Themistoklis Nathanael
Themos Anthoussis
K. Z. Sofoklou
Anthoúlla Phylactós
Takis Skaros
Yiórgos Yeorgiádes
Charalampos Kontogeorgis
displaced frequencies
2017
site-responsive performance
7 hours
Xarkis Festival
curated by Xarkis Festival and Sensorium Space
Old School of Koilani
Koilani, Cyprus
photography: Emma Louise Charalambous
video: Zeta Spyraki
Displaced frequencies was a site-specific project developed during the residency Bodily Pitches in Koilani (Cyprus), organized by Xarkis Festival in collaboration with Sensorium Space, and presented on August 20th at the old school of the village.
The complexity of Cyprus political situation since 1974 due to Turkish military occupation, together with its cultural heritage, make the Cypriot identity an intricate and fractured case study. This project aimed to collect small fragments of life, memory and culture that has survived despite the circumstances.
Seven random people from Koilani were asked about the first song that they remembered from their childhood. The answers were handwriting on paper and used to perform an action at the end of the process.
The performance took place in one of the classrooms of the old school, nowadays used as storage for community purposes. Over seven hours, I would burn the answeres, scatter the ashes and hide the left pieces of paper into the cracks of the room.
Popular songs, tales, myths and legends transmitted orally represent a primary source of cultural heritage. Overproduction capitalism exerts a territorialization of this heritage, displacing and replacing the proper signs of each identity, carrying out an unprecedented standardization of the world.
Despite globalization, certain signs still resonate, resisting the passage of time, just as the first memory. Although increasingly diffuse.
The first time I entered that space I found, at the end of the room on the floor, next to the window, some dead butterflies. After a while, I realized that one of them was still alive, between the wall and the glass. I opened the window and tried to help it out. The butterfly didn't leave. It remained inside.
fragments, 2017
single channel 4:3 digital video
stereo
10'
still from video by Zeta Spyraki