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Parallel City

Site Specific – Interactive Installation

Curated by: AICA

Commissioned by: Municipality of the city of Athens

Central area of old Athens

Athens, Greece, 2004

PARALLEL CITY is a site specific, interactive installation, which consists of 28 “optical viewfinders”. Planted equivalently in 28 different spots of the city’s old center, the viewfinders, act as intimate private frames through which the viewer can accomplish a different experience of the City. The viewing through the view finders along the chosen route, isolates certain aspects of the city from their surroundings, each time directing the viewers eye to a certain detail and thus revealing different elements and textures of the city a new.

The functioning of the work is based on the thought that by limiting the view, space is created in the minds eye, for a new one to appear and through the repetition of this viewing procedure the mind is energized in reconstructing the landscape and creating a parallel intimate experience of the city.

The points of view are chosen based on juxtaposing the elements of which the urban landscape consists of. Elements such as scale -proximity of the chosen sites, time -by choosing sites from the past/ present /future- and human presence -by choosing sites were allot of action takes place. The choice of the sites is such so as to bring out the scent of the specific area of the city.

Part of the Exhibitions:

2004
Parallel City I was shown in Athens during the Olympic Games in August 2004. It participated in the exhibition ATHINA BY ART, a large scale exhibition which took place in the wider central area of old Athens and which was commissioned by the Municipality of the city of Athens and curated by AICA.

2008
Parallel City II, Outdoor installation in the context of the Thessaloniki Film Festival, Thessaloniki, Greece.