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«Random Observation»

Mixed Media Installation

‘Random observation’ explores the complex relationship between chaos & the brain. When neuroscience meets astronomy, they can both engage in an experimental dialogue that feeds from the different techniques & branches of knowledge. Non-linear dynamics & chaos in neurons unravel the mysteries of the universe & the human brain through interrelated data visualization.  Unpredictability, observations along time & parallel metaphors construct a sci-fi narrative that challenges our poetic perception of our existence in all dimensions.

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Mapping Interconnectedness
Mixed Media Installation

Science is the most interconnected and fast-changing of human activities now days. Science maps have the potential to guide our search for knowledge in the same way that is allowing us to navigate the world. This piece embodies a multi-disciplinary map that mirrors the territory of global inquiry between presence and absence. A universal jigsaw inspired by complexity science, dynamical systems and the chaos theory; representing the elemental power of how everything connects. All disciplines co-exist in an identical landscape, all parts of the system interact and inter depend since they occupy the same system; but how do we truly respond to those systems? Measuring the direction of the personal poles of exploration and the opposite poles of attraction, the compass shows us the destination of intellectual adventures and sonic journeys in our life span.

To listen to the soundscape please click the following link https://soundcloud.com/christiana-kazakou/mapping-interconnectedness

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Neuroelectricity
Mixed Media Sculpture

Following our visit to the Basal Ganglia Lab, the scientific knowledge and experimental approach of a collection of scientists inspired new methods of artistic interpretation and expression. 

In conversation with Andrew Sharott, Megan Dowie and Icnelia Huerta-Ocampo, the discovery and explanation of the use of electrophysiological and anatomical techniques in scientific process became part of my artistic research and inquiry. Neuroelectricity was born out of research that focuses on the recordings of neuronal activity from sites in the basal ganglia. It was fascinating to observe and learn how the data obtained from recording neurons in the striatum and globus pallidus can give new insights into how the brain works at the single-cell and network level. 

This piece aims to represent the voltage in our brains and consider the concept of electrical radiation of our souls. It takes a structure of neuro electric power that can influence our emotions and energies as well as our fire for knowledge and human understanding.For further information please see: http://blog.nervousencounter.com

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Architecture of the Brain
Site Specific Audience Participatory Performance

Architecture of the brain is an interactive performance exploring interdisciplinary practices of performance, neuroscience of decision making and architecture. Is an experimental brain game, trying to connect elements from both arts and sciences. Inspired by labanotation, neuroscience and architecture this project will research, test and observe the reactions of the participatory audience in relation to sound, semiotics and movement. The process of interpretation through the body and space will explore how play can shape our brain, open our imagination and invigorate the soul through intuitive decisions and physical stimuli. A large choreographic movement map will be drawn onto the floor using an array of shapes. The map acts as a metaphor to the brain where the audience explores improvisational movement action; this takes the form of a performance journey through cognitive reaction. Semiotics and arrows will set the path for the participant audience while they create their narratives in the space based on their emotional & intellectual responses.

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The Fragmented Cinema
Performance
This performance piece explores concepts of time, space, process and fragmentation. There is an experimental communication between sound, the narrator and the mime performer. The information is interpreted as a live cinema experience where the participators explore their perspective within the performance through mime, projection, words and sound. This piece is challenging the current mainstream form of cinema and becomes live theatre ‘ reactive rather than recorded’ itself. The participants experience the unpredictability of liveness and the fascination of being part of an improvised live cinema performance by exploring the connection between live and recorded.

The performance was a collaboration between Kerrie Pratesi (BA Performance Design), Christiana Kazakou (MA Art and Science) & Tomofumi Yamasaki (BA Fine Art).

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Distant Evidence
Mixed Media Painting

From planetary geology to the photogeologic mapping of the moon; maps figure prominently in exploration, including solar system exploration. This piece embodies scenes of extra-terrestrial environments in my attempt to create an illusive distant territory that challenges the boundaries of the real and the imaginary. Oscillating from observation to interpretation; at the end is there evidence? Regardless our effort to explain the universe, some answers will always remain distant…

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Cabinets of Cosmic Wonder
Mixed Media Installation

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. The universe is defined by balancing and opposing forces. Chaos and cosmos; order and disorder, reality and illusion. This cosmic cabinet of curiosities creates a wireless communication between concepts related to electromagnetism, celestial cartography, nuclear radiation and stellar spectroscopy. An integration of static and dynamic fields; that augment the process of exploration through science.

The project has been inspired by books from the Library’s astronomy collection, such as Observational Astronomy (D. Birney 1926), the Cambridge Star Atlas (Will Tirion, 2011) and Measuring the Universe (Kitty Ferguson, 2000), available from the Science Reading Room.

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Displacing Identity

Interdisciplinary Performance
Kazakou Christiana in collaboration with Trinity Laban (Bengtsson, Rebecca; Maricich, Alexandra; Papaeleftheriadou, Natasa; Uhl, Michaela)

‘We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us’ Winston Churchill. The displacement between our inner psychological space and the external spatial world is frequently subjective. Based on Freud’s structural and topographical models of the mind (topography of mind: iceberg model for unconscious, pre-conscious & conscious / structure of mind: Id, Ego, & Superego); the project explores the connection of architecture, psychoanalysis and dance; concepts of construction and deconstruction of the personality, integration and disintegration, the real and the imaginary.

Architecture is the reflection of the human psyche; in similar ways we construct our personalities we situate ourselves in the space. Constructed spaces can be powerful; at times fragmented and contradictory, utopian and dystopian, attracting and alienating, free or complex reflecting the nature of our psyches. Briginshaw, V.A. (2009)       

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Politics of Resistance
Performance Art

Architecture often acts as a symbol of power that influences our behaviour, psychology and speech when we inhabit the buildings. Freedom of speech is the political right to communicate one's opinions and ideas using one's body and property to anyone who is willing to receive them. Words can become a sequence of waves of mental pressure and political oscillation. Sound of speech and oral history often express the elementary power of human rights in search of our subjective identities.  

To listen to the piece please click the following link https://soundcloud.com/christiana-kazakou/politics-of-resistance 

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Measuring Time

Live art performance (Christiana Kazakou in collaboration with Mark Wagner)

Points of existence; unreality of time and paradoxes disappear into space. Through memory and subjective narratives the piece unfolds the connection of personal cartography and human experience in relation to space, time, objects and substances. From known and unknown places, everything is spatially connected to everything else. A sense of belonging through the resonance of intrinsic location reflected to the outer space. Time creates place, self-alienation and fragmented auto-topographies. The performance takes the form of time cartography where personal territories situate a biographical and psychological zone. Unreality of tense and sense…

The performance unfolds through the durational sound of a metronome and spoken word narratives relating to the philosophy of time and identity. The scenario changes according to the resonance of the metronome by introducing objects to the performance such as sandglasses & pigments. At the end silence acts as a challenge to the perception of time and sets the close of a psychological time travel performance. 

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