Giorgis Zarkos, a writer from the inter-war period generation, submits one of his short stories for publication in the Great Hellenic Encyclopedia in the late 1920s. The story is indeed published, but under someone else’s name. After trying in vain to rectify this injustice at his own expense, he ends up breaking the shop window of the publishing house “Pyrsos” three times.
This action, along with his unconventional character, leads to him being placed under “watch” at the Public Psychiatric Hospital of Athens (Dafni), under DA’s orders. His experience of being confined in Dafni for 54 days, as recorded by he himself in his books, sheds light on the bleak conditions of psychiatric institutions and their inmates.
The performance Giorgis Zarkos: Three Stones, a Shop Window, and a Confinement, which will be presented at the Castle of Patras, explores the writer’s personality and oeuvre, as well as his conflict with the literary, cultural, judicial, and psychiatric establishments of his era.
*Contains graphic descriptions
Phygital is an immersive event showcasing live audiovisual performances that blend digital and physical-analog musical instruments, complemented by digital projections.
The Phygital event is structured into three distinct live music performances of contemporary electronic music artists George Apergis and Alex Retsis, alongside simultaneous digital artwork projections by the artistic group DEN. This includes visual haikus, a collage of brief micro-compositions combining instrumental and synthetic forms, connected by a deconstructive and unpredictable storytelling.
In the first hour, the audience will experience a digital live music performance by Qebo (Alex Retsis), featuring a blend of electroacoustic and ambient music inspired by the architecture of the castle.
The second hour highlights the EMEX project by George Apergis and Alex Retsis, blending physical-analog instruments with digital technology to offer a dynamic interplay between digital and analog sounds.
The final hour is dedicated to an analog live performance where George Apergis will exclusively use vinyl records.
We are the first to be part of a “co-habitation” arrangement between humans and machines. Experimentation no longer focuses on the dialogue but on the new content itself, along with the urgent, burning question: “We instead of Them or They instead of Us? Are we with Them? We as Them or They as Us”. The confrontation takes place at the only spot allowing room for a pause, in the uncharted space where artificial intelligence meets emotional intelligence.
Artificial Confidence is a musical techno-noir piece. The allegory running through it like a beam of light, and the ritual of an anthropo-mechanic event combine elements of music theatre with the norms of spoken word theatre. The libretto and stage direction emphasize the ambiguity of each Test without concrete data, while the musical composition constantly comments on the mechanics of modern mediation, where no one knows whom or what they are called upon to mimic – do creations mimic their creators or vice versa?
The audiovisual performance The Trail of Tears is based on a real historical event. In 1830, the U.S. government ordered the five remaining Native American tribes living east of the Mississippi River, known as the civilized tribes, to take all their belongings and relocate from their ancestral lands. The forced journey of the Indians towards the mainland in winter, which passed down in history as “the trail of tears”, carried within it many dangers. Many Indians lost their lives on the way to their new homeland. The Trail of Tears is one of the last chapters of the extensive European advance in America, resulting in the demise of the native populations’ civilizations. The performance will use excerpts from Erich Scheurmann’s book The Papalagi, original texts, and evidence from historical sources.
*Featured in the performance will be Iannis Xenakis’ piece Rebonds B for solo percussion, Lefteris Papadimitriou’s musical composition Variations for Piano, and Vasilis Kountouris’ (Studio 19) sound composition Beats & Pieces.
*We would like to thank Proti Yli Publications for kindly providing the excerpts from the book “The Papalagi” by Erich Scheurmann.