14th November 2024 – 8th March 2025
The first chapter of cross section archive's 2024-25 thematic Post-Human Archaeology is a series of five solo presentations that together form the exhibition Reconstructing Memories. With an archaeology that is non-canonical and open-ended as method, it is playing with the perceived authority of the expert and allows for the dissection of a subject with an intuitive and personal approach. Reconstructing Memories invites the viewer to question not only the work and its staged contents, but also their own perception of reality.
Composed of five communed installations developed specially for the program, Reconstructing Memories is approaching the theme from five different departure points. On History, by visual artist Vangelis Vlahos (GR) is re-creating a forgotten but significant event that no-one witnessed. On Media by Rabih Mroué (LB), confronts the perspective of the viewers and the media as a tool of control over history’s performance. On Politics, by the artist/architects collective [Pegy Zali, Panayotis Lianos, Christos-G Kritikos] (GR), narrating the story of a void observed through the filter of a politicised media reality and marked by a displaced urban object. On Nature by visual artist Nikos Arvanitis (GR) is excavating the collective urban mind to uncover traces of nature. On Language by visual artist Nicoline van Harskamp (NL) creates a performative embodiment of our programmed communication.
The works will be displayed in the space of cross section archive one by one from November 2024 till March 2025, each for a period of two weeks and each marked by an opening event. Following our selected exhibition principle, the works will be on view from the public space of the crossing of Mavromichali and Isavron. The whole exhibition period of Reconstructing Memories will be concluded with a closing event along with the launch of a catalogue pamphlet, designed by Studio Lialios Vazoura, bringing the five works together in one volume as the collective dialogue chapter of Post-Human Archaeology.
The overall program of Post-Human Archaeology and Reconstructing Memories at cross section archive in Athens is curated by conceptual artist and experimental filmmaker Maria Lalou and architect Skafte Aymo-Boot.
5th - 21st December 2024
entry to the space daily, one person at a time, 18:00 - 21:00
We are pleased to welcome you to the opening of the exhibition The negotiation of perspective, by Rabih Mroué (LB) at cross section archive in Athens. The site specific exhibition and installation is developed for Reconstructing Memories, the collective program of our annual thematic Post-Human Archaeology, curated by Maria Lalou and Skafte Aymo-Boot, and forms the second chapter ’On Media’.
The installation The negotiation of perspective, is shaking the safe zone of ‘an observer of a witness’, with the spectator becoming a ‘stand in’ in the timeline of the events, in a choreographed embodiment of the power of an image.
An ensemble of video works by Rabih Mroué invites the spectator to take a position of a multitude of viewing. Only one person at a time can enter the usually inaccessible space of cross section archive to experience the works. The exhibition The negotiation of perspective is a one-off personal visual registration of the human eye.
Rabih Mroué stages an alignment of perspectives, attempting an embodiment of a personal coordinate system of x, y, z and its signature on current history. The power of the gaze vs the control of the curated image projected on the retina has become a strategical tool for media authority over certain predefined narratives, significantly reinforcing the disorienting effect of the media. The controlled status of an image vs the shaken stability of a timeline points to the media as a dictating instrument of the articulation of history. An onlooker, a viewer, an observer, a spectator? Wordings of chosen potential perspectives on the motives behind this power of image control.
‘The negotiation of perspective' by Rabih Mroué.
Curated by Maria Lalou and Skafte Aymo-Boot.
Produced by cross section archive.
3 video loops in viewing boxes, variable dimensions; video 6m 48s on monitor, in loop.
Special thanks to: Lina Majdalanie and Sarmad Louis.
Exhibition duration: 5th - 21st December 2024.
The exhibition is open daily.
Entry to the space for the 3 viewing boxes, one person at a time, 18:00 - 21:00.
One video is on view from the public space of Isavron street.
Reconstructing Memories is supported by and under the auspices of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture.
14th - 30th November 2024
daily 17:00 – 24:00
cross section archive is pleased to present the exhibition and premiere of the new work This event has now ended (Nissan Sunny) by Vangelis Vlahos (GR).
Vangelis Vlahos’ filmic gesture is negotiating certain co-ordinates of the roles of time and memory, meticulously re-creating an event from Athens’ current past which may not quite have found a place in the communal memory of the city.
On April 10, 2014, after two warning calls, a bomb planted inside a stolen Nissan Sunny exploded outside the Bank of Greece in downtown Athens. The project revisits this event by utilizing publicly available audiovisual material from the explosion site, including CCTV footage and videos from live news broadcasts. It omits the sound of the explosion, focusing instead on minor, seemingly insignificant sounds not directly related to the event, such as a nose blowing, a phone vibrating, a car door closing, or a lighter clicking. These sound observations are recorded chronologically as they occur, composing a timeline in text form. This event has now ended (Nissan Sunny) presents 182 sound descriptions as closed captions at the bottom of the screen in a nearly seven-hour-long video, fully synchronised with the exact moments when the sounds are heard at the explosion site and during the live broadcasts.
In the subtle but dynamic work by Vangelis Vlahos, a merging of roles takes place between the author and the spectator. A description becomes an instruction, choreographing a position in our indirect witnessing of an event that no-one witnessed. The installation of This event has now ended (Nissan Sunny) at cross section archive is a negotiation of time and its registration, an experience of witnessing an echo of an event, portraying the author as an observer second per second as another witness, and the viewer of the work as an activated spectator of both the event and the work itself.
A limited edition print has been produced specifically for the exhibition, numbered and signed by Vangelis Vlahos.
order it here
‘This event has now ended (Nissan Sunny)' by Vangelis Vlahos.
Curated by Maria Lalou & Skafte Aymo-Boot.
Video 6h 52m on monitor, video loop on tablet, text on A4 paper mounted on window, poster 64 x 86 cm mounted on window, table and lamp.
Special thanks to: Studio Lialios Vazoura.
Exhibition duration: 14th - 30th November 2024.
The exhibition is on view daily 17.00 - 24.00 from the public space of the crossing between Mavromichali and Isavron streets.
Reconstructing Memories is supported by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture.
Memory per se, as a projection, imprint, and record, constitutes an active fabric of both our subconsciously evolving reality and our experiential evolution. But it is also, as an emancipated concept, an objective record of our history, as a situational institution, generally systematized by the media and rejecting the subjectivity of memory. Giorgio Agamben claims that "there cannot be a subject of pure experience, because imagination and fantasy have long been excluded from knowledge as unreal." He continues that "experience today is mediated and performed outside the individual.” 1
Post-Human Archaeology is the annual theme of cross section archive in 2024-25. It is questioning history and archaeology as practices of truth production. Both fields are delivering a narrative of facts counter to memory; their ground of operation is that of constructed memories. The archaeologist is piecing together meaningful narratives through assumptions and theories brought about by fragments of objects or other traces of human activity with the goal of establishing explanations and truths. Those truths are by definition unstable and flexible as they are defined or coloured by the understanding of the world of the ones who are suggesting them, and the disposition of the times they are living in.
Post-Human Archaeology is an attempt to produce alternative understandings of early 21st century life and the truths it frames by applying a gaze with an origin outside of ourselves, a beyond-human gaze so to speak. A gaze that is not looking directly at the object of interest but rather at a version of reality that is out of focus or incomplete. In this processed reality we can expect to make finds that expand our understanding towards our being and the way we perceive ourselves.
With Post-Human Archaeology, cross section archive wishes to challenge the idea of how valid perceptions of the city and the immediate past are based on a combination of some selected facts. The expansion of the term will be explored in a three-part programme, a formula drawn from previous thematics, starting with the communal discourse Reconstructing Memories, continuing with the publication of Document #3 and ending with a commissioned solo exhibition.
The annual thematics of cross section archive are curated and organised by Maria Lalou and Skafte Aymo-Boot.
1 Agamben, G. Infancy and History: On the Destruction of Experience (tr. Heron, L.),1993 Verso Books
14th November 2024 – 8th March 2025
The first chapter of cross section archive's 2024-25 thematic Post-Human Archaeology is a series of five solo presentations that together form the exhibition Reconstructing Memories. With an archaeology that is non-canonical and open-ended as method, it is playing with the perceived authority of the expert and allows for the dissection of a subject with an intuitive and personal approach. Reconstructing Memories invites the viewer to question not only the work and its staged contents, but also their own perception of reality.
Composed of five communed installations developed specially for the program, Reconstructing Memories is approaching the theme from five different departure points. On History, by visual artist Vangelis Vlahos (GR) is re-creating a forgotten but significant event that no-one witnessed. On Media by Rabih Mroué (LB), confronts the perspective of the viewers and the media as a tool of control over history’s performance. On Politics, by the artist/architects collective [Pegy Zali, Panayotis Lianos, Christos-G Kritikos] (GR), narrating the story of a void observed through the filter of a politicised media reality and marked by a displaced urban object. On Nature by visual artist Nikos Arvanitis (GR) is excavating the collective urban mind to uncover traces of nature. On Language by visual artist Nicoline van Harskamp (NL) creates a performative embodiment of our programmed communication.
The works will be displayed in the space of cross section archive one by one from November 2024 till March 2025, each for a period of two weeks and each marked by an opening event. Following our selected exhibition principle, the works will be on view from the public space of the crossing of Mavromichali and Isavron. The whole exhibition period of Reconstructing Memories will be concluded with a closing event along with the launch of a catalogue pamphlet, designed by Studio Lialios Vazoura, bringing the five works together in one volume as the collective dialogue chapter of Post-Human Archaeology.
The overall program of Post-Human Archaeology and Reconstructing Memories at cross section archive in Athens is curated by conceptual artist and experimental filmmaker Maria Lalou and architect Skafte Aymo-Boot.
5th - 21st December 2024
entry to the space daily, one person at a time, 18:00 - 21:00
We are pleased to welcome you to the opening of the exhibition The negotiation of perspective, by Rabih Mroué (LB) at cross section archive in Athens. The site specific exhibition and installation is developed for Reconstructing Memories, the collective program of our annual thematic Post-Human Archaeology, curated by Maria Lalou and Skafte Aymo-Boot, and forms the second chapter ’On Media’.
Rabih Mroué stages an alignment of perspectives, attempting an embodiment of a personal coordinate system of x, y, z and its signature on current history. The power of the gaze vs the control of the curated image projected on the retina has become a strategical tool for media authority over certain predefined narratives, significantly reinforcing the disorienting effect of the media. The controlled status of an image vs the shaken stability of a timeline points to the media as a dictating instrument of the articulation of history. An onlooker, a viewer, an observer, a spectator? Wordings of chosen potential perspectives on the motives behind this power of image control.
The installation The negotiation of perspective, is shaking the safe zone of ‘an observer of a witness’, with the spectator becoming a ‘stand in’ in the timeline of the events, in a choreographed embodiment of the power of an image.
An ensemble of video works by Rabih Mroué invites the spectator to take a position of a multitude of viewing. Only one person at a time can enter the usually inaccessible space of cross section archive to experience the works. The exhibition The negotiation of perspective is a one-off personal visual registration of the human eye.
‘The negotiation of perspective' by Rabih Mroué.
Curated by Maria Lalou and Skafte Aymo-Boot.
Produced by cross section archive.
3 video loops in viewing boxes, variable dimensions; video 6m 48s on monitor, in loop.
Special thanks to: Lina Majdalanie and Sarmad Louis.
Exhibition duration: 5th - 21st December 2024.
The exhibition is open daily.
Entry to the space for the 3 viewing boxes, one person at a time, 18:00 - 21:00.
One video is on view from the public space of Isavron street.
Reconstructing Memories is supported by and under the auspices of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture.
14th - 30th November 2024
daily 17:00 – 24:00
cross section archive is pleased to present the exhibition and premiere of the new work This event has now ended (Nissan Sunny) by Vangelis Vlahos (GR).
Vangelis Vlahos’ filmic gesture is negotiating certain co-ordinates of the roles of time and memory, meticulously re-creating an event from Athens’ current past which may not quite have found a place in the communal memory of the city.
On April 10, 2014, after two warning calls, a bomb planted inside a stolen Nissan Sunny exploded outside the Bank of Greece in downtown Athens. The project revisits this event by utilizing publicly available audiovisual material from the explosion site, including CCTV footage and videos from live news broadcasts. It omits the sound of the explosion, focusing instead on minor, seemingly insignificant sounds not directly related to the event, such as a nose blowing, a phone vibrating, a car door closing, or a lighter clicking. These sound observations are recorded chronologically as they occur, composing a timeline in text form. This event has now ended (Nissan Sunny) presents 182 sound descriptions as closed captions at the bottom of the screen in a nearly seven-hour-long video, fully synchronised with the exact moments when the sounds are heard at the explosion site and during the live broadcasts.
In the subtle but dynamic work by Vangelis Vlahos, a merging of roles takes place between the author and the spectator. A description becomes an instruction, choreographing a position in our indirect witnessing of an event that no-one witnessed. The installation of This event has now ended (Nissan Sunny) at cross section archive is a negotiation of time and its registration, an experience of witnessing an echo of an event, portraying the author as an observer second per second as another witness, and the viewer of the work as an activated spectator of both the event and the work itself.
A limited edition print has been produced specifically for the exhibition, numbered and signed by Vangelis Vlahos.
order it here
‘This event has now ended (Nissan Sunny)' by Vangelis Vlahos.
Curated by Maria Lalou & Skafte Aymo-Boot.
Video 6h 52m on monitor, video loop on tablet, text on A4 paper mounted on window, poster 64 x 86 cm mounted on window, table and lamp.
Special thanks to: Studio Lialios Vazoura.
Exhibition duration: 14th - 30th November 2024.
The exhibition is on view daily 17.00 - 24.00 from the public space of the crossing between Mavromichali and Isavron streets.
Reconstructing Memories is supported by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture.
Memory per se, as a projection, imprint, and record, constitutes an active fabric of both our subconsciously evolving reality and our experiential evolution. But it is also, as an emancipated concept, an objective record of our history, as a situational institution, generally systematized by the media and rejecting the subjectivity of memory. Giorgio Agamben claims that "there cannot be a subject of pure experience, because imagination and fantasy have long been excluded from knowledge as unreal." He continues that "experience today is mediated and performed outside the individual.” 1
Post-Human Archaeology is the annual theme of cross section archive in 2024-25. It is questioning history and archaeology as practices of truth production. Both fields are delivering a narrative of facts counter to memory; their ground of operation is that of constructed memories. The archaeologist is piecing together meaningful narratives through assumptions and theories brought about by fragments of objects or other traces of human activity with the goal of establishing explanations and truths. Those truths are by definition unstable and flexible as they are defined or coloured by the understanding of the world of the ones who are suggesting them, and the disposition of the times they are living in.
Post-Human Archaeology is an attempt to produce alternative understandings of early 21st century life and the truths it frames by applying a gaze with an origin outside of ourselves, a beyond-human gaze so to speak. A gaze that is not looking directly at the object of interest but rather at a version of reality that is out of focus or incomplete. In this processed reality we can expect to make finds that expand our understanding towards our being and the way we perceive ourselves.
With Post-Human Archaeology, cross section archive wishes to challenge the idea of how valid perceptions of the city and the immediate past are based on a combination of some selected facts. The expansion of the term will be explored in a three-part programme, a formula drawn from previous thematics, starting with the communal discourse Reconstructing Memories, continuing with the publication of Document #3 and ending with a commissioned solo exhibition.
The annual thematics of cross section archive are curated and organised by Maria Lalou and Skafte Aymo-Boot.
1 Agamben, G. Infancy and History: On the Destruction of Experience (tr. Heron, L.),1993 Verso Books