25 June 2008

But is it art?

So a few weeks ago, one fine Sunday morning, I set off from home to go up to the cave of the Lion on Hymettus. The idea was that Katerina, one of our new members and a fine arts student at the University of Athens would be doing something for her final exam piece and needed this to be done in a cave.

The lion is a nice little cave. Currently being excavated by the ephorate of pal/spel of southern Greece. It used to have the digs open to the air and dangerous, but they have been covered with nice iron grating. The rubbish dump in 2006 used to be full of shards that had been missed by the sieve-monkeys. Last week it seemed to have washed away in the rains we have had since then.

So - what's this all about?

Well, the idea is that Katerina would play Al Gore's documentary: "An inconvenient truth" inside the cave and record this. The recording would then be taken up mount Olympus and nailed to the living rock along with recordings of other things Katerina has prepared (video of a globe being eaten up by bacteria, something to do with the double helix of the human DNA, etc).

The concept of recording something else playing in an environment which is totally alien to video and TVs with stalagmites in the background and no movement or sound is kooky enough. But is it art?

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