“Variations on Joy or Modulation on Koolhaas’ proposal for a new european flag”, 2012 A performance by KangarooCourt group in “WHY ART NOW” exhibition, @ OpenShow Studio, Athens, Greece.

“Variations on Joy or Modulation on Koolhaas’ proposal for a new european flag”,

“Variations on Joy or

Modulation on Koolhaas’ proposal for a new european flag”, 2012

A performance by KangarooCourt group in “WHY ART NOW” exhibition,

@ OpenShow Studio, Athens, Greece.(see more in our channel in vimeo http://vimeo.com/user6235382/videos ) and “KangarooCourt”

 

“Variations on Joy or

Modulation on Koolhaas’ proposal for a new european flag”

Concept-Production: KangarooCourt

Performers: S.Veis, F.Gountzos, Ε. Koukoli, I.Stratoglou

OpenShowStudio, Athens, Greece, March 2012.

Event: Why Art Now/ Exhibition and Performance Festival
Duration: each spectator ~3 min, total ~4 h

The performance took place simultaneously in Athens, London and Thessaloniki through skype and raised questions regarding the time and space of the performance. Spectators were given an active role in the performance to such an extent that they were becoming co-creators.

In OpenShowStudio we had installed a toy-piano with a laptop on top of, in order to use skype connection. Moreover the group, reconstructed and hanged on the wall, Koolhaas’ flag-proposal for a new European flag in front of the piano (the flag resembles a barcode, taking into consideration the colours of each country in E.E proportionally).

The music notes had been translated (converted) to colour signs on the piano’s keys. Spectators and performers were asked to communicate, collaborate and co-create the famous motif of Ode to Joy of L. V. Beethoven. Each performer, either from London or Thessaloniki, after having explained the project and its rules to the spectator-collaborator, he was reading aloud colours (in English) for the viewer to press the appropriate colour on the piano keys.

Any misunderstandings from the transmitter or the receiver, any sound problems or any difficulty of the viewer to be synchronised with the reading of the colours or rhythm, were not issues which would interrupt the action. On the contrary, such matters had been considered in advance by the group, in an attempt to coordinate a problematic but equal binary relationship. It is a relationship where transmitter and receiver are struggling to create a variation or a new melody, of a piece which already carries values and symbolisms such as Beethoven’s Ode to Joy.

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