cultural botanology by PolyXene Kasda (on the make)

 Uranias gardens, synopsis and the birth of a new project

“At intervals, the entangled n-dimensional flow of my project  was freezing by my intercepting observation and was recalibrated in the analogous time frame”.P. Kasda, Mein poezie is een reis in de geegtelidjke textuur vaan het land, 3000 Letters X, The Seven Sleepers Leuvain 1994

"For an elktikon hemar* of seven years we have been planting seed ideas, (things per se), in the fertile fields of Uraniasgardens, eavesdropping their growth, with minimum interference. Uranias Gardens is a mental space that emerged during a friendly gathering while discussing the nature of time and space; a digitally substantiated mental field, receptive to the seeding, sprouting and sharing of new ideas and projects to be realized in real space.

 During each realization process, modified by the peculiarity of each specific site, I could observe the intrinsic power of formulated Ideas to morph and organize themselves into spacetime structures, attracting the creative human and non-human components necessary for their fleshing out in our emergent synesthetic hyper-spaces, reappropriating with our visionary repurposing those experimental sites. 
Aligned with Xene**, i was monitoring, from inside-out, the way my pattern-setting ciphers were encoded into coherent virtual constructs, the way my consciousness was mapping itself in the landscape around me; the way i was recreating and simultaneously recognizing with an"anagnoristikon meidiama"*** the hermetic ancient symbols i was stumbling upon, during my parcours in the phasmatic topology of Greece...
Uraniasgardens was a dynamic cross-pollinating working field in which i could set Trojan pattern- strategies, device my own tools to explore, with Metissian**** cunning, uncharted spectral territories integrating them in our conscious space perception..
During this self-combustive process I kept on stumbling concretely on powerful abstract concepts, rediscovering them anew, forepacing, at times, tech innovations and discoveries. 
By formulating my projects' praxes, in my parallel self-reflexive narrative texts, i could assimilate and possibly anchor their contents on on-going academic research; a self-regenerating, uroboric artistic-linguistic process crammed with articles and essays, while juggling live action with spectral space elements in pliable time contractions and expansions...". 

*ελκτικόν ήμαρ: attractive time-chunk of nowness
**Xene : reference to my mythical twin 'performing her liturgical act in the other side of the mirror'; the ritual sustaining the (poly) configuration of my actual life,  as described in my book "When that word swallowed me". 
***anagnoristikon meidiama: a special type of knowledge through identification of the seeker with the sought, expressed in the archaic smile of the Kouros.
****Metissian manoeuvres stands for Odyssea's ruse, this special Greek Noessis as described in Vernant-d Etienne's  "Metisse la Ruse Grecque"

PolyXene Kasda, Metisse and the Heracleian Stone*****, or,  the irresistible charm of real-life project-plotting (narrative essay on-the-make).

*****reference to the legendary magnetic stone of Samothrace that was inspiring its magnetic enthusiasm to the iron rings of the initiates and they in turn transferred its power to more and more rings creating a long chain of load-stones reaching our days. The Heraklia Lithos stands for a psychophysical element engrailed in our structure, making its presence felt by the gravity of its own void; the urge that drives us out of our skin which i call SEM or Something Essential Missing.Some name it Lapis Exilis , others The Gene of God, I name it ΠΑΙ  in my book PAI, Seven Sleepers co.ed Uni.Press Lucian Blaga, 1997..

Uraniasgardens 2009-2016 projects*: the symfiliotic merging of actual /inner/ spectral space 

Dynamic Pattern-Setting and monitoring of a set of techno-agro-psycho- SAGA Myth/Network applications, in culturally gagged, mythically augmented loci of Greece. All projects were based on a core idea and evolving script layers outpacing the emerging psychosocial play states- 

Special attention was given to clues providing a psycho-anthropological synesthetic signature of each place  :

- the environment-subjectivity affective entanglement 

-  the phasmatic affect of ancient relics on our cognitive processes and the possible restitution of their ghost imprints that seem inseparable from our unconscious consciousness 

local benefits:  topological  re-evaluations, myth- spectral and agro- space awareness, cross-cultural interchange,  residents'creative involvement, creation of permanent,international polycentric art collections.

*Gargling Sky, village/ network, for the Year of Astronomy-2009-

 overview  polycentric international art- constellation spread throughout the remote meteorite- showered village Gergeri, Crete. 
Crumbling traditional buildings, 17th c. watermills, elderly homes, abandoned old school were restored in one morning to this end. 

Engagement of the local youth, astrophysicists and shepherds.

Observation: spontaneous revival of Ariadne's thread simulacrum by the youth of the village who linked the circuitous parcours of the exhibition with constellations made of ribbons attached on the walls of the houses- spontaneous participation of housewives offering local delight and shepherds who participated with their self-made musical instruments.
The Forest of Rouvas, a sanctuary of biodiversity was included in the inauguration parcours, where the residents cooked meat in the traditional "andikristo"way in a configuration echoing the orbits of the planetary system around the sun (fire).

Art co-curators Chrysa Vathiaanaki, Donatella Bisutti, Auspices  Municipality of Rouvas, now, Gortys
The dispersive installation was extended in Croisees d'Arts, Chateau London, France (c0-cur. K-Droz Paris)

relevant research-narrative articles

P. Kasda, The Gergerian Experience, Artooth.gr articles

P. Kasda, Gargling Sky, newspaper of the Greek Chamber of the Arts ΕΕΤΕ, nb.158

P. Kasda, Γάργαρος Ουρανός 2009, http://kasdapolyxene.blogspot.gr. 11/8/2011

      

from the Samothrace museum

*ΠAI -2010-: Mythical foundation

Trans-border, transloci artworks and cultus performances on Time as a Child /ΠAI playing/ΠΑΙΖΩΝ,  inspired by Kasda's poetic narrative essay PAI, published in French, Flemish and Romanian by the Seven Sleepers Leuvain co-ed. Uni.Lucian Blaga Sibiu 1997

The event was extended in Bulgaria, Thebes, Patmos, Athens (Technopolis), Lecce Italy (Primopianogallery)..
and were enriched by the local Children' forest installation:"Leleki (stork), leleki come back". 

Org. Union of the Cultural Associations of Evros gen. secretary Katerina Kaltsou, Alexandroupolis, Samothrace

Site benefits: Permanent international EPOFE art collection ΠAI in Alexandroupolis-Samothrace
Exhibited in the Natural  History Museum of Alexandroupolis.
art -.co-curators Dores Saquegna (Primipiano Italy) and Pierre Chirouze (K-Droz Paris).

P. Kasda, PAI 2010 concept,“The eon is a child playing, tossing {dice}; the kingdom is the Child’s” Heraclites. Uraniasgardens 6.10.2010.
P. Kasda, PAI, the Seven Sleepers Leuvain co-ed. Uni.Lucian Blaga Sibiu 1997

*The Samothrace Game -2011-,  To be and not to be. Aye, this is the question!:  Looking for ΠAI (the Fugitive Child) in the Kabeirian island and in one's inner being, with the risky ambiguous guidance of Heraclitus' antinomic Fragments.

Psycho-physical reality game in the "virtual space of spectrality"(Derrida),  favoring archetypal potentization, spectral /actual space transpositions, oscillations and intricate states of mind.

The landmark-images were remotely teledictated to game- imager A. Papantoniou in Athens, by the local residents' legend- freighted, subjective telenarrative, resulting in the creation of an affective, biomatic map of the island, painted on a set of 22 cards. The parcours cards of the deck could be shuffled and reshuffled by the participants creating alternative aleatory routes in their quest for inner/outer PAI. 

A time-capsule was inserted inside the neolithic Gate of the Sun.
Open-ended game set to be enriched by the participants' interactions and the assimilation of the characteristics of the game in real life through the Proteus effect.
 Kasda's basic concept was enriched by a game created and organized by IDEA; an emerging local cultural association of residents, which morphed itself to this end..

P. Kasda, Concept of the treasure hunt Looking for PAI 2011, http://uraniasgardens.blogspot.com 2011

P. Kasda, Map of the hidden treasure PAI 2011in Samothrace. Ibid

P. Kasda, Treasure-hunt cultural game PAI 2011..//polyxenekasda.blogspot.com 9/1/11

 T   *Tu vas a Tuva? oueh je vais a Ithaca -2011-..

The project was first formulated for the apex 2011 contest with the title Tout va a Tuva? It was reformulated on paper in 2013 with primopianoatelier as The Ithaca-Salento experiment to be/not to be realized in the future. ....

A playful contemporary version of Homeric Ithaca, inspired by R. Feynman's Tuva, the utopic space that has inspired poets to create epics driven by that self-devouring SEM, or, that Something Essential Missing  that heroic conscient element engrailed in our human unconscious, retroactively charged with our human entelechy, that makes its power felt through the merciless attraction of its own void.

 Tu vas a Tuva? http://www.polyxenekasda.blogspot.com 27.12.11

*«Πιθ΄ Ελλέβορον”/ Pith'Ellevoron / Drink Helleborus -2014-  botanology and madness.
Agricultural topology affect on our mental health and cognitive processes 

"Alert and flexible at the end of the line, I follow the unfolding of the self-combustive idea with which i am aligned and which is steadily growing out of itself, continuously ramifying, involving more and more creative people from all fields, winding its way through ordinary life, redefining space, sealing our future ". P.  Kasda (Project diary 2014).

"and all these lovely irregularities revealing the defects of the standard model mined from its interior by the persisting Enigma revealing and hiding itself behind its own turbulence effects..." P. Kasda (Ibid)

M.Manieri, Antikyra 2014

The interactive SAGA performances were scattered all-over the town of Antikyra, Boetia, Greece, shock cross-cultural encounters eliciting brain-storming reactions..

Helleborus is a local herb known for healing madness. 
Pith'Ellevoron is an ancient Greek saying meaning "drink a sedative, stop talking crazy". 

Org. Allotropia local popular academy- artistic co-curator: Primopianogallery Italy, under the auspices of the Greek Ministry of Culture.

Site benefits: Permanent art and agro collection in Allotropia museum.

http://uraniasgardens.blogspot.gr/2014/02/a-seed-project-is-sprouting-in-Antikyra
poly Kasda, .http://uraniasgardens.blogspot.gr/search014PROJECT Drink Helleborus /"ΠΙΘ' ΕΛΛΕΒΟΡΟΝ!" (pith'elevoron) continuously re-edit

P. Kasda, Pith'Elevoron/ Drink Helleborus http://festival.culture.gr/2014/10/

*Sphinx 2015-16, The Hidden Thebes Festival on the contagious effect of spectral Thebes. Ontological entanglement of man/nature/myth, 

the Riddle of the Sphinx, or, the potentized incubation of our latency- the haunting affective presence of  stone-walled Thebes.

pattern-setters, general curators:  Konstantin Angelou, Poly Kasda

artistic co-curators: Dores Saquegna (visual arts), Maria Frangi (theatre), Maria Cheetara (architecture)

Auspices: Athens School of Fine Arts - Greek Ministry of Culture.

P. Kasda, PROJECT SPHINX 2015 unveiling invisible THEBES, Greece, continuously re-edited.25.2.15
P. Kasda, When that word swallowed me, Sphinx Festival of Hidden Thebes  co-ed.Poesia e Conoscenza Milan 2016

The Sphinx Hidden Thebes Festival was an outgrowth of "Miorita, Melusina and the Sphinx", Kasda- Angelou telecommunications project probing “mioritic”unconscious space (Lucian Blaga), digital deterritorialization and the critical instability of the culturally uninformed model of hybrid Europe, selected by Arscenic French Association for the twin Capitals of Europe 2007..

P. Kasda, MIORITA, MELUSINΕ και η Σφίγγα των Θηβών: Tinkering με τα στοιχεία de differentes cultures. http://uraniasgardens.blogspot.com 8.10.14

P. Kasda, Project Miorita, Melusina and the Sphinx of Thebes,  //uraniasgardens 2007

P. Kasda, topologie syncretique europeenne,2014, http://polyxenekasda.blogspot.com

*Sphinx 2017 Kadmos looks for Europe. Europe looks for Kadmos (under preparation) while i am writing this text, speculating on my previous projects, a new hyper-project is sprouting in Urania's Gardens; I can already feel, with the Kore's  anagnoristikon meidiama (recognition smile), the hot breath of spectral Thebes rekindled on my spine...I listen to the murmuration of my subconscious mind swelling in the hiatus perforating the interface of spectral/actual Thebes; an absorbing spacetime bubble in which our next community experiment will/will not be held.)

General concept/ pattern-setting curators: Konstantin Angelou, Mariana Zikou, Poly Kasda. The whole city of Thebes is transformed into a language game playspace, crammed with linguistic codes, riddles and artifacts.  Digital acoustic and olfactory topological maps of Thebes are  materializing the eyeless Oedipian space of spectrality.

"mythical pedema is a Snakes and Ladders' board game, i.e. the ancient 'Game of the Goose', an ancient Egyptian symbol of the incarnation of the Invisible - in which a bad throw can throw you from end to start, inτο the growler's cell.. gradually, i realized that the rules of this game are primarily ethical, obeying to the boundaries of Logos and the solutions to the dilemmas are always based on the Golden Mean". P. Kasda, Surfing on the Medusa's Hair 1999, unedited. 

Myth/Network projects 1990-2009 underlying and sustaining the Uraniasgardens projects 2009-2016- :

-  Code Lexomorphes, 1991- 2009 -2017-: the intelligent design sustaining  Greek language structure. Speaking sculptures and cryptographic patterns generated by the numerical modeling of Greek words based on the Ancient Greek mathematical codification of the Greek alphabet

P. Kasda, Lexomorphe ΑΝΘΡΩΠΟΣ

P. Kasda, synthesis of Lexomorphes ΨΥΧΗ, ΟΝΟΜΑ, ΕΛΠΙΔΑ, ΑΝΘΡΩΠΟΣ

participated in:

-Structuralist exhibition Homage a Stazewski Concept/ Form, Municipal Center of Athens 1991.

-Panhellenic Congress on Greek Language 2009, Old Parliament of Athens, org. Chamber of Fine Arts of Greece.

-Bienale di Poesia di Alessandria, Italy 2004-2008

-Uraniasgardens Congress for the International Year of Astronomy 2009, Municipal Center of Athens 

-Flags, British Embassy of Beirut, UNESCO-MEADOWS-OFAA 2012. Lexomorphes were proposed as a mathematical inter-space communication code 

Related articles and essays:

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

P. Kasda, Chrysalis/Grail, Reflections of an Object of Truth, Verita e Dubbio 2004. XVII  Bienale di Poesia di Alessandria,Joker, Italy 200

P. Kasda, project Myth/network, Τετάρτη Αποστολική, Municipal Pinacotheque of Athens1994-

Dedication to Polyxene Kasda,Tyflomyga review, Athens 2003- 

P. Kasda, When that word swallowed me, narrative essay Sphinx,-The Hidden Thebes Festiva/ poesia e conoscenza 2016
Artificial Intelligence Professor needles Poly Kasda's Conscious Eye, essay Southwiind /Amazon 2015

Sonorous landscapes: as team hyper-project "Kadmus looks for Europe 2017" starts morphing, i visualize Code Lexomorphes gigantic patterns covering Mt. Phikion of Thebes, the mythical mount on which the Sphinx was challenging voyagers with its lethal Self-regenerating Riddle. The word Phikion is derived from the name Phix, the ancient Greek name for the Sphinx.The idea is to convert the mountain into a linguistic riddle. ONOMA in Greek is interpreted by Socrates as that which gives self-birth to ON (the creature in question).

-  Landscape semiotics-Affective hermeneutic maps of spectral Greece -1994-1996-, knowledge through mystic participation- herding the tantalizing trails of spectral space ossified symptoms, into a self- apocalyptic matrix -  evocative landscape semiotics and language games.

Mythologically augmented, anti-historical parcours in mythical sites of Greece - graphisms and sets of instructions encouraging the participants'identification with apocalyptic symbols condescendingly opening prosvassis to  'ekstatic' noetic hyperspaces emerging in actual life, through the participants' consensual synesthetic engagement.

"I was unleashing in the present the repressed imagery of my deep unconscious, which, to my surprise, I was now recognizing embodied in the vigilant topology of Greece, an ontological riddle that is incessantly defying our mortality under our feet”.P. Kasda, When that word swallowed me, Sphinx, the Hidden Thebes Festival editions 2016.

Project-maps:
 -Tavrokathapsia, The Gate of Fire, crossing Crete 1994

-Arcteia, tracing Artemis (Artemeo means I AM), on the triangle linking Brauron Attica, Lykeon Mi. Arcadia, Icaria Nas..1996.

Realized under the auspices of the Municipal Radio of Athens 9,84F.M, with the participation of  the Biennial of Poetry of Alessandria Italy,Τοuchstone poetry group for the XVth European Poetry Festival (Brussels), the European Poetry Network (Belgium), who adopted the Maps as a new form of generative poetic expression.

"ancient symbols are seen as wormhole shortcuts in the fabric of spacetime  condescendingly opening through  anagnorisistic identification with the anonymous simulator of our reality game"  P. Kasda, on the irresistible charm of real-life project-plotting (essay on-the-make).

Relevant articles and essays:

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

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

P. Kasda, Poetry and Landscape, Echo of Faleron, Greek newspaper of Paleon Faleron, Athens 2008.

P. Kasda, Ciel et Terre, Poesia, Mito, Utopia ed. VIIIth Biennale di Poesia di Alessandria, Joker, Italy1996.

P. Kasda, Iηdicibili e Ineffabile,VIII Bienale di Poesia di Alessandria, Millenium writers, Joker, Italy 1996

P. Kasda, Taurokathapsia,Touchstone Coed. Seven Sleepers 1994.

P. Kasda,  Μyth/ Network 5, ARTI, 1995.

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

P. Kasda, Arkteia, on the threshold of time, Tradition et Modernite dans l'Ancien et le Nouveau Monde, Leuvain Les Sept Dormants n4 coed. Uni. Lucian Blaga press1996.

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

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

P. Kasda, Puterea elementului mic/ Power of the Small, translated by M. Ivanescu, La Tribuna de Sibiu1995.

P. Kasda, Progetto Myth/Network 6 : Sulla soglia del tempo, La Clessidra n2/1995.

P. Kasda, Myth/ Network 5: The Gate of Fire, Euphorion Transilvania, VI, n. 55-57, Sibiu, Romania 1995  

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

P. Kasda, Μyth/Network, International bac review of Costeas Geitonas Schools, Athens 1995.

P. Kasda, Where is the Village going? Arcas, Greek newspaper of Arcadia, Greece 1995.

P. Kasda, Mein poezie is een reis in de geegtelidjke textuur vaan het land, 3000 Letters X, The Seven Sleepers Leuvain 1994

P. Kasda, Taurokathapsia Mythologically augmented Route Map across the island of Crete, Landscape semiotics, Touchstone co-ed. The Seven Sleepers 1994

Project Myth/Network 1990-2011, European heritage integration in modern perception http:PolyxeneKasda.blogspot.com

- PXK Route, global fossil touching down across the globe 2004-2017-:overview installation made with my self-devised material PXK, anchored in 25 world loci, often through my participation in big events like Athens Olympics 2004, the XVII Βiennale di Poesia di Alessandria Italy 2004, the 2nd Biennial of Beijing 2005, the 4th Biennial of Tashkent 2007, Nuit Blanche Paris 2007...
 PXK Route represented Greece in the Beijing Biennial Olympic conference 2008 and was awarded the Olympic Fine Arts Golden medal Beijing 2008.

"PXK stands for my skin left in the process of the project;s realization while assimilating diverse cultures" Ibid

 - Home/ Network -1995-1998- : broadening the definition of home. Neighborhood acoustic-visual installation on the expansive dynamics of intimate territories. Odonymic affective resonance and inter-balcony acoustic happening; a magically activated residents' instinctive connectedness..
 Municipality of Paleon Faleron, Athens.


P. Kasda, Casa/ Retea, Home/Network, Transilvania 1-2, Sibiu, Romania 1995, translated in Romanian  from French by poet Mircae Ivanescu.

- Doodling  interludes 1985-2016, perturbations of a probabilistic mind trapped on the mental/actual interface in the space between projects where nothing, or, very little happens. Drawings on diaphanes inserted in 13 cultural events in 7 countries ( 3^rd Beijing Biennial 2008, DESIGN House of Cyprus Athens 2009, Munster Night of Museums, Germany 2014, et al..).

- Fugue, or, The Gate of Love 1996-1998-2005: overview monumental Fibonacci structure variations anchored in five distant sites of the earth-served as scenery for recursive performance re-enacting the mystic participation in the archetype of the Child "PAI". The carved stone sculpture used in these performances was to be the treasure to be/not to to be found  in the Samothrace Game 2011.  Parts of Fugue are in the Castro di Piovera Alessandria, Italy 1996,  Crabova Fountain, Arcadia 1997, University of Lucian Blaga Sibiu, Romania1997 (Silver Honorary Medal), The Aegean Foundation, Paros 1998,  Park Floisvos 2005, Athens.

- Chrysalis -1990-1991-:  restoring the human need for a threshold ritual when hit by the rising Zeitgeist wave, or, "composing an ideography of the web before its spreading"(M. Zikou, the Over-determination in Poly Kasda's work, Stoa tou Vivliou, 2/6 Athens).
When the I became WE and the Atlas was turned into an interactive web and the object spirited away into a vibrational motif which turned into music, without the use of the internet technologies which in 1990 were still widely unknown.

Performative threshold ritual on the plinth emerging from the receding Lake of Mornos, Greece. Expansion of the resulting biodegradable installation of mud sculptures into a co-creative geocaching global installation anchored in 300 sites-27 countries, meant  to dissolve in the rain, releasing through entanglement  the dynamic relational web structure of its interactοrs' creative time-lapse arrows, echoing contemporary trendy data maps.

The polycentric interactors' documentation was augmented by a UCT world -on- the- make libation 15-2-1991, in the acoustic structure dictated by the algorithm of the word ΧΡΥΣΑΛΛΙΣ performed by SIDAS musical group dispersed in the crowd.

 Narrative-articles springing from the above sub-project:

P. Kasda,The Silenziosi and Project Myth/Network 1990-2005 in Art-Act, Tyflomyga revue, December. 2005. (Greek)

P. Kasda, Project: Myth/Network 1990-1994: Revival of cosmological Memory in our spacetime redefinition, Tetarti Apostoliki, Pinacotheque of the Municipality of Athens catalog, T.E.E. 1994.

P. Kasda, “Logos”, ENOPE Center of Arts and Sciences, booklet 2/11/1992.(Greek)

P. Kasda, Sky inside, sky outside, Emvolimon magazine nb.8, Aspra Spitia Boetia, Greece 1990.

P. Kasda, Progetto Myth/Network 1-5, La Clessidra1, Joker, magazine, Italy 1995.

P. Kasda, The Network, Govostis ed. 1991.

Dedication to Polyxene Kasda, Project Myth/Network interview, Tyflomyga, September, Athens 2003.(Greek)

P. Kasda, Project Myth/Network 1990-1995, TV documentary by Makis Faros, production Icona, 

P. Kasda, Chrysalii, a mythological experience, Politistiki ekfrassi/ Cultural Expression journal, interview, Athens 1991.(Greek)

http://uraniasgardens.blogspot.gr/2009/01/chrysalis-chronicle.html, 
Threshold performance /Global installation by Polyxene Kasda in 1990 (Ibid).

the above sub-projects are all facets of  hyper-project Myth/Network -1990-2015- :  a 4D scattering matrix of inter-weaved sub-projects set at the interface of ritual/actual time, emerging from depth psychology and multi-plexing in overview dispersive structures; time shift traces of my threshold instant performance in the bottom of the Lake of Mornos, Greece 1990.

Project Myth/Network was launched in the Museum of Modern Art of Joensuu Finland, PAND Meeting of the Worlds conference 1990.

Archives: Project Myth/Network: emst.gr/gr/collections National Museum of Modern Art archives code 1595. Donation: Xagoraris 1991.

They wrote:

"Under-determination is transcribed in the work of Poly Kasda as scattered traces of language, objects, performances...which may reveal or conceal the true meaning, the core of her objectives. A core attracting into its orbit scientific theories of computational and cognitive science along with the philosophical and applied concepts of experience".

Mariana Ziku, art historian, Under-determination in poly Kasda's work, Stoa tou Vivliou, 2/6/2016 Athens

"She manages with a pre-scientific  way’ Paracelsus, Leonardo’s , the witch-doctor’s and Huomo Universalis’ to connect the tangible with the intangible and to  manifest in front of our eyes invisible dynamic lines that lend to our world a little more meaning"

Dr. Yannis Almyrandis, Democritus  institute of bioscience research and applications, Over-determination in poly kasda’s work, 2/6 Stoa tou Vivliou Athens  

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

Dr. Yael Navaro-Yashin 2010, anthropologist, essayist, senior university Lecturer, recommendation for EN, Cambridge 2010.

“In Kasda's projects original and unpredictable social “language games” are set up and left to evolve creating a multitude of narratives”.

Dr. John Kontos, Artificial Intelligence Professor John Kontos needles Poly Kasda's  Conscious Eye”, NotiosAnemos/South Wind/Amazon 2015.

Through collective synergy sustained by pure subjectivity, her itineraries- maps enriched with graphisms- are transformed into an embodiment experience for the participants, tending to be reduced into abstraction, through logical 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, poet, writer, editor, “Polyxene Kasda Myth/Network”, La Clessidra 1/1995, Joker, Italy

"Project Myth/Network is 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”.

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

By revisiting myth, Polyxene, crucial-timer artist, reconstructs history itself. Through the study of the landscape magnified by observation, scientific research, linguistic analogies and the involvement of residents in her work, her project is a precious “doc” important for future generations".

Dores Sacquegna, art-curator, gallery director, Celestial Fragments, Primopianogallery, Lecce, Italy.

“She belongs to an ancient and ever actual existential forefront, as, by analogy, the Pythagorean and Orphic mysteries would seem advanced today. The ancient mystery with its three folds- τα δεικνύμενα (the things shown), τα λεγόμενα (the things said) και τα δρώμενα (the things done) – is the type and form of creation that inspires and expresses Polyxene Kasda”.

Victor Ivanovici, writer, essayist, literary critic, Athens 2005.

Polyxene Kasda is IAA UNESCO artist, studied Chemistry-Physics in A.U.C Cairo, graduated in Psychology-Sociology in A.C.G. Athens. 

poly kasda

https://www.dropbox.com/s/be19twpg6poifoq/Poly-Kasda.pdf?dl=0

PolyXene Kasda

 IAA UNESCO artist, lives in Athens, works everywhere.

Her main Project Myth/Network* -1990-2017- is an open system of interlaced self-fueling sub-projects emerging from depth psychology and multiplexing in

-        -  Biodegradable, interactive, overview installations like Chrysalis 1990- anchored in 300 sites-27 countries, composing an ideography of the web before it’s spreading (launched in the Museum of Modern Art Joensuu, PAND conference, Meeting of the Worlds, Finland 1990).

-        -  Overlapping dispersive overview installations touching down across the globe often through her participation in big events (Biennials of Beijing 2005-2008, Biennial of Tashkent 2007, Nuit Blanche Paris 2007,  FMC Syria2006, Flags MEADOWS UNESCO Beirut 2012,, Design House of Cyprus Athens 2009, Night of Museums Munster Germany 2015,  University of Lucian Blaga Sibiu Silver Medal 2007, Olympic Fine Arts Beijing Gold Medal 2008)

-         - Affective - cognitive maps of mythically augmented sites merging spectral/ actual space adopted in 1995 by the European Network of Poetry as a new form of poetical expression

-        - Code Lexomorphes:  language games with cryptographic patterns based on the ancient Greek mathematical codification of the alphabet. (Symposium on Greek language, Old Parliament of Athens, EETE Silver Medal 2009).

-        -  Urania’s Gardens: Agro-psycho-Social art generating community projects. http://Uraniagardens.blogspot.com

Her artistic acts are processed and formulated in Greek, English and French in her research documentaries, cross-disciplinary essays and allegoric bionarratives. 
html: https://lekseikones.wordpress.com/
 http://lekseikones.metartnet.com

She graduated in Psychology- Sociology B.A. Pierce/Deree ACG, studied Chemistry-Physics in the American University of Cairo, had a 7 years apprenticeship in visual arts in S. Hermann's workshop, Besancon, Alexandria and has the National Arabic language diploma. Her early paintings as Poly Casdas are in private collections.

*Project Myth/Network, EMST National Museum of Contemporary Art, Greece, Archives code 1595. Donation:Xagoraris 1991. 

Artificial Intelligence is needling The Conscious eye and that word that swallowed me

..

http://www.amazon.com/Artificial-Intelligence-Needles-Conscious-Eye/dp/9609511287

Artificial Intelligence Prof. John Kontos “Needles” Poly Kasda’s Conscious Eye.

Perception-Consciousness-Diegesis-Discovery-Creativity

"What was the nature of this compulsive tide that pushed XXc. artists in a self-cancellation frenzy, leaving behind a dilapidated mental space and the labyrinthine traces of an unsatiated question mark?

 This was the question I was persistently raising throughout The Conscious Eye, Aigokeros 1988, a cross-disciplinary essay dealing with an eye that sees itself seeing, that thinks itself thinking, as it undergoes the crisis of self- consciousness that sealed the arts and sciences of the 20^thc; an introspective attitude which revealed the linguistic-cognitive scaffold of perception and triggered modern crisis, mining with autognostic explosives our certainties; a cognitive revolution that shifted our attention from behavioral phenomena to their inner mechanisms.

In the book i had made several references to the then rising science of A.I. as an introspective, philosophical tool, which, by externalizing the mechanistic aspects of our thinking helps us realize other ways of thinking; an obsession that drove me to anchor my insight on the then (1985) ongoing academic research applications in Prof. Seymour Papert’s  A.I. department at the MIT. 

My research was documented in my narrative documentary The Adventures of the Eye, with documentarist Marco Gastine for the Greek national TV 1986. During the shootings, I met A.I.Prof. John Kontos who foreworded my essay The Conscious Eye, Perception-Art-Informatics that followed the documentary.

Two years ago, after the lapse of a quarter of a century, Dr. John Kontos asked me to translate The Conscious Eye in English since he wished to ‘needle’ my old text with fresh information from the recent research developments in the field of Artificial Intelligence and particularly in the subfields that promote the technologies of Machine Consciousness and Computational Creativity during this time.

 A chunk or two years heavy with endless discussions on the nature of Intelligence and Consciousness followed this call. It resulted in the publication of our English book: Artificial Intelligence Prof. John Kontos “Needles” Poly Kasda’s Conscious Eye, southwind/notiosanemos ed.2015.

Meanwhile I started writing a narrative chronicle revealing the psychic experience underlying and sustaining my own self-combustive project Myth/Network  dramatized in the interface of ritual/ actual space, during this elapsing 'hemar', or, chunk of 25 years:  a self-reflexive speculation that resulted in the publication of my allegoric narrative When that Word swallowed me, Sphinx, The Hidden Thebes festival syn. Poesia e Conoscenza review (Milan)"..

Poly Kasda 

Both books Artificial Intelligence Prof. John Kontos “Needles” Poly Kasda’s Conscious Eye and When that Word swallowed me were presented in the Stoa tou Vivliou Athens 2.6.2016

Commentators:

Dr. Harry Meletis, cybernetics researcher

Dr. Manthos Santorinaios, Prof. Athens’School of Fine arts, director of the Master in Artificial Intelligence and Art department.

Dr. Peter Tzelepidis, cognitive sciences professor

Dr. Yannis Almyrandis, Democritos research institute of biosciences and applications director.

Mariana Zikou, art-historian

Short Book description

1. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE PROFESSOR JOHN KONTOS NEEDLES POLY KASDA'S CONSCIOUS EYE.

Perception-Consciousness-Diegesis-Discovery-Creativity 2015

“Kasda's book, The Conscious Eye Perception-Art-Informatics was based on her insight into the introspective state of mind of 20^thc artists as they shifted their attention from the object of art to the function of their own mind. Her thesis was partly supported by references to the then rising technology of A. I. as a tool of introspection. 

In the present book, Prof. John Kontos who had written an introductory note to the first edition of The Conscious Eye is rejuvenating this old, but still young text, by lifting it with a set of 'needlings'; injections that connect it with recent studies in the field of A.I. and particularly of Machine Consciousness; a technology inspired by human consciousness”. (Excerpt from the preface).

2. When that Word swallowed me,

Allegoric biodiegesis, Puer Aeternus, the Axiom of Maria and the Riddle of the Sphinx

 “In this afegema I attempt to cohere into a single narrative my surreal journey in the backstage of my specious time work Project Myth/Network 1990-…

A psychic world of experience courses throughout and sustains the artistic act. It is rarely revealed because of its profane singularity and yet its revelation could open an unpredictable window to who we really are”. (Excerpt from the preface).

<sub>What others say: 

"In Poly Kasda's essay The Conscious Eye she describes the consistent path of art, through the changes of the inner visual processes, before its breaking up into a chaotic process of many trends and structures that define our times. I wonder whether we should catch the line from this point on; the path through the concepts, the analysis of language and the contemporary mechanisms of its processing and the esoteric vision which her book projects as the record of an adventure”.</sub>
 Dr. Manthos Santorinaios, Athens School of Fine Arts Professor, director of the Master in Artificial Intelligence and Art department.2/6 Stoa tou Vivliou  Athens  

" Kasda manages with a pre-scientific  way’ Paracelsus, Leonardo’s , the witch-doctor’s and Huomo Universalis’ to connect the tangible with the intangible and to  manifest in front of our eyes invisible dynamic lines that lend to our world a little more meaning".
 Dr.Yannis Almyrandis, Democritus institute of bioscience and applications EKEFE, Over-determination in poly kasda’s work, 2/6 stoa tou vivliou Athens  

“Kontos joined forces with Poly Kasda, an artist who studied “the self-combustive frenzy of 20th century art.” Her 1985 booklet, “The Conscious Eye,” foresaw developments in artificial intelligence. Kasda noticed painters in the twentieth century were obsessed with introspection: paying more attention to the workings of their minds than the products of their art. Introspection was also in the background of the rising computer programs in artificial intelligence. So Kontos grasped the ingenuity of Kasda and expanded it into this broad understanding of what artificial intelligence is all about.

Kontos included a translation from the Greek of Kasda’s the “Conscious Eye” into this book, one text seeding and illuminating the other. Indeed, Kontos updates and rejuvenates the insights of Kasda, and, in this innovation, creates an exciting, timely, refreshing, and fascinating history of artificial intelligence - of what it could have become.

I recommend Kontos’ and Kasda’s book. It is a timely, sophisticated, philosophical, and honest account of artificial intelligence, a problematic endeavor of great potential and grave risk”. Evaggelos Vallianatos, Computer engineering and propaganda/the Huffington Post, US. 11/15/2016

“An interesting read and I really liked the book's unusual structure…Kasda's Conscious Eye is an engrossing discussion of the move towards cognitive content in art. Kontos 'needles' key paragraphs of Kasda's text with discussions of contemporary work in artificial intelligence.
Well worth a read if you want to find out more about art, artificial intelligence and the relationship between them”. Dr. David Gamez March 24, 2016

_{"When that word swallowed me is an intriguing artistic text… I take it as the other side of the mind from which the Conscious Eye emerged; a structured epistemological discourse that surfaced through that same impressive imaginary which reveals itself consistently over the artistic course of a lifetime. It is great it revealed itself once more in the form of this text.
Thoughts that are hard to embed as language, thoughts and images that reside submerged within us, that we ourselves do not know what they mean, what needs they meet and in which unknown territories they game us to.
Perhaps this narrative is a call to see, to rectify the uncharted, terrible and unrecognizable dimensions of our human and non-human(?) imaginary.
The Conscious Eye continues its search and investigation in the most elusive, controversial, intra-real dimensions of its existence” Mariana Zikou, When that word swallowed me 2016}

“Kasda's short autofiction ‘When that word swallowed me’ marks an epitome of her research in the profound and unfathomed realms of human experience and imaginary through artistic practice; a possible invitation also for us, to challenge the emergence of our own minds' uncharted topoi”. Mariana Zikou, Art-historian, Underdetermination on Poly Kasda’s work,  Stoa tou Vivliou, 2/6/2016 Athens.

http://www.amazon.com/Artificial-Intelligence-Needles-Conscious-Eye/dp/9609511287

The under-determination in Polyxene Kasda’s work

The under-determination in Polyxene Kasda’s work 

by Mariana Zikou, Art historian, Stoa tou Vivliou 2/6/2016, Athens

I will try to develop some thoughts on the writings of Poly Kasda in relation to one of her first books 'The Conscious Eye' and her latest one 'When that word swallowed me'. The two will be linked with an epistemological concept, the 'under-determination' and an allegory, the Kafkaesque Burrow.

Dr. Yannis Almyrantis presented an intriguing approach with his essay “The over-determination in Poly Kasda’s work”. The present essay reflects on its antithetical term, the 'under-determination' in Kasda’s work.

Within the frame of this presentation ‘under-determination’ is used with a double interpretation, employing the prefix under- (in greek hypo-):

On one hand, under-determination is an epistemological concept which challenges the univocal approach of experience. In this sense, it is considered impossible for an experience to be fully interpreted through a single axiom. This thinking is reflected in Gödel's incompleteness theorem and can be extended to Derrida's philosophical term of ‘deconstruction’, which refers to the infinite experience of language, but also to the impasse of its meaning.

Under-determination is transcribed in the work of Poly Kasda as scattered traces of language, objects, performances, gatherings, as well as other manifestations like TV shows, buildings and new media, which may reveal or conceal the true meaning, the core of her objectives. A core attracting into its orbit scientific theories of computational and cognitive science along with the philosophical and applied concepts of experience.

'The Conscious Eye', one of the first books of Poly Kasda, is associated with the epistemological interpretation of under-determination. Poly Kasda initiates a genuine and systematic exploration of the human experience and the cognitive processes that transpire the works of artists and the artistic movements of the 20th century. The human eye is used as an interface, the eye becomes a quasi-mechanical component tool which creates a tube between the inner and outer reality topology.

The book starts with two questions 'So what happened to many artists and they stopped painting? What lies behind this silence that took so many strange forms?' To these questions Poly Kasda creates insightful conceptions, linking scientific theories and technologies with artistic methods and the philosophical discourse.

However, in the preamble of the book she already shows her awareness of under-determination: 'This essay on the essence of contemporary art and visual perception is just the tip of the iceberg'. In the last pages of the book, she outlines the collapse of certainty, the decay of conventional structures and with it, the withdrawal of words.

These comments lead the way to the second interpretation of the term under-determination, into the creative-experiential extension of the term, which can be connected to Poly Kasda’s new book 'When that word swallowed me'.

The book is ushering us in a wild exploration into what is under, below the territory of the visible and of the reassuring semiology, into the aniconic fields of artistic experience and ambiguity, of the collapse of the subject and ultimately the collapse of the text into sub-texts, in word-symbols that burst further into glyphs, into the smallest cracking units of language, to become objects and anti-texts, no-texts, precipitated in a submersive trip into the substrates of language, the hypothalamus of experience and into the sub-liminal of perception.

The deep dive begins; a persistent recollection towards the core of the experience described in 'When that word swallowed me', in which she notes: 'After the completion of The Conscious Eye, I was left again with this Something Essential Missing, this SEM sensation'.

The course of the next 25 years would open up the topoi for the emergence of the iceberg, an intense immersion to the core of cognition and experience. A striking, persistent and productive exploration which often anticipates the developments in technology and cognitive science, such as through her artistic project Myth/Network, where Kasda composes an ideography of the web before its spreading.

At the same time, these explorations in the other side of reasoning, in the twilight of experience and of deconstructed meaning, had their impact. In 'When that word swallowed me', Kasda reveals that her essay 'Pyrisporos' which followed 'The Conscious Eye', disturbed and chased away the audience she had gained with the latter.

As she continues her research into the philosophical discourse of computational and cognitive science, her visionary leaves her at times without applied scientific and theoretic tools. She then resorts to alleged scientific axioms and data, some of which evolve later as validated concepts, while others swing for now and maybe forever between the exo-logical, the alchemy and the myth. Kasda will not renounce them as useful tools, stating: 'But is there any other way? Those fantastic things that are directly seen by the soul are formulated by the intellect as an absence; a dense omission from which words return baffled'.

From then on, although her creative and exploratory course continue intensively, she will start consciously and methodically concealing their true essence. In 'When that word swallowed me’, she confesses the creation of a 'self-sustaining shelter' which takes the form of a woolen cocoon: '...I started knitting around me a borderless blanket. It was gradually growing from inside itself, mounting on the walls, towering above me like a wave swallowing me in its cocoon-like embrace'.

This hermetic structure can find its counterpart in an allegorical architecture, the Burrow of Kafka, one of his last texts that remained unfinished. The Kafkaesque edifice can be interpreted as the agitated strive of an individual to safeguard her safety and integrity, when disclosing the erebus of one's own personal experience.

As if in a discoursive relationship with the Kafkaesque creature residing in its underground dark maze construction, Poly Kasda writes: 'On the ordinary level I was protecting my delicate experiment from the unexamined eyes, shielding it behind palatable, easy to digest descriptions. I knew that if it were contaminated by doubt, the whole structure would crumble…'.

This fragile and intimate revelation, along with her uncompromising determination to continue sinking in the profound substrates of the inner self, destined to be the cornerstones for the creation of her allegorical biomatic narrative 'When that word swallowed me' and ultimately, the symbolic collapse of her Kafkaesque shelter.

Kasda's short autofiction marks an epitome of the research in the profound and unfathomed realms of human experience and imaginary through artistic practice; a possible invitation also for us, to challenge the emergence of our own minds' uncharted topoi. The 'Conscious Eye' continues its quest into the most elusive, controversial and intra-real dimensions of its existence.

19.7.2016