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Performing Prometheus: the Dramatic Interpreter |
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Press Release
Performing Prometheus: the Dramatic Interpreter Curated by Evi Baniotopoulou Thursday 16 February 2006, 7pm Great Hall, Hellenic Centre, 16-18 Paddington Street, Marylebone, London W1U 5AS. Performing Prometheus: the Dramatic Interpreter is a new performance art project by the media artist Christos Prossylis. The first in a series of similar events to follow, Performing Prometheus is a unique performance that brings together video art installations, new digital technologies, ancient Greek drama, the web and academic lecturing. Prossylis’s quest is one for new modes of communication that transcend existing semiotic systems and open up previously unexplored possibilities for alternative expressions of speech, sound and vision. Taking as his starting point established and commonly used codes of communication – in this case, academic lecturing- Prossylis uses ‘catalysts’ such as ancient drama and myth to unpack and highlight the particulars of these codes. He subsequently resynthesizes everything using a variety of media, with the aim to produce an original approach to the communication of signs. Guided by the theory of entropy, Prossylis systematically experiments with new ideas and brings together the real with the virtual in an unexpected way. This first performance features a talk on the human dilemma, Divided Selves or Thank You, R D, by Professor Ernesto Spinelli, Senior Fellow, School of Psychotherapy and Counselling, Regent's College, London. R D Laing (1927-1989) was, and remains, one of the most brilliant and radical thinkers on the human dilemma. As a psychiatrist, he challenged his profession to re-think its stance on mental illness so that, rather than being predominantly a biological disease, the disturbed and disturbing symptoms and behaviours being manifested could be reconsidered as meaningful expressions of interpersonal ‘dis-ease’. This brief talk introduces some of Laing’s key ideas and links them to the wider experience of ‘dis-ease’ shared by us all. A team of live performers will accompany the lecture with improvised interpretations of short excerpts from ancient Greek drama. At the same time, ambient sound and video projections, produced with the use of cutting-edge technologies and inspired by the lecture, will create a challenging aesthetic experience. For more information please contact to: webmaster @ dramaticinterpreter.com
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