TETTIX
2012
Description Link

Audiovisual material post production and sound design of the multimedia installation of Phoebe Giannis, Athens, National Museum of Modern Art (EMST), 5/12/2012 - 3/2/2013. Curator: Stamatis Schizakis

In her new multimedia installation TETTIX (the ancient Greek word for cicada) Phoebe Giannisi invites viewers like members of a peculiar chorus, to read silently, aloud or whisper her poems, Japanese haiku, excerpts from ancient Greek texts, translated poetry. Her manuscripts are placed in 10 lecterns, instead of music scores. The reader/viewer by vocalizing the texts takes the place of the poet experiencing the physical articulation of poetry. Always the body speaks in the language of poetry, even when it is written, says the artist.

A large-scale video projection, sound environments echoing the repetitive sound of the voice of cicadas along with other objects comprise the installation which is a living experience for the viewer. The presence and the participation of the viewer activate and complete the installation by connecting the poetic word with the repetitive song of cicadas, making TETTIX an experiential poem.

In TETTIX, the entire poetry is transferred onto a series of private, ritualistic performances, a series of bodily actions. These actions have their point of departure in the texts that are read. The words re-cited, the interactions with the animals, the writing itself, are interrelated elements of a whole whose cohesion derives internally and which is centered on the body and on corporeality. Here, I treat writing as yet another version of bodily action, interrelated with reading, explains Phoebe Giannisi, and invites us to listen to our voices and let our body obey our breath in a reading from the heart.