In this day and age, where things change at the click of a refresh button, where news from around the world reaches our ears in seconds and the cities we call home change year by year, can we say that anything stays the same? This is the question that a number of international and local artists will tackle in a performative lecture in Nicosia on Sunday.
Under the name I’mPermanence: An Innovative ABR IN LAB Performative Lecture, seven artists will come together to question and explore models and countermodels of permanence and impermanence, while provoking thought and stimulating conversation with the audience. The lecture comes at the end of a residency which provided a unique look at artistic innovation through multidisciplinary collaboration.
The event is organised by ABR (Alternative Brains Rule), the Cyprus-based, non-profit organisation which is dedicated to creating a variety of high-quality alternative experiential events, widely known in Cyprus and beyond for the acclaimed annual Afro Banana Republic Festival.
“Modern life is developing rapidly, while public needs and methods of expression are in continual flux. What was previously thought of as constant is no longer relevant,” says ABR founder, and one of the curators of the upcoming event, Constantinos Kyprianou.
“Whether we’re dealing with today’s wars, the refugee crises or the obsession with materialism in contemporary cities, immediate needs that arise today actively affect the social behaviour of any community. Given these conditions, we’ve come to realise that permanence has increasingly started to lose its value in numerous ways. And, as the young generation experience this phenomenon more intensely than ever, it’s this exact experience we wish to explore.”
The ultimate goal of the residency and lecture programme is that of posing new questions, raising novel thoughts and creating unique experiences – meanwhile generating original forms of art, life and interactivity – as the artists in question hone in on their common concerns and aspirations, deploying and experimenting with new methodologies and simultaneously creating external networks.
Speaking further about the residency and lecture, curator Alexis Karkotis said: “Cypriot and international artists whose work spans a wide range of fields and expressive forms collaborate to explore models and countermodels of Permanence with respect to the present-day, rapidly evolving global culture of Impermanence.
“While investigating Lecture Performance as a unique genre at the intersection of artistic and scientific discourse, the speakers will present their work in an unfolding animated narrative, probing deep within the interactive process of choreography and spontaneity.”
From architects and street artists to social anthropologists, light designers, futurists, psychologists and more, this event will involve performance lectures by Victoria Coeln, Philipp Mecke, Ana Filipovic, Alexis Karkotis, Panayiotis Proestos, Achilleas Kentonis, Constantinos Kyprianou and Vasilis Vasiliou.
Each one of these artists will take part in an initial workshop before the public lecture, during which they will be encouraged to draw upon notions of experience, memory, social behaviour, composition and technology with reference to what it means to be permanent.
I’mPermanence
An innovative ABR IN LAB performative lecture. April 9. Basement of Satiriko Theatre, Nicosia. 5pm-8pm. In English. Tel: 22-312940
