ORSALIA DIMITRIOU portfolio
POWER GAMES _ MALTA _ 1998 INSTALLATION IN VALETA FORTRESS An installation literally on the edge of the Valletta Fortress. An oversized table game built with in-situ found material, engaging concepts of greediness and power seizure. The winner is the player who reaches first the central tower and seizes the power. Players face different options in each one of the game’ s positions. The ones who select ethical or easy, untroubled options die. Only the greediest and most determined can win. But his/her end is not as happy as it seems. The game is narrated.
POWER GAMES _ MALTA _ 1998
VOODOOROOM_MALTA_1998 INSTALLATION IN VALETA FORTRESS
Voodoroom pavilion is a spatial experiment on information access. Enclosed and introvert, it is reversing the characteristics of the typical info stand. The outer walls are made of scrap material found in the area. This results in an unpolished appearance. Visitors are treated as initiates. Inside the light is very dim. The space providing information lies in the core of the space but it cannot be accessed or viewed directly. .Visitors should cross a set of narrow corridors, step into unstable floor and search for the core. An imaginary voodoo witch lurks inside. The information is granted to the brave ones.
VOODOOROOM_MALTA_1998
REMEMBER ME_BARCELONA_2002 product design_lamp/to/go The lamp was created as a flashing gift to the loved ones who live abroad. Entire lamp can be dismantled and fitted in a narrow box, easy to post abroad. The lamp was to be reassembled within 5 minutes. Any image can be attached to the paper cover. X-rays were used in the pictured example as meassages of absolute intimacy and sincerity. Once turned on the lamp remindes to the loved ones of your absence, yet partial presence.
REMEMBER ME_BARCELONA_2002
BIRTH INTEROGATION SURGERY DEATH_BARCELONA_2002 PERFORMANCE IN THE AUDITORIUM OF UPC_IN COLLABORATION WITH GORAN SLAVIC We wanted to illustrate four intense situations in which the visual information remains the same while the space is described aurally. The stable visual information is a strong photographic flash that is directed to the participants. The double base performs the beats of the heart I breathe on a microphone that is connected to an amplifier. The participants are sitting on a semicircle and we are on the center The lights turn off and the space remains completely dark
Birth Heart beat Flash First breath /parallel heart beating Sounds fade out simultaneously Silence Dark
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Interrogation Strong heart beat/ fast breathing Flash Strong heart beat / breathing gets more steady, more controlled Sounds fade out simultaneously Silence Dark
h l b
Surgery Absolutely rhythmical heart beat /absolutely rhythmical breath through a mask Flash Absolutely rhythmical heart beat /absolutely rhythmical breath through a mask Sounds fade out simultaneously Silence Dark
h l b
Death Slow heart beat / slows breath Last breath Flash Silence Darkness
Lights turn on
BIRTH INTEROGATION SURGERY DEATH_BARCELONA_2002
h l b
white house redux_2008
A Reminder for the Elected and the Unelected
international ideas competition for storefront gallery_NY in collaboration with arch. d.mrdja
The White House is a universally recognised symbol of political authority and a proven – and successful - architectural embodiment of power. We would like to keep it as it is, in the position that it is and in the city that it is in. With one additional. The Other House. The White House bears the trace of every individual who has been given the right to reside in it, those who have won the majority of votes in each of the 56 presidental elections in America. What there is no trace of, however, no reference to, nor symbol of, are 56 and more of those who tried and failed to gain this office. Without these, the Unelected, there would be no Elected. The Other House is a spatial representation of the Unelected. It is a mirror of the White House. But stripped of its functions. It serves not as a memorial but as a reminder. The Other House does not undermine the White House nor acts in opposition to it, but works with it. It is a counterweight. It becomes apparent only when one starts to enquire about it and goes beyond the surface.
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WHITE HOUSE REDUX_2008
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Aquarium The rhyme The rhythm The moulds of the forms I see The fishes into The water The ideas In the head they seem To move In a similar way The rhyme The rhythm The moulds of the forms
Homage at Joan Brossa_BARCELONA_2002 INSTALLATION/ IN COLLABORATION WITH DESPOINA TSAFOU AND RENEE HARIRI
This is a project dedicated to Joan Brossa (1918-1998) a Catalan abstract poet and artist whose work is characterized by irony and allegory. It focuses on the transformation of a poem into an installation which took place at Barceloneta, Barcelona. The construction is based on the children's game where the two cans and a connecting string are used to form a "telephone". The construction is symbolic and analogous to the chosen poem. The cans are symbolising the ideas' containers. The string is connecting them actually and metaphorically. The repetition of "telephones" is instructing the rhythm. Each one of them is composed of two equal parts that are in the beginning and the end of it, as well as of a third part that connects them, just as Brossa's poem is starting and ending with two same verses, while a third, different one unites them. The linearity of their form refers to the area's character, the strong line of the horizon, the break of the buildings and the edge of the wooden deck. The materials and colours are kept as simple as possible and refer to the simple and direct way of Brossa's expression.
Homage at Joan Brossa_Barcelona The public is participating actively in the installation. The visitor is listening from one can. In the other side, there is the sea. Is the sea talking? Can anybody listen to the fishes moving in the water? The visitor is unavoidably thinking. Ideas are moving in the brain without any specific subject. They move into the water. Free.
MONOLOGOS_EXIBITION DESIGN_BARCELONA_2002 STUDENT PROJECT_IN COLLABORATION WITH S.VILLAR VAZQUEZ AND P.INGLESIAS The Project required both the curation of an exhibition and the design of the exhibition space which was inside the monastery of Santa Maria de Pedralves in Barcelona. The topic of the exhibition had to be related to "malestar= being in an bad condition". The topic that was chosen was solitude expressed as miscommunication. The works that were chosen are criticizing the rupture of social and personal relationships and are culminating with "white" ,a site-specific installation about alienation. The character of the space was maintained by minimizing any intervention necessary for the exhibition and leaving as many uncovered surfaces as possible. Concrete L-shaped panels in natural colour were used for exhibiting the works and directing the public. The spatial characteristics were completely and deliberately erased inside "white".The visitor enters and is directed though corridors with impeccable white surfaces to private viewing booths. He is listening to a incomprehensible murmur. The sound stops inside the booths. He alone can peep to a white void cube.
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1 ENTRANCE 2 ALAN WEXLER 3 HIDELGARD HAHN
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6 HANNAH COLLINS 7 SAM TAYLOR WOOD 8 KELLY DOBSON 9 PIPILOTTI RIST 10 JAVIER PEREZ 11 GENIVIEV CADIEX 12 AGNES DENES 13 PEP ESPALIU 14 ABSALON 15 BLANCO 16 EXIT
MONOLOGOS_EXIBITION DESIGN_BARCELONA_2002
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TIRISM_SHORT FILMS_BELGRADE_2002 IN COLLABORATION WITH ARCH. DEJAN MRDJA
Tirism is a short low-fi video. The five episodes of the video describe my first visit to Belgrade and Novi Sad, Serbia, giving only the outlines of my daily activities. Carefully avoiding and deliberately neglecting the main reasons of my visit to Serbia, the video is depicting only peculiarities of the Serbian cities that I am visiting, small personal details in my closest environment and glitches in the video equipment used for the making of that video. Tirism was presented in Deputnale Film Festival in Linz, Austria.
POLIS GRAND HOTEL _ ATHENS _ 2004 possition held: ARCHITECT/ WFORM DESIGN
The main toilets are situated on a mezzanine floor of small dimensions between the main entrance and the lobby on the first floor. It is an auxiliary space but it is situated in a central point for the hotel. Instead of concealing the space we decided to turn it into an interesting feature. The entrance halls in female and male toilets are separated by glass partitions using a film of unidirectional visibility that enlarge the dimensions of the space while securing privacy. A four meter long pearl chandelier made by Parisian jewellery artist Aris Geldis is between the two halls and it is also visible from the mezzanine. The chandelier that extends to two floor levels unifies the lobby with the entrance while creating an interesting ambient in the mezzanine space.
SHOP WINDOWS_ATHENS_2002 possition held: ARCHITECT/ IN COLLABORATION WITH W.MARITSAS The Shop is a store of contemporary urban clothing in the centre of Athens. The client requested three different designs for the shop window, each one for a different collection: spring, summer and autumn. Prints on cardboard, astro turf, plastic animals and ribbons, all attached to dexion frame, were creating a funny and surprising stage for the manequins. It was also a quest to create a result that would attracting the passer-bys attention without overshadowing the exhibited clothes. .
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SHOP WINDOWS_ATHENS_2002
model making_miscelaneous projects_1992/2000
model making_miscelaneous projects_1992/2000