CATALOGUE 2000-2001

Dimitris DOKATZIS Non confidential Vidéo expérimentale - betacam sp - couleur - 0:11:27 - production, script, direction, image, choix musicaux: Dimitris Dokatzis - montage: Tassos Psalidakis - interprètes: les gens du quotidien - voix: Stavros Deligiorgis, Katerina Apostolaki - Grèce - 1999 "Non Confidential" is an attempt to make a record of the traits of our times as they are shaped by the laws of globalisation and the status of contemporary man in it. "Non Confidential" juxtaposes images of interior, private spaces with others from open-air public spaces, with or without human presence. These images are combined with various words written on them or phrases spoken by two men and two women, either verbally or using sign language. Successive images are separated by a short interval, in blue colour and accompanied by excerpts from ethnic songs or classical / ethnic / rock music. The repetitive mode of cutting gradually reveals the hidden connections among these seemingly disparate elements, producing a hypnotic atmosphere that forces the viewers / listeners to form an opinion about the things they see and hear. Biographie Dimitris Dokatzis was born in Athens in 1958, where he lives and works. He studied fine arts at the Byam Shaw School of Art, London, and filming at The London International Film School. From the mid-1980's until the mid-1990's he explored the possibilities of the language of sculpture at the end of post-industrial era as influenced by minimalism in combination with architecture and the urban environment. From 1997 he has been working with new technologies exploring their possibilities of a new reading of the present state of affairs, but also the way that these technologies influence the perception of the contemporary individual. Based on this framework he has created "Softknot" (www.dokdim.gr), an Internet Website, where people apart from viewing his work, they can participate in a Forum and exchange ideas on different issues. Dimitris Dokatzis, also, together with Elias Marmaras forms the nucleus of a flexible group, who organizes artistic events (Mppdiatel, Videoshow, Personal, Cinema) as if they were an integral part of everyday life. One- Man Exhibitions 1990 TITANIUM GALLERY, Athens. 1992 <<PROMETHEAN CONDITION>> (installation), Desmos, Athens. 1994 <<THE END OF FEAR>>, Mylos, Thessaloniki. <<OUTPOOR (CIRCE / ZUCCO)>> (installation), Antonia Havani, Corfu. 1996 <<WAITING ROOM / HOT LINES>> (installation), Maya Tsoclis, Athens. 1997 <<THE SHORT JOURNEY OF THE FORTY LEGGED MAN>>, Thema, Athens. <<MIGRATION>>, Artforum Gallery, Thessaloniki. 2000 <<USE ME>> (happening), 24 Karneadou St, Athens. Group Exhibitions 1989 <<PAINTING FOR A TABLE>>, Municipal Cultural Center, Athens. 1990 <<ON THE EDGE 80-90>>, Municipal Cultural Center, Athens. <<1st INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION OF ART AND TECHNOLOGY>> (video installation), Titanium Gallery, Athens. <<EAU ET EUROPE>> (installation), Tours, France. 1991 <<ASSAULT ON THE SENSES>> (installation), DESTE Foundation, House of Cyprus, Athens. 1992 8th BIENNIAL FOR SCULPTURE, Skironio Museum, Athens. 1993 3rd BEACH ART SYMPOSIUM, Crete. ART FAIR 1'93, Athens. 1994 <<POINT OF CONTACT>>, Citybank, Athens. <<PATHOS>>, Warehouse, Larissis Railway Station, Athens. ART FAIR 2'94, Athens. MYLOS, Thessaloniki. 1995 <<SWEEP YOUR FEET>>, Antonia Havani, Corfu. <<ATHENS>>, Thema, Athens. 1996 <<GAMES>>, Artforum Vilca Gallery, Thessaloniki. 1997 <<DOMESTIC - URBAN (ITIES)>>, Hellenic-American Union, Athens. <<THE TRANSFER OF THE SCREW>> (sound installation), K.Theodosiades Warehouse, Piraeus. 1998 <<MOODIATEL>> (video installation), 30 Alkiviadou St, Athens. 1999 <<VIDEOSHOW>>, Dragatsaniou St, Klafthmonos Sq, Athens. 2000 <<PERSONAL CINEMA>>, 76 Tsimiski St, Thessaloniki. Filmographie 1982/1990 - PERSEPHONE: Super 8, Colour, transferred on video, London / Athens. 1983 - NARCISSUS: 16mm, Colour, Silent, 1min., London. 1984 - THE SILENCE OF LIQUIDS, 16mm, B / W, 25:53min, London. 1998 - DEALS 1+2, Betacam SP, Colour, 1:25min, each part, Athens. 1999 - LIVE. ALIVE, Betacam SP, Colour, 21:27:42 min, Athens. NON CONFIDENTIAL, Betacam SP, 11:27:37min, Athens Textes extraits de la vidéo "Non confidential" A. Would you like to talk with me? Do you understand me? Would you like to have dinner with me? What do you think of me? Can I kiss you? Do you like me? Would you like to make love? How do you feel? Would you like to go swimming? Do I talk too much? Shall we have our picture taken? Can you recognize me? B. Then - Everywhere Now - There Before - Here After - Beyond Never - Always Always - Close Close - Forward Faraway - Never Beyond - After Here - Before There - Now Everywhere - Then WRITTEN TEXT of non confidential (video) Depersonalization Homogenization Globalization Information Utilitarianism Marginalization Trust Creativity Meditation Expression Sincerity Emigration Production Consumerism Showbiz Falsification Substitution Equality Exchange Communication Alterity Activation Deux textes 1.USE ME To exhibit means to communicate thoughts, views and ideas through the presentation of objects or actions, in such a way that the associations triggered in the mind of the viewer/receiver will activate his or her critical thinking. The Greek verb for 'exhibit', ektheto, means also to expose, to deceive; to deceive someone with a view to gaining material or intellectual 'benefits' to one's own advantage. The artist may therefore exploit the ambiguity of the verb in order to take viewers through deception towards the exposure of what is hidden, invisible. The act of exhibiting thus becomes the medium which allows us to elicit through the polymorphism of the exhibits what is hard to recognize, the ambiguous - in other words, the signified. To exhibit also means to distinguish the private from the public, even before it is announced, named or, perhaps, rejected. So if to exhibit is by definition a necessary prerequisite for juxtaposing the private and the public, it also involves transposing this juxtaposition, this alterity, to the venue, which will host the exhibition. The transfer thus gives to the alterity an opportunity to become fulfilled through the juxtaposition of the viewers' gazes and behaviors in the specific site. The happening called "USE ME", which takes place in the flat at 24 Karneadou Street, is like a fixed-term contract which aims at causing confusion and multiple misunderstandings to the viewer, thus undermining his certainty about the situation and the things he takes for granted. The title, "USE ME", is the name that marks and signifies the difference between private and public without actually proclaiming it, adopting for that purpose the form of a family gathering, a feast or a theatrical setting. "USE ME" carries within it the shifting, the dislocation and the mutual cancellation of the meanings which have been recorded and classified during the last century by the art practices of modernism - the same ones in which this show takes place and asserts itself. The space of the flat thus becomes the refuge of an 'incompatible' symbiosis on the dead body of the exhibition, which the necrophiliacs of the artistic establishment are trying to embalm and preserve. "USE ME" is a happening which does not lay claim to any kudos of innovation, nor is it a revolutionary event in the global art scene. It is just a call for any person who has been invited or is just passing by to stop at 24 Karneadou Street, climb up to the fifth floor, engage in a dialogue with this open happening and express his or her own views on the issues that are raised. Of course, someone with a more optimistic outlook would treat this stop as a challenge for rethinking one's ego through the happening, aimed as it is at the acceptance, the acknowledgement and the consolidation of the difference through the other, through our opposite; through the thing that generates some fear in us or the thing we suspect of having in store some sort of death sentence for us. Dimitris Dokatzis (This text was included in the catalogue of the event USE ME, where the video NON CONFIDENTIAL was first presented). 2.TOWARDS PERSONAL CINEMA FROM THE CINEMA OF CREATORS TO THE CINEMA OF INTRUDERS / RE-CREATORS An image which has not been cut off from its meaning invests knowledge with great significance and certainty. (Guy Debord)Living as we are among images and identifying ourselves through them, our life today has more to do with virtual reality than with reality itself. This condition raises certain questions on the way in which receivers/viewers process and decode images, but also on the way the truth in the images of a creator's cinema has turned into the objective reality of television and the democratic diversity of the web. Looking at the effect the imagery of contemporary cinema has on the receiver/viewer, we realize that the rapid succession of scenes interrupts the thread of his thoughts and impedes his mental processing and interpretation of the images. The final image, impressive in its artificial perfection and its special effects which conceal the material, technological and ideological processing of the original, aims to suppress any active response on the viewers' part and manipulate them through the spectacle. By contrast, in the early forms of the cinema the viewers, for all their amazement at the new invention, could let their gaze and mind linger on the images as they were projected by primitive equipment (Phenakistiscope, Thaumatrope, Zootrope, Praxinoscope, etc.); raw, hand painted images in a discontinuous succession which required the viewers' intellectual involvement and imagination to complete the motion as well as the theme, no matter how naïve the latter might be. So discovering the many and varied interpretations of an image is today the main quest of every knowing receiver/viewer/user who wishes to recognize himself through the entire spectrum of potential interpretations, not just by his reflection on a superficial image which has been cut off from its meaning. The development of DIGITAL technology allows any intelligent operator of the new media to distort and falsify data and images according to his own interests. On the other hand, the intelligent receiver/viewer/user is equally able - if he wants - to intervene and unmask the conspiracy behind the projected images or data. The conversion of passive viewers into active ones becomes meaningful only when it goes beyond simple theory to evolve into dynamic intervention on the very product of the medium. The technique of cutting and pasting provides a way for a direct, subversive manipulation of an image. The same technique is used by the 'Moviola' operator in cinematic or electronic editing, where a shot is removed from one part of the film or video and inserted at another point, just like a web user who enters a site and forcibly changes it. In applying this technique, the intelligent viewer who assumes the role of editor/re-creator (or the original creator himself as re-creator) does not intend to mislead and deceive with a view to achieving ideological or financial gain; his aim is to reveal the multiple meanings of the image. The isolation of an image/shot/fact from a context of and its introduction to a new context - either readymade (by another creator) or constructed by the viewer/user/director/re-creator himself - alters the conceptual content of both the image and the new context via constant mutual supplying. This exploitation of images/shots/facts by the viewer/ user/director/re-creator introduces a new dynamics, being an interactive action on and within the action of the film/program/site, which results in the displacement of any single, rigid interpretation. In this way the images/shots/facts - techniques and concepts which seem incompatible with one another - can coexist in a new digital context and effect a sacrilegious change in the way they were hitherto perceived by the retina and the neurons of the brain. On the other hand, this action by the viewer/user/director/re-creator comes to question the infallibility of the director, the truth of the objective television image and the clarity of data. This new approach to the moving image comes to redefine our aesthetic perception in pre-cinema terms, i.e. from the time when with very few tools and a lot of personal work one could produce work which was seen by thousands of people, before the industrialization of the medium. In this way a post-cinema emerges in which film, video, animation, graphics and computer games coexist within a digital environment where, through infraction, subversion and manipulation of the facts, life is experienced both as reality and fantasy. If we were to give a name to this new condition we could call it PERSONAL CINEMA: a kind of cinema that does not follow the rules of the major studios (huge budgets, controlled scripts, special effects and stars) and does not place the emphasis on a perfect product but rather on the heretic production process and the dialectics of its images. PERSONAL CINEMA thus becomes the means for creating a new language, which will incorporate the potential progress of visual and digital media along with the constant questioning and revision of our views. Note: Similarly, all this applies also to sound. Dimitris Dokatzis (The text was written for the event PERSONAL CINEMA, which took place in Thessaloniki in November 2000)