italy, since 1893. Along with Documenta in Kassel, the Biennale is one of the great art exhibitions in Europe and one of the most important contemporary art events in the world. At the beginning of the 20th century, the organisers of the Biennale asked the participating countries to build and conserve their National Pavilions. Greece is among the 30 states that possess their own exhibition space in the Giardini, a neo-byzantine building constructed a few years before WWII (1933), which hosts this year the work of Loukia Alavanou.

This year’s Greek participation is about a voyage in time towards all directions, which is understood through experience. The work is titled “Oedipus In Search of Colonus” and offers said experience through augmented reality. Particularly, it’s the first Greek VR movie ever made. Specially designed seats are placed inside the hemispherical domes, while the space is darkened, thus offering the most suitable atmosphere so that the spectators' experience (via 360 VR) is immersive and on the border between real and projected. The screening lasts 15 minutes, and as the title suggests, it is a contemporary take on Sophocles' tragedy, while the audio part of the work includes music from the Roma communities, creating a dialogue between classical and contemporary, showcasing the conditions in which Roma communities live today in Nea Zoi, west of Athens.

The artist, a fellow of the Onassis Foundation, Loukia Alavanou created the work for the Greek Pavilion through an interdisciplinary process, combining photography, cinema, theatre and augmented reality, in a very specific architectural structure -that of the Greek Pavilion- considering the structure of the neo-byzantine / neoclassical building itself, creating with her installation a palimpsest of the history of Greek art and architecture. The work is curated by art critic Heinz Peter Schwerfel.

The artist "builds" hemispherical domes of different diameters. Inside the domes, which mimic the Byzantine architectural idiom in a futuristic version, are specially designed seats, designed by studio AREA (Architecture Research Athens) - built by Dimitris Korres, who was inspired by designs of the utopian architect Takes Zenetos. The latter always dreamed of a space in which we could exist collectively, but also operate individually, experiencing different personalised experiences prompted by the same event, without being influenced as a mass. Feeling, thus, that we are everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

In this architectural configuration of the interior, Alavanou narrates the story of the exiled -from Thebes- Oedipus to Kolonos, a sacred and sanctified place, where he will find death. The film is shot in a Roma camp near Kolonos and parallels the lives of the nomadic inhabitants of West Attica with the tragic story of Oedipus, living, much like him, separately from the socially accepted "Greek" citizens, not enjoying privileges and living essentially in a modern exile.

Image courtesy of Loukia Alavanou | Image Source: itsliquid.com

The artist intends to connect all historical moments in a new type of drama, manned by a Roma cast. The ancient and famous work of Sophocles is recruited, with the help of sophisticated 360-degree VR technology, to tell a very real story of exile, uniting mythology with the contemporary and the concept of the scapegoat. Viewers have the opportunity to visit a three-dimensional setting, which would be difficult to access in real life. Using technology, they can, in essence, perceive in a multi-sensual way the space that surrounds them digitally and experience the drama that is being unfolded. With the movement of their head, the spectators-participants can follow the guiding sound and see around them with the help of the 3D drone shots.

Image courtesy of Loukia Alavanou | Image Source: itsliquid.com

The docufiction "Oedipus in Search of Colonus" by Greek 42-year-old Loukia Alavanou, known for her video collages, is the first VR360 participation of Greece in the Venice Biennale of Art. It is interesting that, in the context of this participation, the artist combines the means of architecture, video and performance, rendering them interactive through the use of new technologies, creating at the same time two spaces of action and perception.

Thus, in addition to the social issues raised through the visual sound installation, questions also arise about art and new forms of participation in cultural spaces. In particular, we might wonder if, in the near future, it would be possible to enjoy both exhibitions and film screenings using VR. This question brings forth many more, such as what it means to enjoy a movie in a public place, isolated in a personalised and non-communicative environment. And finally, does isolating the experience of art from the experience of others eventually provoke dialogue, and to what extent is it fruitful? In closing, the design of the website of the Greek (here) participation is also interesting as it could be considered that through its web-design it completely introduces the viewer to the work and foreshadows everything the latter deals with.