Polyxene Kasda, selected bionotes from period 1990-2014

Polyxene Kasda

selected bionotes and publications -1990-2014-

Her experimental Project Myth/Network [ -1990-2014- ] is an “hyper-string” of intertwined sub-projects, emerging from depth psychology and multi-plexing in open-ended works of cosmonautical perspective; traces of a liminal rite of passage to our new aeon:

Myth/Network (ήμαρ -1990-2014-) is a single work of lasting present “resting in its permutations”.

Chrysalii seeds, photo StefanosSamios 1990

- Chrysalii, Τhe topology of change [ -1990-1994- ]: Liminal performance-installation in the bottom of the Lake of Mornos in Greece, expanded in a global biodegradable, collective installation in 300 sites, in 27 countries launched in the Museum of Modern Art of Joensuu, PAND conference, Meeting of the Worlds, Finland 1990.

Coordinated Universal Time polycentric documentation in the State University of Cleveland U.S.A, the Cultural Center of the Municipality of Athens, the Center of optico-acoustic research EIKONA, Govostis editing House in Athens ....

E. Koscielak, AICA, “Myth/Network: The vision of an open system in Art”,The Network, Govostis, Athens 3/2/1991- “Dispersion and Interaction”, ARTI review, Athens 9-10/1991 - E. Koscielak “Myth/Network, La Mia Casa 5-6, Athens 1991- G.Marcou, AICA, “Art and Philosophy”, Greece’s Weekly 3/2/1991- “Myth/Network” TV documentary directed by Makis Faros 1995, Studio Eikona 1995-Dedication to Polyxene Kasda, Tyflomyga, Athens 2003 - .

Chrysalii installation 2, Chaos AghiaTriada, photo. S. Samios 1990

- Code Lexomorphes [-1991-2013- ]: Geometrical cryptograms based on the ancient Greek codification of language.

Structuralist exhibition Homage a Stazewski Concept/ Form, Municipal Center of Athens 1991- Congress on Greek Language 2009, Old Parliament of Athens, Chamber of Fine Arts of Greece (honorary medal).

 

Kasda-Sitra, Lexomorphes for architectural application, 2006

Her Lexomorphe ΧΡΥΣΑΛΛΙΣ monumental sculpture hosted the Olympic Flame in Heroon Square,Floisvos, Athens 2004.
A twin Lexomorphe ΧΡΥΣΑΛΛΙΣ monument hosted the Flame of Peace in North Leucosia, Cyprus 2005-2010
. LexomorpheΨYXH was installed in Gergeri, Crete 2009.

P. Kasda, “Code Lexomorphes, the iconic dimension of Greek language”, Poesia e Spiritualita review, Milan, Ιtaly 2007- .

Small Arctos, Epistrophe Gallery, Psirri, Athens 2001

- Fugue, the Fugitive Child [ -1996-1998-2005- ]: Variations of a Golden Series monumental structure, initially used as scenery for her recursive performance ΠAI and left behind in the Castro di Piovera, Biennale di Poesia di Alessandria, Italy 1996, the University of Lucian Blaga Sibiu Romania 1997 (silver medal), Megalopoles ancient theatre, Lykaia Arcadia 1997 (honorary medal), the Aegean Foundation,Paros island 1998 and Floisvos Park, Athens, Greece 2005..

P. Kasda, poetic essay ΠAI Toi et Moi, written in French, translated in Romanian by Mircae Ivanescu and in Flemish by Eugene Van Itterbeek, Seven Sleepers Coed. University Press Lucian Blaga 1997, Frankfurt International Book Fair 1997- P. Kasda, Il Bambino, Poesia e Spiritualita review, Milan 2009 - Π. Κασδά, ΠAI, Tyflomyga, Athens 2003 - P. Kasda, “L'Altro, l 'altrove e il mistero della centesimal porta”, Biennale di Poesia di Alessandria, Joker 1998 -

• My Home/ Network [ -1995-2000-2009- ]: neighborhood installation on the dynamic topology of intimate territories

P. Kasda, “Casa Retea precum pestele in apa”, Transilvania 1-2, Sibiu, Romania 1995, translated from French by Mircae Ivanescu.

• Ontological topology of the Greek landscape [ -1994-1996- ]: mythologically augmented maps with the international participation of poets, auspices of the Municipal Radio of Athens 9, 84F.M.

 
P. Kasda, Pyrisporos, Art-Mythology-Informatics essay, Aigokeros-Art, Athens1994 - “Μyth/ Network 5”, ARTI, Greece1995 - D. Bisutti,”Polyxene Kasda Myth/Network”, La Clessidra 1/1995 Joker, Italy - P. Kasda, “Griekenland: Mein poezie is een reis in de geegtelidjke textuur vaan het land”, Europees Poeziecentrum “De Zevenslapers” 3000 Letters X, Leuvain1994 – P. Kasda, “Myth/ Network 5: The Gate of Fire”, Euphorion Transilvania, VI, n. 55.56.57. Sibiu, Romania,1995 – P. Kasda, “Myth/ Network 6: Arkteia”, Tradition et Modernite, Les Sept Dormants n4 coed. Universite Lucian Blaga press 1996- P. Kasda, “Progetto Myth/ Network 1-5” La Clessidra n.1/ 1995 Joker, Italy – P. Kasda, “The Power of the Small” translated by M. Ivanescu, La Tribuna de Sibiu1995 – P. Kasda, “Progetto Myth/Network 6 ”, La Clessidra n2. Millenium writers, Joker, Italy 1996 - P. Kasda, “Cer si pamant”, Transilvania 1-2-3, Cultura Nationala, Romania 1996 – P. Kasda, “Ciel et Terre, Poesia, Mito, Utopia”, Biennale di Poesia di Alessandria, Joker, Italy1996 - V. Avram “Spatiul Primordial”, Transilvania 1-2-3, Romania1996 - P. Kasda, “The Landscape of my Soul” XIV Biennale di Poesia di Alessandria, Poeti e Paesaggi, Joker, Italy 2008
.http://.www.artooth.gr/index The Underworld Star and the Eagle, ΕΔΙΖΗΣΑΜΗΝ ΕΜΕΩΥΤΟΝ I searched for myself {Heraclites}

- PXK Route [ -2004-2014- ]: Global fossil installation spread in 25 sites in 7 countries wrapped up in her innovative fossilising material PXK, realized through her participation in 'big' events like: the Olympics 2004 PXK Chrysalis monument in Athens, the Βiennale di Poesia di Alessandria, Italy 2004, the 2nd Biennale of Beijing 2005, the Syria festival of Greek art FMC 2006, the 4rth Biennale of Tashkent 2007, the Nuit Blanche, Anvers-aux-Abesses, Place de l' Europe Paris 2007, the Olympic Fine Arts of Beijing (gold medal 2008), DESIGN 2012 Municipal Pinacotheque of Athens, the Olympics 2012 the British embassy of Beirut, UNESCO-MEADOWS, Lebanon 2012..

P. Kasda “Vertical link to the principle of renaissance”, 3^rd Biennale of Beijing conference abstract 2008  
http://glypto.wordpress.com/2007/10/23/kasda-nuit-blanche/
http://glypto.wordpress.com/2008/05/09/olympic-fine-arts-2008/

- Doodling interludes [ -1982-2008-2013- ]: the “terrible silence”of  in-between-space, inserted in 13 sites in 7 countries like the Biennale of Beijing 2008, DESIGN House of Cyprus in Athens 2009, Croisees d'Arts Château Landon France 2009, Flags in Solidere Beirut UNESCO-OFAA-MEADOWS Lebanon 2012, K-Droz Transart, Maison Heinrich Heine in Paris and in gallery Schneeberger in the Munster Night of Museums,Germany 2014..
.http://glypto.wordpress.com/2008/02/14/polyxeni-biennale/
http://glypto.wordpress.com/2012/05/25/
http://www.beirut.com/l/15607
http://glypto.wordpress.com/2007/05/28/kasda-kipelo/ 

Concept curator and initiator of  a set of techno-socio-psycho-art experiments like: 

  - Miorita Melusina and the Sphinx-

“Mioritic” landscape/ folktale exchange Kasda-Angelou telecommunications project, selected by Arscenic French Association for the twin Capitals of Europe 2007,

E.Venardou, “Which is the way to the cultural capitals?” Eleftherotypia Sunday newspaper, Athens 2007.

- Gargling Sky 2009, international art constellation throughout village Gergeri, Crete.

P. Kasda,“Gargling Sky”, ΕΕΤΕ Greek Chamber of Fine Arts journal nb.158, Athens 2009- http://.www.artooth.gr/index The Gergerian experience 2009

- ΠAI 2010 “The Aeon is a Child playing” (Heraclitus, fg. 52) multimedia mythical foundation event in Evros,Samothrace, Patmos, Thebes, Bulgaria, Italy....org. EPOFE
http://.www.artooth.gr/index ΠΑΙ 2010-2011 

Cards for the Samothrace Game illustrated by Antonis Papantoniou

- The Samothrace Game 2011- Looking for PAI with the enthralling ambiguous guidance of Heraclitus’ antinomic Fragments.Org. IDEA. 
A.Kaltsou, PAI 2010-2011, the Map of the Hidden Treasure, The Citizen of Thrace 15/12/2010

- «Πιθ΄ Ελλέβορον» 2014 - on the philosophy of Folly in Antikyra - Salento - org. Allotropia and PrimopianoLivinGallery, under the auspices of the Greek Ministry of Culture.
http://www.resartis.org/fr/actualites/?id_content=534
http://www.uraniasgardens.blogspot.com

Current research projects on-the-make:
 The Third element and the Riddle of the Sphinx, Kasda-Angelou
 Tu vas a Tuva? oui je vais a Ithaca, Kasda-Sacquegna

IAA, UNESCO artist, she graduated from the French institute Besancon in Alexandria Egypt and was attending for 7 years Soeur Herman's workshop in Fine Arts. She also acquired the state Arabic “Τhanaweya Αma”. She studied Chemistry-Physics in the American University of Cairo and graduated in Psychology- Sociology in Pierce (Deree) College, Athens. 

  Has attended seminars and/or symposiums  in Adlerian Psychology with Rudolf Dreykurs, in  Experimental Social Psychology with  Ezra Stotland, Αrtificial intelligence and computational technologies for education, Prof. Seymour Papert's AI department, ΜΙΤ Boston 1984.

Has published interdisciplinary and poetic essays. Her semiological maps were adopted by  the biennale of poetry of Alessandria ITaly and the European Poetry Network (Belgium)  as a new form of poetic expression, her early poetry was awarded three golden meals  by the French Academy of Poets  of Alexandria..... 

  She is Greek, from Aigeon and Syros island, born in“the point zero of the present” (as defined by radiocarbon calibration), in the beginnings of nuclear tests and the changes in the measurement of time with the first computers, in multicultural Alexandria Lost, a shifting Hellenistic home, grafted with the element of deconstruction, which she now retrieves in the planetary dimension of her work.
She lives in Athens. She works everywhere.

They wrote:

"Myth/Network is not a work in the usual form of an art work, but a state which is configured as much by the artist as by the participants in her growing interactive web. It is an open system that evolves on many ontological levels.. the old system of art centered on the artist-emitter and the passive audience is transformed into a living system-network of the international creative society”.

Elzbieta Koscielak, ΑICA art critic, “Myth/Network: The vision of an open system in Art”, The Network, Govostis, Athens 3/2/1991.

“ Myth/Network is an original invitation where many trends coexist. It is a personal path of the contemporary artist extending towards the depths of centuries and towards the unknown future of humanity in this crucial time of transition”.

Elzbieta Koscielak, AICA, Myth/Network, La Mia Casa, Athens 5-6/1991.

“it has to do with a vision springing from the psychology of the unconscious. Her unusual point of departure is that myth becomes act of the soul in the sites where it was born to be reconstructed as present bringing back the creative and drastic hypostasis of Greek language. We could define her work as Space Semiotics...

The maps of her itineraries, dont follow a predetermined program but they reveal themselves to her gradually, based on a series of subliminal, symbolic coordinates and synchronistic events that elevate in front of our eyes, in her words: “the matrix of meaning that sustains the world”.

Through collective synergy which is sustained by pure subjectivity, her itinerary maps are transformed into an embodiment experience for the participants, tending to be reduced into abstraction, through rational elaboration and writing.

To seek to enter in this dimension seems at first sight difficult, but, once you accept to make the effort, doors will open to unsuspected dimensions”.

Donatella Bisutti, “Polyxene Kasda Myth/Network”, La Clessidra 1/1995 Joker, Italy

" I sustain that Polyxene Kasda can be included as one of the most notorious representatives today, on an international level, of a culture capable to realize the conjunction of antique traditions with contemporary sciences. Her research re-actualizes the immense mythical patrimony that Greek civilization has left to us, which she proposes as a transtemporal, operating living reality”.

Donatella Bisutti, poet, writer, chief editor of Poesia e Spiritualita review, Milan 2010, Italy

“Polyxene Kasda belongs to a diachronic and existential forefront, as by analogy, the Pythagoren and Orphic mysteries would seem advanced today”.

Victor Ivanovici, writer, essayist, literary critic 2005.

"At each and every point of her art, Kasda re-casts and re-interprets mythological and philosophical concepts, bringing them back to life in aesthetic form".

Dr. Yael Navaro-Yashin 2010, anthropologist, essayist, senior university Lecturer.

“By revisiting myth, Polyxene reconstructs history itself. Crucial Timer artist with creative genius, her language is mythic, her thought original. From her study of the landscape, amplified by observation, scientific research, linguistic analogies and involvement with the local residents, a precious project was born; a “doc” important for future generations".

Dores Sacquegna, art-curator, art gallery director, Lecce, Italy 2010.

“We traverse with the author a mythological landscape, a field of self exploration through “a forest of symbols” in Baudelaire words or in more actual terms “Project Myth/Network”, of which I lived certain stages and I am more and more struck by this ekstatic experience that allows us to realise the initiatic potential of Greek mythical paideia which is always contemporary. In her work we can speak of an authentic outpour of mythical knowledge. Her artistic act intervenes and transforms space into a holy site“.

Eugene Van Itterbeek, writer, poet, literary critic, Avant-propos PAI, Cahiers Europeens de Poesien.159-collection Les Sept Dormants n51997

“She captures myth in its primordial state, experiencing its meaning in the depths of our existence”.

Vasiile Avram, anthropologist, writer, Tribuna Culturala, Sibiu 16/5/1997.

“Her courageous initiative to bind immanence to transcendence..”.

Vasiile Avram,«Spatiul primordial», Transilvania 1-2-3, Romania 1996.

“ In her projects original and unpredictable social “language games” a la Wittgenstein are set up and left to evolve creating a multitude of narratives that would never happen in real law-restricted societies.The originality of Polyxene’s dromena has been documented by a number of participants and art critics. Concepts like virtual reality, role playing multiple worlds, tangible space-time deformations, lived sense of differential rate of flow of time during critical events or dromena, cultural shock encounters, culturally/memory informed models and reevaluation of existing policies are suggested in the relevant documents.. ”.

J. Kontos, prof. of A.I, “A.I. Needling The Conscious Eye”, Southwind 2015.

“elle ecrit que sa maison ouvre sa face vers la mer - tout pres des lieux d'ou partaient

les processions des torches pour eleusis - donc, le soir, quelquefois, elle renversait tout d'un coup,

le temps ......

et nous sommes ici, a lire ce qu'elle ecrit - et

elle est ailleurs -”et le silence est terrible”-....

Il existe certaines verites, si proches de notre pensee qu'il suffit que l'on ouvre ses yeux pour les voir-?

et sinon - ce serait seulement une plage et les pas se perdant dans le sable“.

Mircae Ivanescu, Mihae Eminescu awarded poet of Romania, “hypothetical voyage to polyxenia in an immobile train”, XVIIth Sibiu Poetry Festival 18-22/10-1995.

Kasda's publications on Project Myth/Network (selection):

P. Kasda, Sky outside, sky inside, Emvolimon review, Aspra Spitia, Greece 1990.

P. Kasda interview by M. Papadimitriou, Chrysalii a mythical experience, Politistiki Ekfrassi, Athens1991.

P. Kasda, Project:Myth/Network1990-1994: Revival of cosmological Memory in the redefinition of our spacetime perception, Tetarti Apostoliki, Pinacotheque of the Municipality of Athens catalog,T.E.E. June 1994

P. Kasda, Pyrisporos. Art-Mythology-Informatics, interdisciplinary essay, Aigokeros-Art 1994.

Polyxene Kasda, Myth/Network, TV documentary directed by Makis Faros, Studio Eikona 1995
Polyxene Kasda, interview, Tyflomyga review, Athens 2003 -
P. Kasda, Myth/Network 4, ΛΟΓΟΣ, ENOPE Center for the sciences and the arts, Athens 2.11.1992

P. Kasda, Code Lexomorphes, the iconic dimension of Greek language, Poesia e Spiritualita review, Milan, Ιtaly 2007-

P. Kasda in Memoriam Vasiile Avram Tribuna, 11-5-2004 -

P. Kasda, Chrysalis/Grail, Reflections of an Object of Truth, Verita e Dubbio 2004, XVII Bienale di Poesia di Alessandria, Joker 2004 –

P. Kasda, the Chrysalis Grail in the last divided capital of the world, Odysseus revue, Italy 2007

J. Kontos- P. Kasda, Artificial Intelligence needling The Conscious Eye, SouthWind A.I. Series Notios Anemos, Athens 2014 (under publication).

P. Kasda, ΠAI Si Tu Si Eu, poetic essay written in French, translated in Romanian by Mircae Ivanescu and in Flemish by Eugene Van Itterbeek, Seven Sleepers Coed. University Press Lucian Blaga 1997, participated in the Frankfurt International Book Fair 1997

P. Kasda, Il Bambino, Poesia e Spiritualita review, Milan 2009

Π. Κασδά, ΠAI, Tyflomyga, Athens 2003

P. Kasda, L'Altro, l 'altrove e il mistero della centesima porta, IX Biennale di Poesia di Alessandria, Joker 1998 -

P. Kasda, Casa Retea precum pestele in apa, Transilvania 1-2, Sibiu, Romania 1995, translated from French by poet Mircae Ivanescu.

P. Kasda,Taurokathapsia, the Gate of Fire, interactive map of Crete,Touchstone Coed. Seven Sleepers 1994-

P. Kasda, Μyth/ Network 5, ARTI, Greece1995

P. Kasda, “Griekenland: Mein poezie is een reis in de geegtelidjke textuur vaan het land”, Europees Poeziecentrum “De Zevenslapers” 3000 Letters X, Leuvain1994

P. Kasda, “Myth/ Network 5: The Gate of Fire”, Euphorion Transilvania, VI, n. 55.56.57. Sibiu, Romania,1995

P. Kasda, Myth/ Network 6: Arkteia, on the threshold of time, Tradition et Modernite, Les Sept Dormants n4 coed. Universite Lucian Blaga press 1996-

P. Kasda, Progetto Myth/ Network 1-5, La Clessidra n.1/ 1995 Joker, Italy –

P. Kasda, The Power of the Small translated by M. Ivanescu, La Tribuna de Sibiu1995 –

P. Kasda, Progetto Myth/Network 6 :Sulla soglia del tempo, La Clessidra n2/95,VIII Bienale di Poesia di Alessandria, “Indicibili e Ineffabile”, Millenium writers, Joker, Italy 1996 -

P. Kasda, Cer si pamant, Transilvania 1-2-3, Cultura Nationala, Romania 1996

P. Kasda, Ciel et Terre Toi e moi, “Poesia, Mito, Utopia”, VIII Biennale di Poesia di Alessandria, Joker, Italy1996

P. Kasda, The Landscape of my Soul XIV Biennale di Poesia di Alessandria, Poeti e Paesaggi, Joker, Italy 2008 -

P. Kasda, Chrysalis/Grail, Reflections of an Object of Truth, Verita e Dubbio 2004, XVII Bienale di Poesia di Alessandria, Joker, 2004.

P. Kasda, 2^nd Biennale of Beijing, the fatal leap from aesthetic vision to ethical action, Journal of the Greek Chamber of the Arts n. 114, Athens 2005

P. Kasda, Vertical link to the principle of renaissance, “Colors and Olympism” Third Biennale of Beijing conference abstract 2008-

P. Kasda, Gargling Sky, ΕΕΤΕ Greek Chamber of Fine Arts journal nb.158, Athens 2009-

P. Kasda, The Gergerian experience 2009 http://.www.artooth.gr/index.

P.Kasda, concept of The Samothrace Game, IDEA 2011.

P. Kasda, on Mythical Foundation, Union of the Cultural Associations of Evros, E.P.O.F.E Catalog 2010.

http://glypto.wordpress.com/2007/10/23/kasda-nuit-blanche/-

http://glypto.wordpress.com/2008/05/09/olympic-fine-arts-2008/

http://glypto.wordpress.com/2008/02/14/polyxeni-biennale/-http://glypto.wordpress.com/2012/05/25/-
-http://glypto.wordpress.com/2007/05/28/kasda-kipelo/ 

Main working sites:

http://polyxenekasda. blogspot.gr

http://uraniasgardens.blogspot.gr

Olympic Chrysalis Monument 04-12

Poly Kasda's Olympic Chrysalis Monument 2004, which hosted the OlympicFlame in Floisvos Park, Athens. photo  by .D. Sacquegna 30/7/12

"In Greek, the Olympic Games are called Agones which means Agony, or, 'I am 'striving towards Being' and this is why the champions were venerated as Immortals. 

Chrysalis is a logocentric monument, generated by the numerical modelling of the Greek word ΧΡΥΣΑΛΛΙΣ, reminding us that the Olympic Games were not 'games' of survival, but, expressions of the Agony of trespassing, like the Chrysalis, the instinct of survival itself".(P. Kasda, conference of the Beijing Biennale 2008)

P, kasda's Chrysallis in British Embassy of Beirut, London Olympics 2012

 

Tu vas a Tuva?

Tu vas a Tuva?*
oui, je vais a Ithaki

Text by Polyxene Kasda

 Ithaca you are always in my mind

Introduction 
At the end of his life, R Feynman has lended a playful actuality to our primordial drive for adventure that pushes us to device Ulyssian ways to reach the ever receding Hercules' columns.

For Feynman, this drive for perpetual navigation took the name of Tuva, a strange land in Mongolia trying out different ways, to reach it. When things were made easy for him to visit this far away land, he died ”still roaming with a hungry heart”

His was a highly playful contemporary version of the transtemporal Homeric Ithaca, that has inspired poets, artists and writers throughout the ages, to create epics and chef d'oeuvres, driven by this Something Essential Missing..

This SEM element *is the agony that pushes us out of our skin,,“peeling our image from the mirror”, as we grow out of ourselves,heading towards Being. This self transcendent process gives rise to the creation of culture within civilization. Civilization is based on survival issues, while culture is the act of challenging survival itself.

In this context, artists are asked to present their own version of Ithaki; their strategy for reaching this vital and lethal somewhere, that is and is not, avoiding any rationalizations that would undermine the inherent, in our human core, mystery.

In our age of self scrutinization, where the very cognitive processes that shape our perception are highlighted to the point of being externalized and manipulated in the fields of genetics and artificial intelligence, this SEM element, engrailed in language,  haunting us from the deepest recesses of our cognitive structure, that differentiates us from the animal kingdom and connects us to the stars, deserves our full attention

What is it? a negative presence?* a positive absence? a black swan information of extra terrestral origin? An extended phenotype virus? A secret “même” imbedded in language itself?

In our eonic age, in our meta-space of extended present, contemporary Ithaki can no more be a far away place, but, could be reached immediately through our tuning to the Here and Now.

Ithaca gave you a marvellous journey without her you would not have set out
She has nothing left to give you now Constantin Cavafy

 This project can be considered as an open end experimental research in depth psychology and syncretic sociology.

The destination for the realization of this Idea is the island of Ithaca

For the moment we can ride on the wave created by the formulation of the idea and follow its unfolding in the insufficiencies of spacetime.

Project description
A group of artists and writers are challenged to formulate their Odyssey, giving a modern version of their voyage. Symbolically, the project workshop takes the form of a voyage to Ithaki where they are asked to tune in the energies of this mythical site and to produce texts and works which will be presented after 10 days in the Ionian center of Kefalonia. They will be asked to produce a collective Map of the secret treasure on this island, having as a guide Odysseus, the Outis (the Nobody), a name bearing pain, happiness and this peculiar, polyform, predictive, intelligence called Mêtis.

1-Inspired by R. Feynman's “ the quest for Tenna Tuva” (Utube video)

2-S.E.M term coined, in 1990, by Poly Kasda to denote the essential human drive for quest, not to be confused with Structural Equation Modeling

3. Lucian Blaga, Trilogie de la Connaissance, 
 

***Tu vas a Tuva Project is copyrighted by Polyxene Kasda and PrimoPianoLivinGallery in Lecce, Italy.

Project Miorita, Melusina and the Sphinx of Thebes 2007

Miorita/ Melusina and the Sphinx of Thebes Artooth team Project Kasda-Angelou 2007 Article by Polyxene Kasda, dedicated to the memory of Vasiile Avram of Sibiu. Arscenic, French cultural association for the promotion and the diffusion of digital arts, in the context of its wider project Areas of Conflu(x)ence, had selected our telecommunications project, Miorita, Melusina and the Sphinx of Thebes to be realized simultaneously in the twin capitals of Europe 2007 Sibiu and Luxembourg, meeting in Thebes of Greece Brief description of the 2007 project In order to soothe the crash and to facilitate communication at a subliminal level, we thought that an interchange should begin at the level of their respective nursery songs and folk tales. Miorita, the Romanian pastoral ballad gave rise to the concept of the Mioritic space; the unconscious space shared by a culture that is shaped by its natural landscape. Miorita the ewe and Melusina the mermaid {Luxembourg} meet in she –who- binds, the hybrid Sphinx of Thebes, as the passers by- who are exposed to the sound of the folk tale of the other city- are asked to answer, via an info kiosk, the question: What is ANTHROPOS?. The project consists of two similar installations of pictures of human faces and screens, one in each city. The participants are seen and heard on the screens of the installation in the other city. The responses are collected, via the info kiosk, directly, in our site which acts as one more area of confluence for the project. Miorita In the Romanian pastoral folk poem Miorita, its most enduring cultural text with 900 variants, a shepherd boy is warned by his beloved ewe, Miorita, that his fellow shepherds plan to murder him and take his flock. Instead of resisting, he accepts his fate, asking only that Miorita go in search of his mother and tell her the story, not of how he was betrayed, but of how he was married to the daughter of a powerful King. Thereafter, wherever the ewe wanders, across the rivers of the Carpathian Mountains to the Black Sea, she tells the story-not the true, unadorned facts of death and betrayal- but a beautiful fiction of a transcendent wedding αnd telling the story, she causes geography to spring from myth. She is the storytelling shifting border whose story is borderless and cosmic. Melusina Melusina,the wife of the founder of Luxembourg Count Siegfried had one particular request, namely, that Siegfried must leave her alone for one full day and night every month. All went well for years and years, when on the first Wednesday of the month, Melusina would retire into her chambers in the ‘casemates’; a network of caverns underneath the city, not to be seen again until early light on Thursday. But one day, Siegfried's peeped through the keyhole and saw Melusina lying, as a mermaid, in the bathtub with a fishtail hanging over the rim. Melusina recognised her husband through the door and jumped out of the window into the river Alzette below, never to be seen again. Mioritic Space “spatiul mioritic“ Transylvanian poet and philosopher Lucian Blaga argued that the ballads of Miorita were reflected in the Romanian landscape, with the alternations of accented and unaccented syllables representing the layout of the Romanian environment He established the term "Mioritic Space" for the Romanian character as defined by its geography. An exile of Ceausescu's Romania, Andre Codrescu sought to redefine what Lucian Blaga called Mioritic Space into the idea that thought is its own nation and the poet, forever in exile, is the only creator of its shifting borders. The Hybrid In our project, the two folk legends/ Pastoral and Gothic spaces, interact and interchange their characteristics, via cyberspace, creating a hybrid cultural being, made of the interpenetration of the two cultures. This unstable hybrid takes refuge in the ancient, well established superhybrid: the Sphinx of Thebes, projecting back to her Oedipus’ answer to her riddle and thus, converting her enigma. What is the human being? “What is that which has one voice and becomes four-footed, two- footed and three- footed?". To the riddle of the Sphinx, Oedipus answered: Anthropos {the human being}, destroying the all powerful Hybrid with this word. His answer is “insoluble in concrete logic” as Lucian Blaga would say; the human being remains an unsolved mystery which renews itself continuously, keeping us in a constant state of creative crisis and while trying to solve it, each nation develops the specific culture within its civilization, which is shaped by its Mioritic space. Nowadays, all the nations of the world, as if swallowed by the mouth of Zeus {Dias}, migrate and crash in cyberspace {Diadiktion in Greek means net of Zeus/ internet}, peeling off their skin, searching for their common core; “le noyau se debarasse de son ecorce” {L. Blaga} The confluence of nations is a crash and interpenetration of worlds of different spacetime perception and this differentiation generates a “polystylistic universe”. The world- on- the- make, with the bits and pieces of all cultures is the ultimate work of art of the 21st c. and we want to participate in its creation. Once more Man, who is undergoing a “mutational switch from a cultural paradigm to another”, is called forth to redefine his identity in a global nation, through an interchange of cultural landscapes. Synchretic European Topology The Sphinx project 2014 by Kasda & Angelou in order to express the symbiotic aspirations of european thinking engulfed in the chaotic remix of its diverging temporalities, we propose the creation of a real/virtual ludic territory moulded by the exchange of legendary elements characteristic of its regional spaciotemporalities.  For example, Melusina the legendary siren of gothic Luxemburg, meets Miorita the lamb of the pastoral Romanian topology to generate a gargoyle with a lamb's head and a siren's tail that questions the stability of the hybrid european identity. As area of confluence of these disparate elements we propose She-who-binds antinomies in an indestructible formula; the mythical Sphinx, guardian of Thebes, the city founded by Cadmus, on his quest of his sister EUROPE Thebes; deep ontological topology cemented clumsily in a sick oblivion that obliterates deliberately the ontological nature of the human being. What is ANTHROPOS? We reflect back Oedipus' answer to the Sphinx' lethal riddle, intensifying it with this echo Our answer will open or close the fantasmic gates to Thebes, city founded on the quest of Europe.

topologie syncretique europeenne Vers une topologie syncretique Europeenne 2014 Pour exprimer les aspirations de symbiose profondes de la pensee europeenne engouffree dans le remixage chaotique de temporalites divergentes, la communication devrait être restoree au niveau subliminal. L' idee serait de creer un territoire ludique, virtuel et reel, moule par un echange d'elements legendaires, characteristiques aux diverses regions spaciotemporelles. Par example, Melusine, la sirene legendaire de l'espace gothique Luxemburgois et Miorita, la brebis de la ballade pastorale Roumaine, se rencontrent dans une gargouille a la tête de brebis et queue de poisson, qui questionne la stabilite de la configuration, hybride, europeenne.. On propose, comme point de fusion, de ces elements, celle-qui-renoue les antinomies dans une formule indestructible, la Sphinx mythique qui garde l'entree de Thebes, cite fondee par Cadmus, en recherchant sa soeur EUROPE- Thebes, topologie ontologique, cementee dans un oubli malade impose par le 'Procuste etatique', qui, selon Blaga, “poursuit deliberement la defiguration ontologique de l 'Homme.” Qu'est ce que l'Homme? On renvoie la reponse d' Oedipe a l Enigme fatale du Sphinx l' intensifiant avec cet echo. Qu'est ce 'Anthropos'? Etons-nous prets a devoiler l'Idee profonde que Thebes, fondee sur la recherche d'Europe, porte dans ses entrailles, comme un Enfant; l' Enfant qui assiste la naissance de l'Homme Primordial dans ses rites Cabiriques. L'archetype de l 'Enfant, organe psychique, selon Young, se devoile aux temps eoniques, transitoires, pour relier notre present a nos racines spirituelles et nous guerir. “L Eon est un Enfant qui joue “. (Heraclete) ...

PXK recycling old staff with recycled 'emballage' patches

I found in the recycling trash an old chair and an old tripod relic from a small table

I placed a rectangular glass on the tripod and covered it with a layer of PXK extension

then I added more layers pf PXK patches

then, I covered the chair with PXK extensions

and there was my PXK precious chair

PXK recycled corner

PXK extensions patches

PXK, is recycled aluminum foil, handcarved and processed to look like the fossilized surface of rocks, sunk in the sea bed of time, as detected from some point in the future. The repeated spiral pattern is hypnotic in its creation and in its immersive aura effect.

PXK is flexible enough to become a dress and resistant enough to withstand extreme weather conditions as an open air monument. It is very light, ideal for travelling big distances and once unrolled, it can cover huge surfaces.

PXK makes ordinary trash objects look much older, transforming them, into unique and precious, calcified remnants of a civilization, which has underwent a self-trespassing leap, to 'anywhere else'..

PXK material has numerous applications; it can be used in mending shoes, jackets etc. For e.g. my PXK gilet was part of the Tashkent Biennale 07, my PXK dress was in the Olympic Fine Arts, Beijing 08, or, it can be used to create open air monuments

like my Chrysalis Monument in Flisvos, Athens, 2004.

PXK recycled items can be re-recycled to suit other installations. PXK installations are, usually, slightly, changing colors and texture, as they are mended with new PXK extensions, adding to the concept, the lively factor of corrosion.

Apart from being the initials of my name, PXK happens to be the scientific name of a homo sapiens mutation- related gene. PXK stands for the skin shed behind, in a self-surpassment leap.

PXK Route 2004-2012 World installation

PXK ROUTE world installation is realized through my participation in big international events. It is an anti-system, tunnelling in the real world, through the system. Thus, each local PXK presentation is part of the wider planetary installation PXK ROUTE 2004-2012, extending on the 'geographical palette of different cities'.

Each PXK installation is a stimulus for research in the cultural uniqueness of each landscape. It is also a research tool in its social system of communication and projects realization and an opportunity to trigger local participation. 
 

PXK ROUTE global installation {2004-11- } is extending from the Olympic Chrysalis monument, Athens 04, to Italy {Βiennale di Poesia di Alessandria 04}, Cyprus { Chrysalis monument, N. Leucosia 05}, China {2nd Biennale of Beijing 05}, Syria { FMC 06}, Uzbekistan {4rth Biennale of Tashkent 07}, France {Nuit Blanche, Anvers-aux-Abesses, Paris 07}, China {Olympic Fine Arts 08}, Greece (Municipal Collection Gargling Sky Crete 09, DESIGN 11 Municipal Pinacotheque of Athens)... 

 

Code Lexomorphes; iconic dimension of Greek language.

CODE LEXOMORPHE 
Numerical modelling of Greek words
on the edge of truth and deceit

by

POLYXENE KASDA

Could a word swallow you in its invisible orbits, toss you up and down until it empties you, structure you according to its image and throw you out, while it remains indifferent, unchanged?

End of the eighties. I had just published my interdisciplinary essay The Conscious Eye, an eye that sees itself seeing, thinking itself thinking as it undergoes the crisis of self consciousness that sealed the arts and sciences of the XXth c. and revealed the linguistic sub-scaffold of visual reality

I was left with a sense of dissatisfaction: something deeper was still exerting its irresistible attraction on me, something essential was missing (SEM, as I call it)) and I knew that I had to go through it in order to go beyond it and be delivered from its insisting pressure. Only through 'methexis' can you comprehend, without undestanding, those matters of the soul and my art allows me to give tangible form to those unreachable states of being, on the edges of logic, where I breathe more freely. 

 performance Persephone in the temple in the bottom of the Lake of Mornos 1990

photo doc. Stefanos Samios

I decided to surrender to this SEM irresistible attraction and it dragged me in the bottom of a Lake. I found myself inside my own reflection, trapped in the other side of the mirror. The scenery was the bottom of the Lake of Mornos (in Lidoriki, on the way to Delphes) which had surfaced, for a while, in 1990, because of the drought, revealing an ancient city, a village and a sumptuous stone church, all dressed in oysters. 
Instinctively, I headed to the altar and I started digging in the mud as though I were looking, blindly, for something in the dark. My tentative movements gave rise to hundreds of primordial earth sculptures, which I instinctively named Chrysalii. I did not know it then, but I was dunk inside a vortex; a warped dimension, that was about to change my life.

My internal and external landscape had fused and I had the impression of stepping inside myself in a soft, spongelike, space of presence; In fact, I was captured in the force field of the word Chrysalis, which had, imperceptibly, swallowed  me like a shark hiding behind its own light.

Chrysalii installation in the bottom of the Lake of Mornos 1990. photo Samios

 This performance was followed by a series of parallel installations of the Chrysalii mud sculptures, around the globe with the creative interaction of artists and scientists, who installed them in around 300 spots around the world, in 27 countries (project launched in the Meeting of the Worlds in Joensu, Finland 91). The Chrysalii were fractal clones of the same Chrysalis which had demonstrated the 'butterfly effect'; the power of its own entelechy.

Soon, the resulting biodegradable, global, 'geocaching' installation melted in the rain, leaving behind the spectral dimension of its transformative name Chrysalis. Thus, I moved, in 1990, from the bottom of a lake, into the planetary dimension, without the use of high technology; without the help of internet (in  early nineties, the fax was still considered as a breakthrough). The magnetic word  was carrying me, like a spaceship, from the bottom of the waters to the aeronautic dimension of the future present. 

In the context of the structural exhibition, in the Municipality of Athens, titled Concept/Form, in 1991, I knailed the letters of the Greek word ΧΡΥΣΑΛΛΙΣ, on a horizontal board laying on a mirror and I pulled out of each letter, strings, with lengths analogous to their ancient numerical charge.  “number is the wisest of beings and second in wisdom is the name-maker”, according to Pythagoras. At the quantum level there are only numbers, anyway.

Lexomorphe Chrysalis ΧΡΥΣΑΛΛΙΣ (Homage a Stazewski, Concept/Form, 1991}photo S.Samios

Horizontal configuration

The vertical geometrical configuration of the word Chrysalis
 breeds the momentous form of the Grail 
is language growing  space points connected with the gravity of the word?

Continuing my experimentation, I lifted the board with the word ΧΡΥΣΑΛΛΙΣ in a vertical position, I pivoted the constructionand the form of the Grail emerged. 
Was the archetype of eternal quest shrouded in the numerical orbits of a Greek name which, according to Anaxagoras, is a “Speaking Sculpture”? Was it the very archetype of eternal quest that had hurled me in this quest?
 True or false, in my self-consistent story, it made sense; archetypes are the generic source of  ideas, that may, or, may not find their way in the insufficiencies of spacetime. The weird thing is that you cannot be conscious of their workings unless you recreate them from  inside out, swallowed in their vibrational belly. Archetypes are ever promiscuous and ever virgin; they are always new.

Lexomorphe Chrysalis was to become, 14 years later, in 2004, an Olympic, logocentric monument,  which connected vertically, the event of the return of the Olympic games to their seed principle of Dionysian regeneration, seeded in 14^th BC Arcadia Lykaia games, in which, the champion, like a chrysalis, on the verge of life and death, trespassed, with a leap of self- hypervasis, his mortal condition and was venerated as an Immortal, regenerating, through resonance, the natural world with this act.The olympic games are not games of survival, but, contests of trespassing the instinct of survival itself. In Greek they are called Olympic Agones; the agony of striving towards Being.

In the internal coherence of my system, the whole 'Grail' adventure (1990-2004-   ) was encapsulated in my ritual performance, in the sunken altar of Mornos lake, in 1990.
 The Word itself seemed to be endowed with the power to stretch the idea from its atemporal inkbed into the insufficiencies of spacetime. 
Was the word Chrysalis a warped passage to our  fourth dimension? Was its Grail-like shape analogous to its 'spectral dimension' while touching the building blocks of spacetime?  
Through art I could play and tinker concretely with abstract ideas and get insights into the true nature of things "which likes to hide"(Heraclites).  

the word monument Chrysalis hosts the Olympic Flame, Floisvos, Athens 2004

peformance Persephone in the temple in the bottom of the lake 1990

The numerical scaffold of the word ΧΡΥΣΑΛΛΙΣ 2004 was dressed, for the Olympiade, with my innovative material PXK; a lace-like, flexible and light, aluminum-based material, named after the initials of my name, which, coincidentally, turned out to be the scientific name of a homo sapiens gene connected to mutation. It was the Human Genome year 2003.

The next five years I was busy realizing the open-ended  planetary installation PXK ROUTE 2004-09-. The planet had shrunk to the size of my home: I was starting a PXK installation in the Biennial of Beijing 05, to continue it, after a few days in the Biennial of Poetry in Italy, to extend it to the Biennial of Tashkent 07 and the next day to continue the installation in the White Night event, in Paris 07.....It was a thrilling, skin-shedding adventure, carrying rolls of PXK under my arm, travelling throughout the globe,  leaving behind, PXK extensions, converting old things, into still older and precious works of art, like the Midas touch. PXK became the symbol of the Biennial of Poetry in Alessandria, Italy 04, titled Truth and Deceit and in 2008 my PXK dress was awarded a golden medal in the Olympic Fine Arts of Beijing. The whole installation PXK ROUTE, which looked like a fossilized remnant of a lost civilization, detected in the sea bed of time, from some point in the future, was presented in the international symposium organized by the Biennial of Beijing 2008.

It was obvious to me, by then, that whatever was related to the word Chrysalis had the winged dimension of the butterfly; the Logos (reason to be) which gave meaning to the Chrysalis' life and  death. Is language the career of our entelechy?

In the same way, the Greek word Psyche/ ΨΥΧΗ revealed, through its numerical modelling the form of a butterfly, the word ΜΈΔΟΥΣΑ/Medusa generated a spinning wheel, image of mental acceleration (Gorgon). The word ΑΝΘΡΩΠΟΣ generated an Eagle, symbol of the Spirit. The word ΟΝΟΜΑ/Name took the form of an amphora; the container that gives form to the void .

DAKRY (teardrop)

ANTHROPOS

 MEDOUSA

Always on the edge of truth and deceit, like all this story, the Lexomorphes have something of the Troubadours' Gai Savoir, with the double ambivalent meaning. They feed the elusive Erotimatikon which snowballs, like its derivative Eros, keeping us in creative tension.

The Lexomorphes are a polysemantic code that could be carved on rocks, just in case of, God forbid, nuclear disaster, or, on space-communication plates. It is a meaningful information system tool, which can be easily programmed in the computers, maybe as a tribute to the ancient Greek computer of Antikythera. 
Code Lexomorphes is an elegant information code, deeply rooted in our Pythagorean cultural heritage. True or false it is a way to create a self-consistent system that generates ontological and formalistic questions..  

ΟΝΟΜΑ, ΕΛΠΙΔΑ, ΨΥΧΗ, ΑΝΘΡΩΠΟΣ/ name, hope, psyche, anthropos

Lexomorphes applications by P. Kasda, A. Papantoniou, A. Sitra

Number sets, according to Banach -Tarsky, can cross dimensions, re-scaling without losing their characteristics. The Lexomorphes are number configurations that help us understand the gravity of words.

According to Heraclites «the name is uttered from the invisible and it is a physical law".

Fred Hoyle compares the letters of the alphabet to genes of cosmic origin which contribute in the evolution of life. For Burroughs, language is an extraterrestrial virus which tortures us but saves us from entropy.
Could language be an extra-dimensional virus; the Virus of MAN which transmutes us from animals to human beings? In Greek language, a process of self -birth is latent, a drive pushing us to  self-surpassing heroic fits, that challenge our own survival needs. 

Architectural simulation applications of  the numerical modelling of the  word ΑΝΘΡΩΠΟΣ

Poly Kasda -Anna Sitra (architect)

The Lexomorphes are elegant logocentric structures, which could be embedded in the urban architecture, for a renormalization of our rhythm, which is systematically, disrupted by the systems of power .

Walter Benjamin had sustained that the seat of ontological experience is language.

Here, I deposit a parcel of my adventure in the morphic fields of a word-that-swallowed me; a game of hide and seek with the Zopyron; the 'Fire' that makes us grow out of ourselves, creating culture within civilization; Culture is based on open possibilities and self -hypervasis, Civilization is based on self maintenance and survival needs (L. Blaga). In Greek language these two words coincide: 'Politismos'.

Survival without self-supercedence, is not possible, in Greek culture

Truth/ αλήθεια means fishing for the divine/ «θεία άλη». Greece follows, incessantly, the muddy steps of God. Our language reflects the Horrible Mystery of the fractal fission of this 'indescribable Logos' from Α το Ω, in which Being, or, PAI, dies and is, uninterruptedly, reborn.

synthesis of Lexomorphes ONOMA, PSYCHE, ELPIDA, ANTHROPOS

(Kasda-Sitra- Papantoniou)
On August 22 NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has left a dot Morse code track on Martian soil.
Here, I propose an elegant code rooted in ancient Greek Pythagorean tradition. 

 

“In the Australian Kalkatoungou aborigine dialect, the word for ‘eye’ stands also for ‘seed/ star/ raindrop’, that is the analogical way the aborigine embed themselves in the world. This netlike approach was similar to what was happening in the Magistrus kitchen, around the table covered with plums, olives, bread and endless coffees; we were treating the void as solid water: Huge word-structures, were rising like alien ship prows, opening up into other word structures; the world was transformed into a holographic acropolis of talking sculptures, sliding on infinite layers, which started from the everyday things to reach a realm of ideas in the depths of my memory, lying anywhere else, outside my brain. In fact, we were creating a meta- space, with transcendental coordinates, hovering above the usual space”. P. Kasda {extract from The word that swallowed me, unedited}

-Code Lexomorphes was first presented in Greece in the congress on Greek language 2009, organized by the Chamber of Visual Arts ΕΕΤΕ in the ancient Parliament, with the support of the Greek Ministry of Culture.

- In the congress Urania's Gardens, for the Year of Astronomy 09, in the Cultural Center of the Municipality of Athens, Code Lexomorphes was proposed as a code for interspace communication 
- Project-research Lexomorphes was  first published in Poesia e Spiritualita, Italian review, issue 1. 

- The digital illustrations of the Lexomorphes were made by gameimager Antonis Papantoniou.

@ Polyxene Kasda

Polyxene Doodling Perturbations of a probabilistic mind

 

PAI 2010 EPOFE Collection for the Municipality of Samothrace

Olympic Doodling, Third Biennale of Beijing collection 2008

-->

Doodling

My Doodles are magnified notebook, automatic, insightful sketches, which I fevereshly create when I am in this (usually unconscious) in-between state of things, in-between projects, in the subtle field of open possibilities and dancing probabilitlies. In these sketches, I can detect secret unconscious processes, reaching, sometimes, deep, atemporal levels lurking in the suggestive hum of my life. The selected doodles are, then, processed, intuitionally, with bright colors in Photoshop. They are, finally, printed on frameless transluscent membranes, stressing their in-between, unfinished, dynamic, momentus state. Doodling is a relaxing, authentic technique of self-revealing fun.

 

Greenfeast 275cmX300cm

Croisees d'Arts 2009, Municipality of Chateau-Landon, France

Design 2009, House of Cyprus, Athens

PrimoPiano LivinGallery 2010, Lecce, Italy

Flag exhibition UNESCO 2012, Beirut, Lebanon 

Doodling during my phone discussions with AI man 2014