Crossings (2017)
by Angela Melitopoulos in collaboration with Pascal Criton, Angela Anderson, Maurizio Lazzarato, Oktay Ince, and Paula Cobo Guevara. 4 channel HD video, 16 channel audio, 109min
Crossings is an experimental reaction to the current state of crisis in Greece, which operates as an audiovisual exploration of passing between different times and spaces. Crossings understands Greece as a land of passage and a junction of various wars (economic, environmental, racial, gendered) and brings together several seemingly disparate locations and struggles.
These include refugee camps on Lesbos, the Skouries gold mine (Halkidiki), the archeological site and the Kurdish refugee camp in Lavrion (Attica), Ancient Corinth, and the Oreokastro refugee camp.
This installation, which consists of four screens situated across from each other and a grid of 17 speakers , requires the viewer to move around -to shift their perspective - in order to see what is happening. Much like the state of perpetual crisis the world seems to be engulfed in right now, one can never be sure where the next projection (crisis) will appear. The soundtrack, which consists of the music of the French experimental composer Pascale Criton is layered with documentary sound and voice-over, and moves around the space, travelling from speaker to speaker in a kind of wave or tide which brings the viewer along with it, as if suspended or floating in the medium itself.
I am a co-author of the Skouries, Oreokastro and Lesbos chapters. On all other sections I operated camera and/or sound.
Produced for documenta 14. http://www.documenta14.de/en/artists/1935/angela-melitopoulos