Gregorios Pharmakis' congress project is focused on the act of documentation of the so called stable context of a congress. The stability here is guaranteed by a program of speakers who succeed one another in a specific presentation table.  A screen and an amphitheatre complete the stable part of the meeting. The specific public event is set up as an academic frame and is officially presented under the title "homesick" in order to approach questions of public art.

1. Gregorios Pharmakis participated through 2 actors as a speaker, insisting on the theoretical frame of what can be today called public art. At the background of Gregorios Pharmakis’ speakers, on a screen, the present wiki page (prepared as a double list) was planned to be projected, but due to technical difficulties, this happened only once.

2. An intense recording of the congress was under development. The recordings aimed to invent another congress through the documentation of the actual one. A transformation of the whole congress is the theatre field of an experiment. The experiment tests the nature of documents, the theatre setting, the concept of participation, and the academic meeting spaces. The congress is recorded but reconstituted through a different frame that makes it a different one. After the end of the congress, a group email was sent to all participants, offering them access to the documented congress for viewing and/or authoring.

 

 

 

 

 

the homesick congress : program

 

school of architecture, university of thessaly, volos, greece, 17.01.2008

 

 

9:30 - 10:00  arrival, welcome ceremony

 

 

10:00 - 10:30 opening of congress proceedings by Pantelis Lazaridis, Head, Department of Architecture, Alekos Voulgaris, Mayor of Volos, representative of General Secretary of the Region of Thessaly, Zissis Kotionis, Organizing Commitee

 

10:30 - 13:30

Morning Session. Panel Coordinator: Pantelis Lazaridis

 

 

PRESENTERS AND TOPICS OF PRESENTATION

 

return to nature / Yannis Stavrakakis, Dep. of Political Philosophy, University of Thessaloniki  (absent: he sent a paper) (about the literal use of biopolitics in contemporary art)

 

the public gaze / Vasso Trova, Dep. of Architecture, University of Thessaly (comparison of paris-plage with a project by Giorgos Gyparakis in Athens)

 

Panagis Panagiotopoulos, Dep. of Political Science and Public Administration, Athens University (the "emo" cultures in Greece)

 

public narrations / Nikos Kazeros, Dep. of Architecture, University of Patras (case studies to define public space)

 

fields of vocalities, fields of rites / Phoebe Giannisi, Dep. of Architecture, University of Thessaly, (presentation of the art collective urban void)

 

Marco Scotini, director, School of Visual Arts NABA (fight-specific, observations on recent urban art collectives)

 

INTERVENTIONS

 

Nadia Kalara, Dep. of Architecture, University of Thessaly (the conception of place as a collection)

 

Katerina Iliopoulou, poetess (the karaoke poetry example) 

 

Lois Papadopoulos, Dep. of Architecture, University of Thessaloniki (a question and an answer on memory, monumentality and action) 

 

Aristide Antonas, Dep. of Architecture, University of Thessaly (against a mere activist art, against the concept of immediacy in art: about a theatricality in recording cultures)

 

Eleni Tzirtzilaki, Network of Nomadic Architecture

 

Alexandros Psychoulis, Dep. of Architecture, University of Thessaly 

 

13:30 - 14:30

 

Lunch Break

 

14:30 - 17:30

Afternoon Session. Panel Coordinator: Yorgos Tzirtzilakis

 

 

PRESENTERS AND TOPICS OF PRESENTATION

 

inscribing images into the body of the city: Between memory and oblivion / Stavros Stavrides, National Technical University (public practice of art and memory)

 

acts of uttering together (in the phantom public sphere) / Panos Kouros, Dep. of Architecture, University of Patras (some notes on how to think of dialogic practices today)

 

avenida rio branco / Zafos Xagoraris, Athens Fine Arts School (recent and future works)

 

home away from home / Maria Papadimitriou / Dep. of Architecture, University of Thessaly (discussion of works with the gypsie communities)

 

public art in front of big international art events of 21th century. political and art curating questions / Kostis Stafylakis, art theorist (discussion of specific works at global exhibitions as related to recent discourse on politics and aesthetics)

 

 

 

INTERVENTIONS

 

Kostis Velonis, Dep. of Architecture, University of Thessaly

 

Kostas Manolides, Dep. of Architecture, University of Thessaly

 

Ioanna Laliotou, Dep. of History, Archaeology, and Social Anthropology, University of Thessaly

 

Spyros Papadopoulos, Dep. of Architecture, University of Thessaly

 

 

Nadia Argyropoulou, art critic, curator

 

Discussion

 

Ending