Giedion once contended that every generation is faced with the same problem, to bridge the abyss between inner and outer reality. Bridging as a film set, a culture, a social fiction narrating particular values and hierarchies. Exposing a mise-en-scène is necessarily violent. A developer is spritzed* to death in a palace once conducting scandalous orgies by high-level government officials, currently catering establishment banquets. August 15, 1971, Nixon shock: the gold window closes and a free floating currency is implemented as the modern world's exchange-rate standard. The bridge between ideology and materiality draws its last breath before collapsing. The invisible hand is unchained, achieving unrestricted free-market-dom. Perception management: billboards whisper. While the abyss reigns, infinite transformability becomes the new ontological norm. A biopolitics of absolute bounded infinite openness. Commodity fetishism as worldview. Stranded in-between props neither serve a mise-en-scène nor stand on their own. Cronenbergian materialism ensues, social surrealism as everyday. From GOD to GAD (generalized anxiety disorder), often described as “free floating anxiety.” Triggers are unidentifiable. It involves unrealistic, exaggerated, or excessive worrying about normal, everyday events without apparent cause. Heatwave induced sincerity, boiling point. A mechanic threatens an overcharged customer with shotgun shells, simmering under the blistering sun of Cyprus, on the verge of exploding.
* Tyrolean flicker/splatter decorative finish & wine-based cocktail commonly served as an aperitif in Northeast Italy.
Artists: Stefanos Chrysanthou, Kyriacos Kyriakides, Aris Mochloulis
Location: Thkio Ppalies, Nicosia, Cyprus
Duration: 07/09 - 26/09/2018