ARTiculAction
Manolis Hadjimanolis & Irene Zenonos
he mocks the authority and its officers. However, despite his fighting spirit and wit, he always ends up accepting his fate and continues to bow before the Sultan. The average Modern Greek behaves like that, that is his mind-set. He sees and understands what is happening but he does not take the big decision to step out of it and change his life and in extend the society he lives in. As long as the authority keeps him fed he ignores reality. And even when things start to get worse, he spasmodically reacts with no clear vision of how to improve things. The essence of what we tried to show with our installation had been criticised via the satire of the shadow theatre in the past. That is why we believe in tradition, we draw inspiration from it and borrow artistic conventions not out of conservatism or nationalism, but for the simple reason that it provides us with a common language (which often functions on an unconscious level) to communicate with the people. And when something survives through the ages within the people it immediately proves its artistic value.
And we cannot truly understand ourselves separated from the society and the ‘Other’. It goes without saying that positive feedbacks and especially awards are capable of supporting an artist... I was just wondering if such expectation could even influence the process of an artist... By the way, how much important is for you the feedback of your audience? Do you ever think to whom will enjoy your Art when you conceive your pieces? I sometimes wonder if it could ever exist a genuine relationship between business and Art...
Positive feedback as well as an award when there is a real reciprocation it makes artists feel it worth’s working and publishing their work and more importantly to feel a useful part of society in which they can coexist and contribute and not to be marginalised. That can build up a relationship with the audience and society in extend, which makes an artist more responsible against it. On the other hand positive feedback and awarding should not be an end in itself although they could motivate and boost the art practice. Such an expectation could easily ensnare an artistic process and restrict it in mannerisms that are widely accepted and recognized. In such a case an artist is rather confused. An artist should work with free expression and the true need to communicate.
If we distinguish between intellectual art and popular art at the same time we distinguish between more advanced and less advanced people. We condemn the majority of people as unable to communicate with us or us unable to communicate with them. It is sad to think like that and lose your fate in people. We have to keep in mind that there have been times in history when all the people in a community enjoyed the same literature, music, theatre and visual arts. We believe that art can communicate with the people when functioning in many levels and on a common background.
Feedback from the audience is a kind of test that shows whether the artwork can have an impact or not, and if it can how strong it could be. Yet the artist must be cautious not to depend on the audience because as there are bad artists, there are cases of bad audiences. One should have the subtlety to distinct between good and bad audiences. In our last project we felt satisfaction when had a positive feedback, especially from people who have been involved in the demonstrations and had experienced the crisis in Greece. For them there was no ‘conceptual meaning’ in the work but a powerful reflection of the situation through artistic conventions. We felt the sense of achievement when we saw in their words and their faces that they had captured the essence of it. In the process of working our pieces we do not think of a particular audience or a particular way to ‘sell’ our work. However, through intuition we try to be as clear and as open to the audience as possible. When you are honest and clear the audience will associate. It is simple to say but hard to achieve.
Interaction with the audience is what we aim at. We try to work on our personal experience in a way that it can relate to the common personal experience. If art becomes fully disconnected from direct experience there is the danger of becoming autistic and self satisfactory, to become lost in extreme mannerism and otherworldly fantasies. This is not something we condemn but we believe that art should be entwined with real life. Direct experience and we would go further to say common direct experience is what defines and environs the world we live and act in. Art is a means for understanding the world (both physically and socially) and ourselves.
Jennifer Sims 98