hdkepler | projects

Stargazer

NY, February 2020

In the framework of “Occupy project, art exhibition / dialogue within the workspace” organized by Eirini Linardaki. «Sleep and through the ceiling, dream up the sky»

hd.kepler. presents a visual score about the exhaustion both physical and emotional as a portrait of contemporary labor. The infinite layers of bureaucratic work paralyze the body to its constructed environment, the office. The employee who is no longer emotionally able to leave the physical premises, sets himself free through the act of sleep, an activity that elevates the spirit to higher realms where the psyche and dreams live. When we sleep the civilization starts revealing its mechanisms. The score was activated during the public opening.

Axis Mundi

23.09.2019, 7 p.m. | Rooftop – ΙFG – Athens

At dusk, a group of four dancers (one for each cardinal point) executes a series of spiral gestures related to swimming, diving, and constellations pointing to the visible flying objects in the sky. The performance ends with the arrival of the night. Inspired by a trip to Delphi and the famous “Navel of the World”, hd.kepler. intends to explore at human scale eternal notions through simple and repetitive gestures. By examining the actions that humans implement to control nature, we try to remediate our relationship with the cosmos. hd.kepler.’s approach goes from the collective to the individual and vice versa, drawing a complete orbit, a revolution.

Conception & art direction: hd.kepler.

Choreography: Aria Boumpaki

Dancers: Maria Vetta, Constantin Papanikolaou, Christina Reinhart, Aria Boumpaki

Images: Alexandra Masmanidi

Press: Πάρις Ταβιτιάν

Astrography, workshop by hd.kepler. for ASFA

The workshop “Astrography” was specially conceived for Studio 11 of ASFA by the art & research platform hd.kepler. on writing and activating scores (instructions, notations). We developed a series of individual scores that leaded to a collective one through exercises, walks, recordings, dinners etc. with the students from May 1 to 3, 2019, in Delphi, Greece.

The rehearsal: A Collective Score

A group of people executes preselected scores prepared for a specific amount of time. The action starts when the title of the score is announced. The interpretation of the score may vary during the given time.

Individual scores:

Do whatever you want in the borders of the space.
(Be) engage(d), be encage(d).
Find the limits of the other.
Slap somebody without slapping him/her.
Please keep open the door with your body.
Walk with Fibonacci.
Draw a line on the Other from one point of their body to another (The institution/artist provides natural skin colors pencils).
Do the revolution of the space.
Give an antigift.
Read a book with attention while your eyes are closed.
Caterpillar moves on the ground keeping its mass center very low. Fly is buzzing. If you see a caterpillar then be fly. If you don’t see a caterpillar then be a caterpillar.

Participants:

Stathis Chalkias

Evi Charalampopoulou

Christos Fousekis

Katerina Ioannou

Efi Karakousi

Kyriaki Osogia

Ivi Pappa

Maria Pelekanou

Ilektra Stampoulou

Savvas Tsimouris

Warm thanks to Marilena Aligizaki and Vasilis Vlastaras for their invitation.

Avenirlogic Hymns

Text: Denis Maksimov

Interpretation: Macklin Kowal

Camera & Editing: Joshua Olsthoorn

In the frame of Dedication, an exhibition by Florent Frizet

Sub Rosa, Athens 2018

In the footsteps of Plato, an astral walk from the ancient cemetery to the academy. Where the paths survive, those of humans and those of the sky. Spinning in their own revolutions; diffused, shared, mixed rhythms between the duration of a rotation and the greatest compilation of all time. Pop, sport & constellation.

Astrorythmes
A performative soundwalk by hd.kepler.
Parallel programme curated by Angeliki Poulou in the context of “Space, Sound and the Improvisatory” by Onassis Cultural Center

Saturday, 20th October, 16:00 – 17:00, Akadimia Platonos, Athens

Credits
Concept: hd.kepler.
Sound Application: My City My Sound
Choreography: Aria Boumpaki
Performers: Vasiliki Georgikopoulou, Anthi Savvaki, Venia Stamatiadi, Μarieta Vetta, Vassia Zorbali
Recordings/editing: Figure of Sound
Production: Onassis Stegi / Medea Electronique
Images: Pavlos Fysakis / hd.kepler.
On view: Auriga / Orion / Antinous / Cepheus / Gemini / Hercules

Attention is an exercice

Curated by Eleni Riga

Giorgos Palamaris, It’s about sharing

Elisavet Sfyri, Practicing

Becky Campbell, Tending

March & April 2018 at Despina Charitonidi’s studio,

special thanks to Panos Profitis for his help

Giorgos Palamaris, It’s about sharing

The solo show It’s about sharing by Giorgos Palamaris explores the notion of attention through ecologies, both personal (childhood, memory, identity) and collective (immigration, environment). It’s about sharing inaugurates the exhibition cycle Attention is an Exercise curated by Eleni Riga following the publication Ecologies of Gaze by the platform hd.kepler.

Giorgos Palamaris is interested in urbanism, ecology, sociopsychology and contemporary archaeology. Palamaris often explores the private sphere as a field of action. Household items and construction materials often appear in his work, sometimes ruined or abandoned and sometimes closed in a protective cage, in a nest, in an incubator.

We focused on the idea of the “birth” of a work of attention during the preparation of the exhibition. The creation of an attentive work resembles a lesson of haptonomy, a practice for gentle and consciously accompanied birth. Like a baby communicates with its parents through “emotional touch”, Palamaris prepares the mould to accept casting materials. With clear references to arte povera and contemporary archaeology, Palamaris uses materials he finds around him, attempting to create utopias of proximity. With a sensible attention, a deterministic materiality, every object narrates its story.

There are two recurrent motifs: sculptures with triangular formations referring to the home, and anthropomorphic sculptures which refer to human experience. Palamaris reproduces the structure of a tent, a primary form of residence, a home that we take with us, and although it is ephemeral it stills retains the idea of home. The tent has a twofold role: on the one hand, it is a construction that is associated with a state of stability (identity, culture, territory). On the other hand, it is mobile, folded and transported, recalling nomadic nature and migration. Combined with artworks consisting of organic elements and construction materials, Palamaris reminds us of the relationships of care and interdependence that characterize the world and its fragility (natural disasters, antropocene, immigration). He turns the gaze from the “One” to the Other and from the “We” to our “Environment”.

Giorgos Palamaris (b. 1986, Leeds, UK) lives and works in Athens. He has finished the School of Marble Sculpture at Tinos in 2009 and studied at the School of Fine Arts in Athens where he concluded his studies in 2016. He has participated in many groups shows in Greece and abroad. He had his first solo show, Interpretaciones del azar, in 2013 at Sala Dinamica in Valencia, Spain. In recent years he has worked for the Ministry of Culture and the French Archaeological School on restoration and excavation projects.

Elisavet Sfyri, Practicing

The interactive durational performance Practicing by Elisavet Sfyri deals with the issue of attention through the ecologies of balance, personal (body, psychology, experience) and collective (interaction, human relationships, society). Practicing is the second chapter of the exhibition cycle Attention is an Exercise curated by Eleni Riga following the publication Ecologies of Gaze by the platform hd.kepler.

Practicing is a living sculpture that consists of a moving platform, which upon activation produces sounds, according to the rhythmic motion of the bodies standing on it. The microphones, which are mounted on the moving platform and on the artist’s body, capture even the slightest sound to create a dynamic sound collage. Using both the body and the platform as instruments, Sfyri suggests an unconventional use of the three basic elements of the performance (body, physical space and sound), while commenting on the instrumentalisation of the body under the capitalist system.

The sound (music, singing, noise) is at the core of Sfyri’s practice. Mainly the sound produced by the microphone that is placed on the artist’s neck constitutes a different voice, a reminder that contrary to the theories of transcendence and liquidity, we still have a body which bears the physical and emotional consequences of our times: stress, distraction, fatigue and burn-out. By admitting we have a body, it means we have a voice and therefore a capacity for resistance and resilience.

Practicing draws the attention to the present, addressed to an emancipated viewer who shapes the work with the artist. Sfyri attempts to capture universal human experiences and treats the body both as a field of individual and collective memory. The sculpture is transformed into an ongoing exercise of balance, a song composed every minute from and between two fragile autonomies, interconnected and interdependent.

Elvisavet Sfyri (c. 1994, Maroussi) lives in London and studies sculpture at the Royal College of Art. She has graduated of the School of Fine Arts at Goldsmiths University, London. Sfyri has participated in many group exhibitions in Greece and abroad, such as the CICA Museum in South Korea, the Center for Contemporary Art of Geneva and in May 2018 she will participate in the exhibition Sisyphus Version 20.18 at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Taiwan.

Becky Campbell, Tending

The exhibition Tending by Becky Campbell explores the notion of attention through the artist’s ongoing practice of revisiting, nurturing and rebalancing objects, plants and feelings. The exhibition is conceived as an exercise of empathy. The gaze wanders around the works, is sometimes compelled to examine them closely – whether because of their scale, colour or texture – and finally meets them. Revisiting is an encounter of the gaze that presupposes momentary cessation: it is by observing closely something at standstill that one can speak of an object, and give a thought or a vision. The exhibition set up consists of vantage points that enable the audience to individually observe the works for longer periods.

Through the process of revisiting, we are tending towards certain works. Tending describes both the tendency to approach something that draws our attention but also the way we approach them, tenderly. In the spirit of the exhibition cycle “Attention is an Exercise” we attempt to show how feelings can become an integral part of the exhibition treated with equal care. Tending, though it is open to all, has been conceived with a small number of specific people in mind. This element intensifies the feeling of privacy and gives it a rather confessional character. Moreover, this exhibition cycle has been very much concerned with our bodies bearing the consequences of “contemporary life” and the urgency for resistance and resilience. Campbell’s works are extremely fragile, as our bodies are, and yet very demanding in terms of physical labour but nevertheless they are polyphonic, meaning they have the ability of speaking in different voices.

Displaying objects, organic elements and feelings, Campbell, without distinction, proposes a new paradigm of life. Campbell has been researching exhibition archives and collecting images of exhibitions where plants were included either as decoration or conceptually. Here she is attempting to create an ecosystem: Our world consists of our bodies, ourselves and our environment, all the elements that we are looking to link in a complex network, in support of life.

Plastic mesh netting is a recurrent material in the exhibition, reminiscent of the process of weaving. It is used mostly in the collection of olives and thus is linked with agriculture. These nets share the same qualities with the networks of people or other living organisms caught up in care networks to sustain their ecosystems. Thus, this exhibition feels rooted to the earth.

Becky Campbell (born 1985, Scotland) lives in Athens. She studied MFA Intermedia and BA (Hons) Drawing & Painting at Edinburgh College of Art. Selected exhibitions include: “Cloud”, 3137, Athens; “Luminous Flux”, Kornilakis, Syros; “By the Way They Hang and Turn”, Old Ambulance Depot, Edinburgh; “Gaesahud” (solo), Konseptheimilid Sigmar, Reykjavik; “CMYK:KEY” and “CMYK:YELLOW” at 2025 Kunst und Kultur e.V., Hamburg; “Come Ye Hither”, Crofter’s Lodge, North Uist.

Curatorial Statement:

Attention is an exercice by Eleni Riga

Attention is an exercise is a series of exhibitions conceived as a close observation of artistic production practices under the capitalist system characterized by maximization, over-production, accumulation of profit, commodificaiton, colonization of time and competition among others.

Contrary to recent seducing theories of transcendence and liquidity, we still a body which bears the physical and emotional consequences of our times: stress, distraction, fatigue and burn-out. By admitting we have a body, it means we have a voice and therefore a capacity for resistance and resilience.

Through these exhibitions we remain attentive to all the invisible operations, circumstances of exploitation, the contradictions of self-employment and autonomy and mostly the pressure we put to each other to continue working and producing within this system both as authors and individuals.

The assumption that artists are working differently today than the rest of the society is a misleading attempt to keep the added value of art and hide in our confined artistic realm.

Through a series of exhibitions based on theories of care which shows that we are relational beings, fragile autonomies interconnected and interdepended, attempt to set a new tune, to speak with in a different voice.The theory of care can be translated briefly as our capacity to care for others. The care is not a disposition but a repeated exercise that has in its core the attention to the person receiving the care in a form of mutual exchange in the sense of gift as defined by Marcel Mauss.
How we can practice attention?
How attention is manifested through our gestures?
What forms attention can take?
What is an attentive work?

Behind these questions, we find an inquiry on how artists produce their work:Why are you creating an artwork ?

Τhe screening program Sunday Narratives and the art & research platform hd.kepler presented on Sunday, March 18 at 6 pm three short films by the French artists: Julien D. Benoît, Clément Cogitore & Éric Stephany at Aavora cinema in Athens. The screenings were followed with a short talk with Eric Stéphany and the audience.

hd.kepler. uses astral symbols to comment on socio-political issues such as alterity, mediation, cultural translation, coexistence in an increasingly challenging environment. Ever Closer to the Stars is a series of interstellar walks based on
cosmological journeys, a dominant form of narration in literature, poetry and philosophy in 17th and 18th century. Fiction and tale are tools that allow us not only to examine the world as scientific tools do but to think and imagine the world in a different way, overcoming realistic limitations.

Trailer Credits:
Directed and Edited by Theo Prodromidis
Cinematography by Alexandra Masmanidi
Trailer includes musical excerpts from Ever Closer to the Stars (Prelude) by Florent Hadjinazarian in collaboration with Florent Frizet, live recorded in September 2017 at the French Institute of Athens, curated by hd.kepler. and an excerpt from the film The resonant interval (2016) by Clément Cogitore.
All rights reserved 2018

Poster by Typical Organisation

Film credits:
In Awe (2017)
Direction – Scenario – Production : Julien D. Benoit
Actors: Kobas Verschuren, Florent Meryal, Julia Calin, Stéphane Gouat
Duration: 30’
Language: English

The resonant interval (2016)
Direction – Scenario: Clément Cogitore
Music: Francesco Filidei και Lorenzo Bianchi Hoesch
Duration: 23’
Production: Palais de Tokyo / Futur antérieur productions, with the support of SAM
Art Projects, SCAM, CNC-Dicréam, DRAC Alsace.
Language: English

ANTICIPATION (2017)
Direction: Éric Stephany
Duration: 24′ 58″
Language: Without dialogue
With the support of Centre National des Arts Plastiques, artist research grant 2015

Special thanks to Institut Français de Grèce – Athènes for hosting the artist Éric Stephany.

Carte blanche to Hd.Kepler

Always closer to the stars

18.09.2017, 7.30 pm
Auditorium Theo Angelopoulos & Café – IFG
Str. Sina 31, Athens

With Eleni Riga, Florent Frizet and Florent Hadjinazarian

Founded in 2015 by Eleni Riga and Florent Frizet, Hd.Kepler is an art and research platform whose aim is to connect people and ideas around the notions of economy of gaze, experimentation, cultural translation, anthropology of images and remediation. Always in search of a habitable space determined by the possible, alter & infinite, capable of accommodating within it a common artistic life, evidence of an exchange between its components. Conceived as an interstellar walk, the evening will consist of images, sounds and bodies, in a quest of the Other.

PRIMO
Το ορμητήριο του ήλιου

Poetry Session

April 30
Arrival at 6.30 pm. The reading will start exactly at 7 pm.
The poetry session will finish with the sunset around 8.14 pm.
Lycabettus Hill – Follow the stairs opposite to the hotel St. George Lycabettus until the small “balcony”, see the pictures related to the event.

Participants: Becky Campbell, Elena Chantzis, Florent Frizet, Danai Giannoglou, Hariklia Hari, Eva Isleifs, Lukas Panek, Angeliki Poulou, Eleni Riga, Joshua Olsthoorn, Roman Szymczyk and other guests

The art & research platform, hdkepler is happy to invite you to the poetry session “PRIMO, Το ορμητήριο του ήλιου” at Lycabettus Hill during sunset on April 30th, 2017.

The sun, the primary and essential element of life on earth, is also a political, religious and aesthetic symbol. For this event, the sun is used as a symbol of diversity, alterity and meeting with Other. The poems will be read in different languages. Each contributor have chosen freely a poem in his/her native language or in any language they feel their own.

Our collaborators are artists, curators, researchers, activists and thinkers that maintain an independent and a non-commercial activity. In the quest for autonomy, these fugitives open up new paths, occupy inadequate spaces and break the foundations of an automatised institutionalization. Our priority is keep the freedom of our contributors intact.

Under the sun, which makes no discrimination, we are all the same. Our bodies and our voices are carriers of this sensitivity and beauty.

hdkepler was created on the idea of otherness initially observing and accepting our own differences.

For the author Emmanuel Levinas, after the discovery of the Other in our face, we discover that we are responsible for him/her and thus a relationship of proximity is established between us and the Other(s).

This form of responsibility can be developed and is necessary in our times due to the socio-political and economic situation all around the world.

Athens is a city that plays a leading role in the theater of Otherness:
welcomes, resists, rejects fears and celebrates diversity. Athens is whole, complete, perfect.

The choice of location is not accidental. Lykavvitos means the rock from where the light “urges” etymologically. The aim of the event is to integrate poetry in the everyday life of the town. The event is open to all: friends of poetry, residents and tourists. We would like to create a beautiful moment full of lyricism for everybody who is attending the event.

Prima_total

hd_kepler

“RUN TALK #1”

February 2017, Kunsthalle Tropical / Marcel Meury, Romantso, Athens

We had the pleasure to organise a small informal presentation for Marcel Meury, in order to discuss the creation and development of Kunsthalle Tropical and his personal artistic work. This presentation was organised as a meeting point for members of the Athenian artistic scene who share the same aspirations.

http://kunsthalletropical.xyz/

We would like to thank all those who accepted our invitation:
A-dash (Eva Isleifs + Noémie Niederhauser) / Enterprise Projects (Vassilis Papageorgiou + Danai Giannoglou) / Richard Hausmann (artist) / Dimitra Michou (action culturelle IFA) / Snehta Residency (Becky Campbell) / SUPER (Lukas Panek + Paul Malowski) / Typical (Joshua Olsthoorn) / Delphine Chapuis Schmitz (artist)

http://a-dash.space
http://enterprise-projects.com
http://www.snehtaresidency.org
http://supersupersupersupersuper.com
http://typical-organization.com

home

New project

“TOUCHLESS”

hd.kepler. glad to announce its participation at Kunsthalle Tropical with a special project named TOUCHLESS.

The Kunsthalle Tropical is experimenting with alternative exhibition formats. It is located at a specific place and unfolds in the mental space of the visitor.

People who registered on the site of Kunsthalle Tropical were able to receive the new production of hd.kepler.

TOUCHLESS is an invented word-concept that is expressing a situation where we are out of…touch. Through our recent collaborations, we have been exploring the idea of connection and disconnection , especially between the physical and digital realm. Since we are usually working as “glossoplastis”, as sculptors of the language in other words, we got interested in the definition of connection in relation with the touch. Touch means “get in contact with”. Observing around us, this definition seemed obsolete. The use of the wi-fi instead of bluetooth marked a whole change to the way we communicate, without touch.
We use less and less cables to charge our phones, to connect our devices, to transfer our data or even to listen to music (referring to new apple headphones).
This is a symptom of a touchless life.

With the generous invitation of Kunsthalle Tropical, we have created a plastic bracelet reminding the biomagnetic power balance bracelets that are enhancing our health system and renforce our energy. These kind of bracelets are supposed to function us chargers of energy of the human body through direct contact with the human body. The appearance non- primitive, asexual and without orifices tools will perhaps lead to a disappearance of the genres in which the polarities will be diluted in each being.

for more information -recto/verso

online_offline

“ONLINE / OFFLINE GLOSSARY”

Online/offline is a glossary of terms often quoted in the post-digital context. It was produced during a close experimental 3-day workshop at artist-run space 3 137 in Athens. This workshop was organized by association hd.kepler, artist run space 3 137 and Enterprise Project. We are all interested in light and DIY economy as a response to the financial pressure that the independent cultural producers endure.

On this occasion, we invited the following artists, cura- tors and theorists: James Bridle, Zoe Giabouldaki, Daphne Dragona, Théo Massoulier, Philippe Riss, Anna Tomczak, Thibaut Vandebuerie. This glossary you hold in your hands was presented at Enterprise Project on April 23, 2016 and is the product of a very recent collective experience of a multidisciplinary group. It is a work in progress.

green

We think this glossary as a tool that enables us to better understand our times. By choosing carefully our vocabulary, we form our present. Our present is perforated, continuous, mutative. It is made of words, images, feelings and impressions. We aim to present and renegotiate the “Online/offline” terms that seem important for our artistic or curatorial practices.

download Online / Offline Glossary download Press Kit

New online/offline editorial project

“HONEYMOON: ALTER & EVERYDAY”

By the artist Florent Frizet

The project deals with the survival of millenium gestures in our time.

download PDF

le_chant_vole_1

“LE CHANT VOLÉ DU PERROQUET VERT”

EDITION LI, BF15, Lyon

Text by Eleni Riga

Image by Florent Frizet

Graphic Design by Clara Pasteau

download PDF

remediate

IMAGE BY CHRYSANTHI KOUMIANAKI, WINE JAR, STAND, KYLIX, LEKANE, 500- 470 BC

How the media influence our everyday gestures?
Remediate the Everyday Group Show

Invited Artists: Méryll Ampe, Sabrina Belouaar, Marie Clerel, Florent Frizet, Hadrien Gérenton, Chrysanthi Koumianaki, Yannick Langlois, Vasilis Papageorgiou, Cunming Sun

Curator: Eleni Riga

@ Atelier W (6 avenue Weber, 93500, Pantin)

Exhibition dates:: 6-14 November 2015

_MG_0666

Florent Frizet,
Don’t Clean My Aura +2, printing on aluminium, fluo, dimension variable, 2015

VASILIS PAPAGEORGIOU,
Banister III, neon, cables, transfomers and epoxy putty, dimension variable, 2015

Exhibition view, Remediate the everyday, 2015, photos by Sun Cunning

Download the press release