Visual Arts Archives - Elli Papakonstantinou

Tree of Happiness

Art & sound installation exhibited in Pafos, Palia Ilektriki in the frame of “Euphoria Revised” [5 miniature houses, 10 speakers and an olive tree].
People want to be happy. But how different is the cultural understanding of happiness? Here, the house is a body, a country, an entity; each house producing its own soundscape with used material from the artist’s interviews with people from Greece, Denmark, Cyprus and other European countries. All houses hanging from the Tree of Life.
This is a research project, dealing with the issues of ‘I’, ‘We’ and ‘Nature’, through events such as an installation in the Chloraka Park (13/6), an art exhibition (13-25/6) and workshops at the Old Powerhouse (13/6).
The “Tree of Happiness” is in dialogue with “Happiness Unlimited” project, a performance salon, co-directed with Annika B. Lewis & presented in Athens, Greece (the Benaki Museum) and Aarhus, Denmark (Bora-Bora theatre).

Oedipus: Sex with Mum was Blinding

Oedipus: Sex with Mum was Blinding is a hybrid opera libretto and direction by Elli Papakonstantinou, music composion by Julia Kent and Tilemachos Mousas. The piece draws from cognitive science and the myth of “Oedipus Rex” and was developed during the director’s visit at CCRMA. Originally designed for a cast of seven, this is an abbreviated version featuring a mix of live actors that are folded into an array of surreal cinematic environments. Through a series of scientific experiments, audience engagement plays an essential role in the execution of the piece. Atonal, electroacoustic compositions weave throughout the opera while Grammy nominee, Julia Kent, performs cello on stage in a constant stream of visuals and live action. A full production of the piece will take place in Athens at the Old National Opera House in September 2019 with the participation of cognitive scientists from the Warburg Institute, University of London.

Expected premiere: 4th April 2019, Stanford University, USA

Hotel “AntiOedipus”

A Digital Game for Avatars and Solitary Individuals across the Globe GLOBAL PREMIERE, 3 MARCH 2021, IRCAM/ Centre Georges pompidou Our world is shifting around us in these times of seclusion and dichotomy. As we are faced with a common crisis for the first time after WW2, some say we are connected more now than …

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The Cave

A new opera for four voices, santoor, piano & live electronics. Conceived and directed by Elli Papakonstantinou, this international co-production investigates parallels between today’s virtual reality world, fake news and Plato’s allegory of the Cave.

The Cave is a cyber punk opera on a popular theme Matrix. An oratorical opera in the intersection between opera, cinema and new technologies, this radical performance calls for critical reflection on fake news and post truth. It’s a contemporary reinterpretation of Plato’s famous “Cave” allegory. Shadow puppetry, new media, visuals and music are all performed in real time by a cast of four. Nothing is ever still. The Cave challenges the boundaries of contemporary opera, drawing from a variety of music genres. In the intersection of reality and fantasy, material & immaterial, with an emphasis on the exploration of self-truth. The staged transcription of the philosophical text is interwoven with intertextual adds – Buddhist sutras, hyperrealistic conversations etc.- and pinholes onto today’s world. Socrates is a robot’s voice and this sarcasm runs through out the piece. while mythological creatures pass as shadows of another world all too close to ours; In Plato’s allegory people are chained in a cave and they are facing the inside of the cave whereupon they see the shadows of the outside world. In so doing, they interpret “reality” through this optic of the shadows. The cave brings out how the two-dimensional vision of the three-dimensional life translates in today’s realities in misconceptions that we may have regarding what’s going on as for example in the domains of politics, of society and of course ethics.

Każin Barokk

Immersive and site-specific performance on gaming and tax paradises, held at the majestic Notre Dame Gate in Birgu. This game-like performance will transform the near 400 year old building into a dark and beautiful maze, to open up a myriad of possibilities conjured by real-time video, live music, Baroque choir and robotics. The die is cast, the card is drawn.

Happiness Unlimited

What is a performance salon?
SALON HAPPINESS UNLTD: AARHUS-ATHENS is interactive performance art, feel-good lounge music and sense titillating taste bombs sending the happiness barometer through the roof!
All spiced up with elements from a Greek thinker, a happiness philosopher, a gastronomic geek and a brain researcher – each giving their take on what happiness can be.
Why happiness?
According to UNESCO’s («The World Happiness Report”) the Danes are among the most happy people on the planet, while the Greeks are the most unhappy.
Happiness Unlimited was first presented in Aarhus, Denmark and consequently it was presented at the Benaki Musem in the frame of the exhibition [OUT] TOPIAS (curator Thanos Vovolis). A full scale performance was presented at Bora-Bora Theatre in Aarhus, Denmark in 2018.

Debtocrazy Revolutions

Commissioned by Prague Quadrennial 17 (PQ17)

Exploring audience as an active entity, this project aims to engage passers-by/citizens by collecting their views on notions of revolution today and by creating an in-situ public participatory performance that balances between a pre-structured piece and documentation.
This public art piece is in dialogue with the performance “META” as it aims to investigate the idea of “ending” as a transitory phase of both destruction and growth, exploring how the notion of revolution today reflects in all matters private or public.

REVOLT ATHENΣ

Award-winning REVOLT ATHENΣ relates criticism and poetry avoiding radical “in-your-face” political discourse. Rejecting the flat, washed out image οf Greece’s capital, this is an Athens that’s bursting with life. In REVOLT ATHENΣ, the three-piece, politically-minded cast offer insights into post-crisis Greece. In ODC Ensemble’s unique city guide, activist communities are framed in terms of Greece’s wider history; intertwined with figures of Greek mythology, there are tear gas-choked riots against government austerity cutbacks. Combining actors, video footage and music, it’s a multi-faceted window into the living and breathing reality of a place.
REVOLT ATHENΣ is still on tour

First Prize Award for the REP, Birmingham at the BE Festival 2017
Presented for the European Parliament for Culture in 2017

Viciousness in the Kitchen

Based on Sylvia Plath’s radio-play “Three Women”, the cast performs in a real kitchen that is “trapped” with sensors. Live electroacoustic music composition here unfolds, interwoven dynamically in the body of the performance in real time. The performers cook throughout the show and at the end, they serve dinner and join the audience.

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