Project “SISYphṓs’’
This year’s proposal of EN FLO
borrows its meaning from the mythical narrative of the Sisyphean effort.
This theme, highly up to date with our times, motivates team EN FLO to
ponder and raise questions concerning today’s human condition, by
using all the tools its members possess as they attempt to converse with
the community of art.
The action will be presented
at the Platform Project, within the parallel program of the national exhibition
of Art Athina, at the Tae Kwon Do Stadium, located at the kiosk P35, from
the 16thuntil 19th of May. Early in the
morning of Saturday the 18th, the Sisyphean Route will set out
from Faliro and end up at Benaki Museum (1, Koumbari St. and
Vasilisis Sofias St.) at Kolonaki, approximately at 12 at noon, having
covered a 7 km distance. In the evening of the same day ( 6 -12pm) and in the
same spirit of the previous action, a shortened wood engraved row of the
Sisyphean effort, as another section of the project, titled “Aid-Change”
will be available for the public’s thriving creativity at the atrium of
the Historical Archive of the National Bank (Diomides Mansion, 146, 3rd September
St. ).
Participating in the project
will be, young visual artists of the Department of Visual and Applied Arts in
Florina, from the University of Western Macedonia and the interacting
visitors. Let’s now bring in mind the image of Sisyphus, painstakingly
pushing the immense boulder up to the top of the hill, only to see it rolling
down again.
In the words of A. Camus:
“The reason why this myth is tragic, is exactly because its hero is
conscious of his torture; it wouldn’t be a punishment, was he hoping in
every step that he would make it.”. This image leads us to become aware of the
ability of humans to “accept the unacceptable”, which, depending on whether
that is experienced with realization or radical projection, turns into an
advantage or a conviction.
Based on the speculations that
rise from the interpretation of the myth, EN FLO, suggest a series of
events that address, in an artistic manner, the following questions:
How could a constantly
cancelling movement be defined? How could a compulsive movement, which repeats
itself without ever reaching the final fall, be considered? How does one
maintain labor when necessity is being removed? How does one reverse the right of
justification through labor? How could human existence can be transfigured in
endless conviction? How could a conviction be experienced as a trial leading to
knowledge? How could realization make the trial beneficiary? How could the
‘’light’’ arise from experiencing human anguish?
EN FLO group attempts to
‘’trace’’ the above mental Sisyphean ‘’trails’’, of course
with the help of the public.
Sisyphean Route, 18th of May, 9 am
(Open invitation for
anyone, wishing to help push our Sisyphean boulder for 7 km.)
The journey starts from Art Athina (Tae Kwon Do Stadium) at 9 am. We will be
crossing the bridge over the Delta of Faliro and arriving at the
point of the old race course. Then we will walk the Doirani St., and go past
the Onasio. Arriving at the end of Doirani St. we will continue on
the Alexandrou Pantou St.. Afterwards, we will go through Lagoumigi St. via the
underpass and on to the Kalliroi St., to get on the Dimitrakopoulou St..
Continuously, we will walk all the way until Makrigianni St. in front of the
new museum of Acropolis, and then go straight
on, reaching the gate of Adrianou. Then we will move towards the
Parliament, and being on the sidewalk of Vasilisis Amalias St., we will
continue to the Vasilisis Sofias St. , all the way until we arrive at the
Benaki Museum, at approximately 12, noon.
Documentation
of the interactive performance of the artistic group EN FLO, “SISYphṓs’’ [1]
J.L.Borges has written about a man whose life
goal is to paint the whole world. Which world though? The world of crisis?
Crisis apart from a problem is also a reason for speculation and more than a
crisis is critique. In today’s society, crisis not only forces us to drag and
push a huge load of unfortunate events and dotted situations, which are often
determined by others. We are also forced to think of this image as the limit of
our times. Ernst Bloch used to say that, from the moment you think of the
limit, there comes the opportunity to think of how to overcome it.
The man, who will paint the
world, will paint us as human gears, depicted with pessimism and gloom.
Simultaneously he will also paint the Sisyphean effort which never stops,
carrying on endlessly, to define itself beyond the automatism of the machine
gear. Will we be able to realize that? The team paints, traces all those trails
of images, fragments of lives of so many Sisyphis.
SISYphṓs is this years
project for the EN
FLO team, which suggest a protest against the problematic policy of economy and
intensification of work. The project will spread out from the par excellence
space of the huckstering art trade, all the way to a historical cultural entity
of the last 140 years. Between those two points of culture, with one of them
verified to be exercising the economy of the art market, lies the abyss of the
city and life, which EN FLO are going to enlighten by turning Sisyphus into
SISYphṓs.
On Saturday 18th of May
at 9 am, from the art fair of Art Athina, we will cover 7 km of Sisyphean
effort, following a route, pushing altogether the 32 images of the painter
Borges (in the form of a massive sphere), to a luminous trail of liberation,
which will end up oddly at the Benaki Museum. The spoilage caused to the images
by the journey, as descending rags of a doomed period, will become the surface
for frottage ( a gesture of tracing a textured surface) for those who wish
to keep a part of the world.
During the Night of the
Museums, the process of the frottage will be carried on as a section of the
“SISYphṓs’’ project, titled “Aid-Change”, at the atrium of the Historical
Archive of the National Bank. A wooden, engraved row, a collapse of the
Sisyphean Route, also a part of the
world, will be presented and offered to the publics’ thriving creativity.
Let’s now bring in mind the
image of Sisyphus, painstakingly pushing the immense boulder up to the top
of the hill, only to see it rolling down again.
In the words of A.
Camus: “The reason why this myth is tragic is precisely because its hero
is conscious of his torture; it wouldn’t be a punishment, was he hoping
in every step that he would make it.”. This image leads us to become aware of
the ability of humans to “accept the unacceptable”, which, depending on whether
that is experienced with realization or radical projection, turns into an
advantage or a conviction.
“It is understood that
Sisyphus actions are rather unreasonable, his liabilities and suffering makes
him quite irrational as a hero.” He is forced to experience the trial - and
sooner or later the time for everyone’s trial will come-: what lead him there
was his passion for life, that is now showing another side of it, the boulder.
There, beyond anything else, he is expected to face his own self. Why become
alienated from this torture, giving up on the boulder -the last being a
metaphor of life-, at the will of others? Why remake a god unknown to us?
“You are god”, Jesus said,
knowing his upcoming suffering. A.Camus wisely concludes that “happiness and
irrationality are inseparable children of the same mother. There’s no light
without shadow, and we must be acquainted with darkness as well”.
So the boulder, is life
itself, which each one of us must accept consciously and demand not only to
experience it, but also get to “know” it. “SISYphṓs’’ teaches the absolute
faith that denies gods and lifts boulders. And he thinks that all is “good”.
EN FLO May 2013
