portfolio 2016-2021

Aikaterini Sideri Selected Works 2017-2021 Architecture//Cross-media Art//Art and Design based Research

About I recently graduated with an integrated masters diploma in Architecture from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Currently, I am working as a research assistant in CERTH where we develop a platform that integrates new learning environments, such as VR spaces, in teaching methods for art and architecture schools.

My practice is speculative and connects science and art by depicting observations of the world around us and can lead to research through practice. Often, conceiving particular sites as a starting point, my research takes the form of spatial narratives in various scales, visual story-tellings, spatial and interactive devices or platforms. I like to experiment and considerate different perspectives in my work, which can be of human or non-human nature, compose dream-like scenarios, which, however, should always also establish a connection to socially relevant issues, raising questions about the world we live in. The media I like to work with vary (VR environments, site interfaces, architecture, design and visual story-tellings) and their geneology is very important for me, as I am using them to translate meanings across different disciplines and to introduce critical new processes.

In the future, I would like to continue my studies in the field of design based research , linking the approaches and methodologies of art and space-making.

Online portfolios at: https://issuu.com/asiderie?issuu_product=header&issuu_subproduct=publisher-suite-workflow&issuu_context=link&issuu_cta=profile https://echogram.cargo.site/ https://cargocollective.com/practiseincognition

Contents 4-17

18-21

VR Environments: Curiocity

22-27

Third landscape community research centre

28-33

Writing Tests

34-35

Museum of AUTh campus cultural heritage

36-39

Conference Senography

40-41

In-animate States

42-43

Post-utilitarian being

portfolio

Index of Echoes: copies,replicas,counterfeits,erzats

2017-2021

Locomotiva SKG-BTL: 220 km formation

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Locomotiva SKG-BTL: 220 km formation Diploma Thesis Our diploma thesis is an effort to understand and interpret in sight contemporaneity, in terms of place and time, tracing out the place we live in, Macedonia. As a vehicle for this research, we used the railway that connects the port city Thessaloniki, Greece to the southernmost city of North Macedonia, Bitola, covering a 220 km distance. Investigating the Thessaloniki- Bitola railway, we were allowed to look into the intermediate stations of the macedonian province. We focused on the evolution of the linear landscape in the vicinity of the railway line and the linear interactive networks between the two cities, whose existece may be parallel or causal to Locomotiva’s evolution.

In collaboration with: A. Arvaniti, K. Deligiannidou Supervisor: A.Kalfopoulos link for more: https:// issuu.com/asiderie/docs/ diploma_thesis_ vr_booklet_pages

Map of the Thessaloniki-Bitola railway network (current situation), with the section connecting Florina with Bitola remaining inactive since 1991)

Locomotiva Souvenir Pavillion, Bitola

Thessaloniki-Bitola, collage

Locomotiva SKG-BTL

At first, we identified the railway traces in the landscape, which in our belief participate in the formation of a common spatial and social identity for the region of Macedonia. These traces may document the railway’s association with the different land uses, the culture or the microclimate of this linear landscape. Through a mythmaking practice we remarked situations on-route that challenge the dipole between train -as an engine- and the existing environment -nature-. Finally, we focused on seven semantically charged areas with intense semiology along the rail line, where we designed our interventions. We see our interventions as the spatial means of spreading a modern, critical political stance, in order to ignite possible future microecologies. The images which we produce, belong to the realm of critic, dialectical thought.

2021

Claire Bishop and Dan Perjovschi, 2013

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Locomotiva Stations

We aimed to explore the very concept of the environment along the railway line. The natural, artificial and virtual environment along with the special dichotomies between the visible and the invisible. We focused on seven points that created a particular identity.

In Thessaloniki, Amyntaio and Bitola, we focus on energy production in Macedonia and its relationship with the continuous cycle of the train.

The railway line intersects Axios and the plain of Imathia in Kefalochori. The development of agriculture with its problems and pollution is studied at the same time as the need for protection of the particular ecosystems that have been created.

Lake Vegoritida is also an important productive core of the surrounding areas.The transformations of the landscape the Lake at various scales are related to various factors– but for us remarkable is the contribution of the railway line, where during its construction and maintenance it has transformed the morphology and quality of the ground.

Today, the borders are physical and digital, geographical and political. At the Border we think about control, identities and health risks.

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Locomotiva SKG-BTL

2021

Thessaloniki: Souvenir Production Laboratory

In Thessaloniki – the initial or terminal for Locomotiva, there is the Workshop for the Production of Souvenirs. The workshop is placed on the platform and tranforms the raw material of travel and the energy of the train.

The qualitative & quantitative characteristics of our city have exceeded their capabilities.

The departure of the train from the city, marks the discovery of territories that host processes and refuse to crystallize in definitive forms. This journey involves the discovery of new hybrid spaces. We believe that the railways can be the means of triggering possible micro-ecologies. We also believe that Thessaloniki and Bitola will be the place to review the lived experience of travel, while at the same time they will feed back on the narration of our history and the way we see the landscape, its history and ourselves in it.

2021 Locomotiva SKG-BTL

Thessaloniki as a starting point, Amyntaio as a diaconomic station and Bitola as the final destination, are part of a circular flow, during which data and materials found in the landscape are collected, processed, exposed and ultimately consumed. In other words, we are talking about a cycle of production, processing and consumption.

The contribution of the railway in Macedonia lies in the process of supplying the urban centers with raw materials, in the construction of the imaginary for the geographical and cultural unity that we call Macedonia and in the construction of the modernist idiom of the region.

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Axios: Vertical phragmitis’ park Station 2:Axios River Locomotiva intersects the wetland of Axios river, in the area of the riparian forest of Anatoliko, an extensive meadow with aquatic vegetation and bird populations, plentiful of grain crops. The extensive agricultural activities near the river and the industrial and municipal waste pollute Axios. All these contribute to the development of the aquatic weed of phragmites – common wild reed, mainly on the banks of the river. Phragmites metabolizes water, since it feeds itself on the polluting load.

Passengers are led to the platform that parasitizes on the abandoned railway bridge. At the lake level there are aquatic plants that increase oxygen levels in the water, lights that attract inscects and an artificial nest for birds. The park-observatory consists of a concentrated, vertical development of the ecosystem of the area. The platform examines how the parts of a body exist and work together during the breathing process or the alliances of species that contribute to the recycling of water. The evolution of the park depends on the coexistence of the local populations with the visitors-passengers.

Vertical Phragmites Park/Use Diagram

Imathia Station: Water Collection Ditch Station 3:Plain of Imathia

Sauna detail

Locomotiva SKG-BTL

For many years the predominant way of irrigation has been a network of surface furrows where the reclining water traveled nonstop. This caused excess irrigation and change of soil composition.

We have done a research on how soil horizons are now affected and then designed a cave-construction, so we can have a section of its field and monitor their evolution horizons. How deep in earth does liquid waste go?

2021

At the former Kefalochori stop, in Imathia, we designed the Water Collection DItch to explore the circle of water and imagine how liquid waste can get recycled and become a part of a new microecology tha involves the train. The railway crosses the Thessaloniki-Imathia plain for about 60 km with the landscape being exclusively rural. We imagined the collection of the agricultural waste of the fields around the stop of Kefalochori, in order to reuse it for irrigation, watering, water drinking and Sauna.

Section of soil and water ditch collector

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Vegoritida:Floating Stations Station 4:Lake Vegoritida The technological development of the line influenced the surface morphology of the lake. Essentially, a third landscape emerges with artificial and natural fragments. We attempt to design a cable car of the parent railway. The Infrastructure starts from the stop Vegoritida, crosses the slope and ends at a floating station. Upon disembarkation from Locomotiva, it is possible to tour the landscape and collect findings, such as limestone rocks or shell shells, which have run out of the water level. The trusses of the structure are based on the rocks, creating a potential refuge for the flora and fauna of the lake.

Crossing the slope, the visitor lands at the floating station, where he can use the detachable -from the cable car- wagons, for wandering in the lake. During their stay in the floating structure, visitors can observe, through a transparent floor, the sub-walled addition with a material and shape suitable for the desalination and parasitization of micro-organisms, plants and smaller fish.

Lake Vegoritida Floating Stations/Use Diagram

Floating Station

2021

1.Truss/Frame

2. Platform

3. Shell

Locomotiva SKG-BTL

Vegoritida Station

Vegoritda Stations: topviews

Vegoritida Floating Station

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Amyntaio: Flying Ash Collector Station 5:Amyntaio Railway lines are often built to serve industrial development.The railway junction of Amyntaio, was serving various steam power stations and is connected to the two main lignite mine areas. The amyntaio-Kozani railway branch has ceased its operation today, as the lignite deposits have been reduced and subsequently the deindustrialization of the area was decided.

In the atmosphere of Amyntaio, flying ash (a by-product of burning lignite) is found in high quantities. We investigated the possibility of recycling the gaseous waste of lignite combustion plants and specifically fly ash. The material is first deposited or collected from the atmosphere, stored and pelletized so that it can be transported to eventually be transmuted into a non-toxic material that forms locomotiva souvenirs.

Lake Vegoritida Floating Stations/Use Diagram

Souvenirs

Stories are fictions—something from the past—in the form of metonyms of the present. How do we create a souvenir that is capable of pre-writing history?

Locomotiva SKG-BTL

2021

During the trip the materials are collected. It can be raw material like stones and shells (natural or artificial) dead organic matter, like soil samples, leaves flowers, bacteria liquid and solid waste of agriculture or industry sites and municipal waste. All this are areprocessed in Thessaloniki, forming the souvenirs that are exhibited in Bitola, and that are the lived experience of the journey.

Souvenir Vending Machine in Bitola Train Station

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The Border: Multi-species Ethnography Station 6: The magic of borders is that they can turn an entity into a border guard or, on the contrary, an enmity. Borders transform our network and are treated as a carrier of otherness. On the borders, classification practices of Western modernity are carried out .These classification processes define people, places and times by diametrically opposing them to their different.

In any case, the development of the Thessaloniki-Bitola railway and the railways in general has contributed to the militarization

We choose a representation of the borders through modern security tools. The philosophies of Bruno Latour and Peter Sloterdijk provide a framework for our research on borders and border politics.

train passenger’s identification

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Locomotiva SKG-BTL

2021

Index of Echoes: copies,replicas,counterfeits,erzats Diploma Research Thesis In collaboration with: K. Deligiannidou Supervisor: A.Kalfopoulos

The technological developments in the 19th century have brought up the crucial role that copy plays in the perception of art. Until then, the aesthetic experience had its roots in the romantic principles of originality. New technological media used in the arts have been involved in the analysis and creative redefinition of older media, introducing into art new processes of critical cross-checking between the original and the copy. Various artistic movements explored the relationship between the original and the copy throughout the twentieth century. However, the computer’s ability to copy data with absolute fidelity goes beyond these historical methods of approaching originals and copies for artistic practices.

excerpt from bibliography:

Today, the ever-increasing digital possibilities confirm that copying has now been established both as an artistic and as a daily process. However, as modern copying mechanisms - largely supported by ready-made software - often remain hidden and increasingly intangible, the functions and logics of copying are subject to critical dialogue and constant review.

6. Allahyari, M. & Rourke, D. (2015), The 3D Additivist Cookbook. Available at: https:// additivism.org/cookbook

1. Christensen, (2017). «The Art of Copying: Five Strategies for Transforming Originals in the Art Museum». Culture Unbound, 9 (1) 2. Derrida, J. (1972). La dissemination. Paris: Editions du Seuil 3. Groys, B. (2008). «Art in the Age of Biopolitics», ART POWER. Cambridge-London: The MIT Press.

4. Benjamin, W. (2013/1939)(The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility). . translation Oikonomou, A. Athens: Plethron 5. Derrida, J. (2013/1967).L’ ECRITURE ET LA DIFFERENCE). Athens:Kastaniotis

7. Barthes, R. (1977), Image-Music-Text, UK: Fontana Press 8. Christensen, A. (2017). «The Art of Copying: Five Strategies for Transforming Originals in the Art Museum». Culture Unbound, 9 (1)

his master’s voice: linocut

2020 Index of echoes

The potential of digitalization to create horizontal organization and diffusion of knowledge has been discussed from time to time. Intellectual property, in order to exist, presupposes a separation between writer and reader. Indeed, through digitalisation, the artificiality of this separation becomes more apparent. excerpt from the thesis booklet

The artistic action “Re-enactments” took place in Mexico. Francis Alÿs bought a gun and then took to the streets, holding it. Eleven minutes later he was arrested by police. The next day he repeated the action, this time in cooperation with the police. The project consists of a video that records the two actions and a document that describes.

Alÿs ultimately blurs the line between documentation and fiction.

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2020 Index of echoes

The philosophical context on which the text is exploring the artistic copy, is mainly drawn from the work of Derrida and Benjamin. We have diverted this philosophical framework, creating a new vocabulary that helps us interpret contemporary works of art. We studied interpretative historical sources and as a prime example of a place, we used throughout the research, the art museum. At the same time, we enriched this vocabulary through the artworks and references. We’ve made examples of reports based on the context we’ve defined.

We created a website that hosts topics, concepts, examples of copying as an artistic practice. Its form combines elements of the museum official websites: index, art museum catalog and tag cloud, listing conceptually sorted subjects together with links to pages containing organized source material.

https://echogram.cargo.site

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VR Environments: Curiocity ABK: State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart Media Studies: VR Enviroments Curiocity is a VR space that is exhibiting artifacts from the internet world . We can imagine the virtual Cabinet of Curiosities collecting objects made from virtual data and continuously growing together with its collection. The artifacts are cad models collected or designed through a process that aims to combine digital and physical matter, the past and the present, the decay and the renewal. The purpose was to design an atemporal space that grows continuesly with these artifacts through investigating the ELEMENT 1: VR medium, as well as to adress issues that have to do with FROM CAD MODELS authenticity and museums in today’s digital era.

TODAYS’ WUNDERKAMMER

Today’s Wunderkammer

google search: Wunderkammer

google search: Wunderkammer

Instructors: Tobias Walisser and AM Sebastian Schott link for more: https:// issuu.com/asiderie/docs/ vr_booklet_pages

TO ARTIFACTS

How would we characterize this copies?...Perhaps in the same way a meme is alive. As files are posted, downloaded printed, diferent each time the nature of the thing remains unsettled. In its hybrid state of being and non being, the CAD model bridges ontological gap between presence and dissappearence- a multiverse of digital cenotaphs.

2019

ELEMENT 1: FROM CAD MODELS TO ARTIFACTS

Moreshin Allahyari , Rhizome 2016

They are a collection of CAD models that are presented as fragments, souvenirs or archeological artifacts

They are a collection of CAD models presented as fragments, souvenirs

Curiocity

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LEVEL 1: EXPLORING CURIOCITY

Gameplay LEVEL 1: Exploring Curiocity

LEVEL 2: FORMER DOME

LEVEL 2: Inside the cabinet

ELEMENT 2: FORMING CURIOCITY

Equipment: Flashlight/Light Shooter, Moving Platform equipment: flashlight/light shooter,

moving platform Guide:Text/ Fountains

guide: text/fountains

We can imagine Curiocity growing into infinity, as the digital models do...

Curiocity can exist as a parallel world Equipment: Flashlight/Light Shooter, Jump to invite forming a new “community” and objects equipment: flashlight/light welcoming an infinity shooter, of jump to populations invite the objects virtual in the non existent theres.

LEVEL 1: Exploring Curiocity

LEVEL 2: Inside the cabinet

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2019

“Each element performs its task in negotiated isolation”*

You can get as close as the rules of the city allow. Artifacts can be still or have their own orbit in and out of the containers.

Starting from an empty space the architecture of the second level is a decay choreography of the objects.

ELEMENT 1: MOVING THROUGH THE ARTIFACTS

Curiocity

screenshots from Unreal Engine project

Moving through the artifacts

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Final Presentation

Rundgang Class Pavillion

2019

The studio’s VR works were exhibited at Rundgang 2019 of Stuttgart’s Art Academy (ABK).

Our exhibition „Showcase VR Digital Space Pavillon“ was awarded with the academic award (Akademiepreis).

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Curiocity

@abkstuttgart

screenshot from Unreal Engine project

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Third landscape community research centre Insights: Fixes, Fluxus, Futures

In collaboration with: A. Arvaniti, K. Deligiannidou Instructor: A.Kalfopoulos

The area between the embankments of the railways and the urban fabric is a privileged area of receptivity to the big works of the third landscape. We borrowed the term third landscape to describe the urban space’s mediation between people, objects, natural species and built environments . The lot of operation is close to Thessaloniki’s railway station. As soon as it is observed , it becomes a field of empirical experiments, thanks to its biodiversity. This spatiotemporal condition was considered friendly for the design of a community research centre for the third landscape that aims to disperse similar centers, with the promotion of the neighbouring railway network.

We find that these complicated ecosystems can assemble new and unexpected forms of beauty.

Railway Station, Thessaloniki

top-view

Third landscape community research centre

preparations for the physical model

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2019-2020

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Third landscape community research centre

2019-2020

Interior

Presentation: January 2020. Video Projection, Posters, Physical Models

Third landscape community research centre

2019-2020

Physical model: landscape made with cnc cutter and folded paper

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Writing Tests Visual Arts: Artist Book Instructors: N. Kalara, K. Varotsos

How would google translate Cy Twombly’s writing gesture outside of its context?

What influence do time and technology have on writing and on the way communicate?

What will remain of today’s culture of writing in several thousand years?

In order to explore the writing and its history from the privileged point of the future, I did experiments on writing, drawing, typography and their visual representation. All of them they are carried out in the context of an artistic (sketch)book, made with digital and analog media. Traces and surfaces become entangled, gestures are erased and reappearing.

link for more: https:// issuu.com/asiderie/docs/ artist_book_revisited

excerpt from bibliography:

1.Flusser V. The Gesture of Writing 2. Flusser V. Does Writing have a Future?

3. Johanna Malt. Cy Twombly: Sign, Meta-Sign and Sense 4. Roland Barthes. (1979), on Cy Twombly: Works on Paper, 5. Ernst Van Alphen., The Gesture of Drawing 6. Claude Lévi-Strauss, Sad Tropiques

tracing out analog “pixels”

2020 writing tests

Digital sketch

Pencil and digital collage

Inject ink transfer to skin

Scratched and coloured polaroid paper

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Museum of AUTh campus cultural heritage Museology: Museum Design Our narrative suggests approaching history as a co-existence of both realized and urealized realities. Historical “moments” are identified and highlighted as intermediate and decisive. The museum space brings together historical reality and past imaginary scenarios so that they can suddenly be compared and new ones can emerge.

The exhibition is developed on two layers. The first, based on chronological continuity, aims to integrate the visitor in the respective historical context. This happens through a fluid environment with references to events, highlighted or not, and the possibility of wandering in unrealized imaginary scenarios. The second layer of the exhibition is based on the position and view of the buildings in the campus that are right next to the museum. It aims to inform the visitor about the existing architecture of the university. The architectural dimension of the campus can be experienced from different perspectives through the walk.

Given the fact that a big part of the university’s architectural and urban heritage is deeply connected to Greek modernism, the museum is designed to critically reinterpret the ideas of modernity.

1946

1998

1930

1917 1998 proposed exhibition timeline

In collaboration with: A. Douroudis, I. Koliou Instructors: A. Paka, K. Sakantamis, N. Kalogirou

2018-2019 Museum of AUTh cultural heritage

Made of oversized columns and concrete slabs, the museum exhibits its current architecture on every shelf-level. With a slight dose of irony, the pilotis of the iconic “polikatoikia” leaves the ground untouched and the vegetation wild. The volume of the building screams that it is a monument ,with its perimeter screen, while the sky - bistro at the top floor welcomes visitors, offering panoramic views of the campus and the city, as it owes.

The buildings of the campus were aiming in the “modernization” of Thessaloniki. Campus’ image conflicted with the general image of the city but it stubbornly followed the ideas and global trends of the time.

The static grid of the typical apartment building (polykatoikia) is used as a “neutral” receptacle, an “open” field where different situations can emerge.

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Museum of AUTh cultural heritage

2018-2019

physical model, scale 1:200

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Conference Senography Active scenography for the international conference :Work as Invention, Art for Social Change (held by Artecitya and Goethe Institut)

Collective work of practise(in)cognition

The classical positioning of the conference auditorium was flipped, so the stage was used for the control room - live broadcasting team, while the pit was used for the speakers and audience.

The seats in the space were not pre-arranged; walking into the room at the start of the day, the audience would see a block of white cubes in the centre. They were invited to deconstruct the block and select where they would want to position themselves in the space.

The floor was covered with a vinyl on which the audience was encouraged to write their thoughts - notes during the conference.

2017 artecitya conference http://www.artbox.gr/2017_conference.html

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In-animate States Αctopolis - The art of Action: Exhibition organised

by Goethe-Institut and Urbane Künste Ruhr

Collective work of practise(in)cognition

Reflecting on the issue of organic-animate and inorganic-inanimate life Practise(in) cognition try to create a vis-a-vis encounter between the intense organic life of a city including all the living organisms, technological apparatuses, networks and automations between them and their final inorganic material outcome.

Placing themselves in the position of the entrepreneur they choose to use a city’s sewage system as their art making tool and select as their material its entire waste production, which is collected and processed by an already existing mechanism in order to lose its organic identity and be transformed into an inorganic meta-waste.

This waste even though it has achieved certain statistical parameters that characterize it as “safe” it still cannot be exposed in public, due to the inability of accurately defining its (dis-)contents.

So, you come to encounter the output of an algorithm of which you can never know the input. A statistical-object that corresponds to an unspecified database.

Is this something you would call inanimate?.

2017 artecitya conference http://www.artbox.gr/2017_actopolis.html

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Post-utilitarian being Post-utilitarian being is a project that unfolded through a series of spatial experiments in 3 large scale sites in Thessaloniki.

We conceptualize the three occasions around the notion of “material flow”.

The quarry is the supplier.

The train is the means with which material is being supplied.

The road is supplied with the material We use as tools walking, mapping and collecting. We walk theatrically perceiving space with the body and the senses. We map to open routes through inaccessible grounds, to set them into the scope of everyday life.

We collect materials as a way to document our presence in situ.

In their ex-utilitarian ambience, their abandonment inside the city scape, their absence in everydayness and their morphology we recognize space for post-utilitarian being.

Collective work of practise(in)cognition

2016 post-utilitarian-being

30 cubes are placed in Nitra Gallery. People are invited to exchange the cube with a personal itam. They are encouraged to do similar wanderings and to bring to the collective an item form their wandering. Their items will also be archived and exchanged with another item by another person. Thus, creating a continuous process of collecting, archiving and exchanging postutilitarian material.

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