Houserules Project


I would like to use HOUSERULES as an opportunity to work with actors in relation to the site. I will work with one actor/performer/individual each week and improvise with them. 

 I am interested in collaboration and its attached concepts duality, identity/ identification and mirroring. How through the artistic interaction we can lose our identities, the danger in that, the pleasure in that, the limits, no limits, how it can either crush or enrich our egos. I am equally interested in “space” and its influence on the artists/ artwork.

 For Thursday the 20th I will present the documentation of my work with a spoken word performer/ stand-up comedian. He writes and performs his own stuff; he can be very centered and specific in his art form but equally really open to be doubted or challenged. I am expecting him to create something inspired by the Anchor House building. The site’s aesthetic essence and conceptual connotations (abandoned offices) are very close to his subjects of interest. 

For Thursday the 27th I will present my work with a talented English actor, versatile and flexible. He is a sensitive ‘instrument” and his delivery is mainly relying on his instincts and is influenced by the site and his interaction with others (actors, director). I will give him some texts related to the site for him to improvise on them. I am open to reverse our roles and to be under his directorial instructions. In every case i will initiate each dialogue by “bringing something on the table” to work on and I am expecting from the performers to challenge me back by using the means of their choice. I will document this procedure and I will present this documentation on the site.

HOUSERULES

HOUSERULES is an ongoing work in progress with open evenings to the public on every Thursday, beginning Feb 6th. HOUSERULES is part of 'OFFICE SESSIONS'.

Description

From February 4th, 13 artists will be occupying the fifth floor of a largely unoccupied office building in East India Docks, as part of creative director and curator Caitlin Mavroleon’s ambitious project, OFFICE SESSIONS, in which different art projects will activate 100,000 sqf of empty office space.

HOUSERULES has been initiated by artist Nadia Berri, and the project is executed collaboratively with participating artists Tatiana Baskakova, Victoria Burgher, Terry Dynes, Ben Faga, Matthew Hammond, Jeremy Lee, Jayne Lloyd, Kate Mahony, Erifili Missiou, Cristina Pedreira, Daniella Valz-Gen and Rob Brown.

Over 42 days the artists will engage in the development of constantly evolving work for, and in direct response to 20,000 sqf of a deserted office floor. This particular setting offers great potential, while at the same time the ‘houserules’ of such an environment set out contrived boundaries: it is within this tension that the project will take place.

HOUSERULES embraces the idea of indeterminacy within the restrictions of the 5th floor to bring, but also to question, freedom, action and play, in the context of an exhibition and also the given space.

The participating artists work in a variety of media, including performance, film, installation, sculpture, text and sound.

HOUSERULES is an ongoing work in progress with open evenings to the public on every Thursday, beginning Feb 6th. The public is invited to come and join the artists and witness the work as it evolves.

HOUSERULES will also invite other artists to create work on the spot on these open evenings. The project will end with a big final event on March 13th.

OPEN EVENINGS:

Thursday, 6 February, 7pm to 9pm

Thursday, 13 February, 7pm to 9pm

Thursday, 20 February, 7pm to 9pm

Thursday, 27 February, 7pm to 9pm

Thursday, 6 March, 7pm to 9pm

 

IN SPACE NO ONE HEARS 

YOU BARK

  
Actor: Matt Houllihan

Two video projections are played side to side. A man is narrating the same story in fragments, sometimes from the screen on the right, sometimes from the screen on the left. His outfit, his behaviour and some aspects of the story are identical while others differ.

As the story unravels, the viewer begins to have doubts about the narrator’s identity, the true version of the story and it’s over whole originality. Language plays a suspicious role, clarifying and confusing the case at times.

Identity, reality, inner psychological structure and its symbolisation through architecture are approached with humor in this video installation.
The narration is in English. 

link to video:

IN SPACE NO ONE HEARS YOU BARK - Vimeo

GREY CUBE

 

The Grey Cube Platform

Marilena Aligizaki, Katerina Androulaki, Becky Campbell, Konstantinos Fischer, Christina Foitou, Elina Theodoropoulou, Panos Kombis, Yannis Markantonakis, Erifili Missiou, Labrini Boviatsou, James Lane, K.N. Patsios, Artemis Potamianou, Nicolas Stathopoulos, Maria Filippakopoulou, Alexandros Vasmoulakis & GPO

Space: Oxo Nou, Chania, Crete
Duration: 1-13 August 2013

Opening:

 

BREEDS CONTEMPT

(vertrautheit)

"Breeds contempt" is a video installation, a symmetrical projection of 2 separate videos. It was created for ResidencyShot exhibition and was presented in GlogauAir institute, in Berlin on March 2013.

 

Similar pairs of interior and exterior spaces were projected simultaneously on the walls of a symmetrical space. Symmetry was stressed by the 2 plants placed on the floor. 

The work instigated various reactions from the visitors. A lot of them asked me whether i had filmed the same or different spaces because some elements of the spaces appear identical and others structurally different. Creating this ambiguity was in my initial goals so raising these questions meant i had achieved my creative aims. I avoided answering in order to maintain this sense of confusion in the viewer and also to allow him to have his own interpretation of the work.

 

  Video Presentation

 

 

Please adjust the quality on youtube to HD

The piece is a video installation of 2 separate big sized projections. Here the 2 videos are edited side by side for online presentation.

 

 

Caption from "breeds contempt"

I am using architecture to speak about psychological structures and human perception.This work is the result of a research on repetition, familiarity, topology (no - oriental surfaces) and parallel realities.

 

ResidencySHOT

ResidencyShot is an experimental project organized and curated by Erifili Missiou and Victoria Burgher. Our idea came out from our desire to set up a group show in Berlin that would involve experiencing the city for a period and work in relation to a space. We applied to GlogauAIR, an important institute that functions as a high class international residency. In parallel to its residency program it also hosts exhibitions and art events in its project space - where ResidencyShot project was realized. 

Core of the project was the intense collaboration and exchange between the participating artists both before and during the show. Each artist specializes in a different medium (video, sculpture, sound, performance, painting, installation) and we are all coming from different ethnic backgrounds (Spain, England, Russia, China, Greece, Ireland). This created a very interesting dynamic that was reflected on the final exhibition. 

Tatiana Baskakova, Terry Dynes, Matthew Hammond, Victoria Burgher, Erifili Missiou, Jeremy Lee

CONCEPT:

Seven London-based international artists knock back a residencySHOT.

ResidencySHOT is an experimental project, a simulation of the dynamics, politics and processes of an extended residency programme condensed into just one week. Over the final two days the artists will exhibit the results of the experiment to the public.

ResidencySHOT aims to instigate risk-taking and exploration in individual practices. The artists will focus on and play with the elements intrinsic to an international residency – multiculturalism, process, space and interaction.

Erifili Missiou and Victoria Burgher are interested in emphasizing the dialogue that evolves between the artists and in how GlogauAIR’s shared space, as well as relocating to Berlin for a week, will inform their work.

How the artists adapt and react to this habitat will form the basis of the experiment and subsequent exhibition, revealing to the public the internal anatomy of a residency experience.

MAIN FOCUS OF THE PROJECT WAS GIVEN ON THE PROCESS AND THE COLLABORATION BETWEEN THE ARTISTS.

                                                

ResidencyShot - final show

 

"Vertrautheit breeds contempt" - Erifili Missiou

"Ausgewahlte farbaufnahmen" - Cristina Pedreira

"Points" - Terry Dynes

"Erifili, Victoria, Matthew, Cristina, Terry, Tatiana and i am the wheeless barrow" - Jeremy Lee

"Jeremy Lee in wheelbarrow (artist in residence)" - Tatiana Baskakova

"Hard aber herzlich" - Victoria Burgher

ResidencyShot Opening

GlogauAir Institute

GlogauAir ready for the visitors to arrive

HEYGATE ESTATE 3-6 ⁄ PULLENS ESTATE 6-9

51° 29′ 35″ N, 0° 5′ 46″ W
51° 29′ 21.84″ N, 0° 6′ 1.8″ W

In parallel to my individual artistic pursuit I am keen in curating projects where an idea is explored by a group of artists, for a length of time and in relation to a space. Living close to Elephant and Castle, i set up a proposal for a double project in 2 emblematic buildings of the area in conjunction with Elefest (annual art festival). An open-air show took place from 3-6 am in the public space of the Heygate Estate that was followed by an in doors exhibition (6-9) in Pullens buildings community centre. A team of 8 artists (including me), worked for a month visiting regularly the 2 sites and meeting each other. 

"My mobile prison cell"

Interactive sculpture made for the open air show. It was presented at the Heygate Estate's premises.

reebars, jubilee clips, castor wheels, wooden board, office chair, plant, iron bars

      "Mobile Prison Cell" - video

-->With this piece I am playing with humans’ desperate effort to escape their problems by changing their location. I created this handy interactive sculpture so that everybody can carry some of his problems, deadlocks, domestic safety and imprisonment to his work, his holidays and his everyday activities. This mobile piece resembles a domestic environment and a prison cell. A careful look proves the fallacy - the cage is wide open and not difficult to escape, but we still stay in and carry it with us.

Visitors playing with my "Mobile Prison Cell" during the opening.

 

"Heygate Estate" - the show:

The artists responded to the specific characteristics and the history of each space, avoiding dictating the context through title.This gave the viewer a unique experience, a freedom to engage with each individual artist’s work as well as picking up on the inevitable connections and relationships that take place amongst the works, the buildings and the two projects.We showed mixed media work, some of us brought some pre-conceived elements others not and we all collectively played and bouncing ideas off each other.

SIMON ATKINSON⁄ NADIA BERRI⁄ VICTORIA BURGHER⁄ TERRY DYNES⁄ BEN FAGA⁄ JAYNE LLOYD⁄  ERIFILI MISSIOU/ CRISTINA PEDREIRA ⁄ 

ERIFILI MISSIOU - project organiser

 

Victoria Burgher - "Your move"

Jayne Lloyd - "Making paper from paper"

Cristina Pedreira

Nadia Berri - "Last waltz"

Erifili Missiou - "mobile prison cell 2"

Victoria Burgher - "Pullens pond"

Nadia Berri

"Heygate Estate - Pullens Estate" - Opening