Indistinguishable Pulsations

Indistinguishable Pulsations

Artist: Kate Davis


Void, Athens

27-28 April 2017

 


We’re constantly connected, absorbed into spaces that never sleep. Flashes of light and sound beckon our relentlessly racing minds forward. Cats playing keyboard oscillate past us, followed by Kim Kardashian’s latest hair-do and yet another catastrophic airstrike. Moments later, these pulsations are indistinguishable from one another in our scrambled minds, atrocities are reduced to a spray of pixels and it's business as usual. We stake our humanity by selecting the “I’m not a robot” box, but how much of this do we still retain?

 

Is the apathy present in today’s media-saturated society a symptom of overstimulation? Or is it something more sinister? Indistinguishable Pulsations examines this issue via a video and text based installation. Through hosting a roundtable discussion with Dimitris Charitos, Maria Mavropoulou, Olga Stefatou, Vicky Markolefa and Bastian Fischer, Indistinguishable Pulsations became a site for audiences to consider this issue further. An audio recording of the discussion was then presented in the space.

 

Dimitri's Charitos is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Communication and Media Studies of the University of Athens. He has studied Architectural Design (National Technical University of Athens, 1990), Computer Aided Design and has a PhD on Interactive Design and Virtual Environments (University of Strathclyde, 1998). He has also taught at an undergraduate and postgraduate level since 1994 in Scotland and Greece (Department of Informatics, University of Athens and Dept of Architecture, National Technical University of Athens). He has authored or co-authored more than 70 publications in books, journals or conference proceedings. His research interests include: interactive design, virtual environment design, locative media, mediated spaces, ambient intelligence, digital art, and visual design. His artistic work involves electronic music, audiovisual, non-interactive or interactive, site-specific installations and virtual environments.

 

Maria Mavropoulou is completing a Masters in Fine Arts at Athens School of Fine Arts. Maria plays with the perception of viewers, questioning the power and role of photography in an era that is dominated by it. Maria has exhibited in Greece and abroad, and is a member of Depression Era, an artist collective comprised of 36 artists, photographers, writers, curators, designers and researchers, that responds to the urban and social landscapes of the Greek crisis, seeking to stand outside the media montage and white noise of current public discourse by creating their own mosaic of images and texts.

 

Olga Stefatou studied photography at the Technological Educational Institute of Athens and in 2012 obtained a Masters degree in Multimedia Journalism from the University of Bolton, UK based in China. Her work focuses on places in political crisis and violence against women in Athens and Beijing. Through journalistic missions she has travelled extensively, especially in Asia, to document peoples struggles and to convey their insights. Her work has appeared in Greek and International publications and group exhibitions. Olga is also a member of Depression Era.

 

Vicky Markolefa is a communications expert, photographer and documentarist, based in Athens, Greece. She holds a BA in Business and Marketing and she has attended several courses and seminars. Vicky has worked in over forty countries, in Europe, Africa, Asia and South America, independently and with leading companies, NGOs and media, for more than seventeen years. Her projects have been featured in local and international publications, festivals and exhibitions and she has been awarded for her documentary, photography and communications work. In 2016, she co-founded Mind the Bump, a creative team of photographers and media experts.

 

Bastian Fischer was born in Munich, Germany in 1980, and moved to Pretoria, South Africa with his family in 1995. After extensive travels through North and South America and a year in London, in 2003 Bastian began studying photography at the Royal Academy of Arts in Ghent, Belgium. In 2007 Bastian graduated, and his film "Of Silesian Streets And German Potatoes" won the prize for Best Young Visual Artist in Belgium, sponsored by the Fotomuseum Antwerp. In 2010 the film was awarded "Best International Biography Documentary" at the New York Independent Film Festival. Since 2007 he has worked as a freelance photographer and videographer, focusing predominantly on portraiture and reportage. After covering the refugee trail in Europe for a self-funded project, this topic remains close to his heart, and he has been based between Athens and Berlin ever since.