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presented in barcelona's Landscape's biennial 2007 - sao paulo architecture's biennial / section of Action Architecture - mestre's galleria contemporaneo
aristide antonas & filippos oreopoulos
presented in barcelona's Landscape's biennial 2007 - sao paulo architecture's biennial / section of Action Architecture - mestre's galleria contemporaneo
Island_ builtEvent 1
The Island_ builtEvent 1 project uses the notion of the wreckage as an analogy for a destroyed description. This island is viewed as an impossible destination. The group did finally get to the island twice but the result from the gathered material was prefigured: in a theatrical constitution of a calculated event the remains withdraw the possibility of any concrete approach to the prohibited island even after having rented 3 boats, travelled more than 7 hours and finally reached it.
diary
1 MARCH 2005
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project commencement
ISLAND _ BUILT EVENT:
A text describing the project was sent via e-mail to recipients who might be interested in it. Recipients of the e-mail were included in the project. The project involved a series of approaches on Youra, a wild, deserted island which is part of the Northern Sporades islands; it is an island of shipwrecks, where access to visitors is prohibited. The island is protected by guards of the Forest Office. The sea surrounding the island is protected by the coast guard.
The text describing the project was also posted on notice boards at the Department of Architecture of the University of Thessaly’s School of Engineering. The ‘landscape workshop’, an 8th semester course, was incorporated in the project, as was the conceptual design course: a built event workshop was organized, open to anyone who wished to participate in it with presentations and talks on projects in progress.
Initial analysis of the project and presentation to students in the Department of Architecture.
The text describing the project which was posted and distributed is the following:
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
UNIVERSITY OF THESSALY / SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING / DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE + + + + + + + LANDSCAPE WORKSHOP / ARISTIDE ANTONAS - CONCEPTUAL DESIGN WORKSHOP / FILIPPOS ORAIOPOULOS / PEDION AREOS 38334 VOLOS
ISLAND – built EVENT
A SERIES OF DESCRIPTIVE CONSTRUCTIONS, INITIAL APPROACH, AN IDENTITY PENDING : The project revolves around the island of Youra. The island lies in the Aegean sea, six hours from Volos, and is part of Magnesia Prefecture’s Sporades islands. Youra is deserted, as are most of the islands in the region. Some of them (Trikeri, Alonnisos) were places of exile for political prisoners, while others belonged to Mount Athos monasteries (Kyra Panagia, Pappous) or were used as pastures (Piperi). The small number of buildings on Youra (traces of a small monastery, a preserved church, ruins from the first installation of the first guards, today’s installation of the guards) points to the island’s deserted state. Until being ceded to the Greek State, Youra was a hunting ground for Greece’s kings. The island also has mythological associations, since – legend has it – the Cyclops’ cave is placed –according to a legend- there. Shipwrecks are a common occurrence at Youra; many sunken ships and their loads are gradually being located in the deep waters of the greater region. A ship carrying 200 immigrants ran aground on the deserted island on 26 December 2001. Youra is located in the middle of the Alonnisos marine park; it is a protected biotope and may not be visited without special permission from the Sporades Forest Office. The island is guarded by two to three guards who have rotating ten-day shifts.
The ISLAND – built Event project constructs the island’s pending identity. The interest lies in the difficulty of forming a local identity, seen as a dynamic, creative act. Specific events have led to the island being identified as a certain form: thus, it has become an island of shipwrecks, of politics, of ecology, of desertedness or of isolation, depending on one’s perspective. Each individual act performed on the island has formed or reformed it as a different form. The built event that is being organized, involving the presentation of projects and talks on the island, will replace the island’s lack of identity (lack of generality) with something. The island’s pending identity is thus a platform or an open forum. The place is interpreted as a collection of produced narrations describing it and of constructions that it awaits. It is defined by patience. This patience (which welcomes and organizes the pending identity) characterizes the project. The project is presented as an action stemming from this patience.
The procedure involved in bringing the project to fruition entails the following practical steps:
A. Artists, philosophers, anthropologists, scientists and architects as well as the students from the University of Thessaly’s TAM School of Architecture: (final year students and graduates) and other Schools are invited to participate in the project.
B. From the start of the spring semester students will work on the project of the University of Thessaly’s TAM School of Architecture. With the students’ involvement in the project’s production process, it is the educational process that is introduced into its production process, and not the other way round.
C. Discussions and debates will be held at the TAM Department of Architecture between special guests and the students, on issues relating to the island of Youra and which also concern other islands in Magnesia Prefecture (Trikeri, Alonnisos, Kyra Panagia, Pappous, etc.). One month after the project’s commencement – on 5 April – the students and any of the guests who are interested will visit the island of Trikeri, and on 16 and 17 April there will be a first visit to Youra, heading from Alonnisos and via the Sporades islands.
The insistence on the place itself cannot be understood without conceptualization. An itinerary and a meeting on the island form a research field on intentions and inventions of the island. Intentions and inventions are presented through discourses and constructions. In the field of the uncertain island, the place itself and any identity of the place stay suspended. In the same field the built event is the notion that provides a substitute for identity without betraying suspension. The decision, the coincidence and the incident organize each time temporary structures of the built event.
The two days of discussions have been organized as follows: Having agreed to participate in the project from the start and having received the available material (conception of the project – key concepts, photographs, geographical, historical and anthropological material, written accounts, etc.), the participants will visit the place on 14 May (Saturday) during a joint trip. There, they will share their initial thoughts on the subject and exchange views at the place itself (Youra), weather permitting, or on the closest inhabited island (Alonnisos). In the meantime, once the project has commenced, the participants will be able to send their thoughts or projects (material that they have developed with a specific construction in mind for the island or letters expressing their agreement, objections or alternative ideas pertaining to the project’s organisation), thus creating interventions throughout the project’s duration by developing a network that promotes the ongoing exchange of information and critiques. They can bring or send the final draft of their (philosophical, anthropological, scientific, poetic, theatrical and other) speech and their constructions (whether in the form of art, film, photography, music or other) by June, at which time – if necessary – one last visit to the island will be arranged, marking the ‘end’ of the project.
D. During the project’s production, based at the TAM Department of Architecture in Volos, artists, philosophers, anthropologists, architects and scientists will, alone or in groups, present talks or constructions referring or corresponding to a visit to the island of Youra or other similar places in the Magnesia region (Trikeri, Alonnisos – places of exile; Pteleos beach – place of shipwrecked immigrants, etc.). The same participants can also present a new talk or construction specifically on the particular project during these two days.
E. Lastly, different agencies (Department of Architecture, University of Thessaly, Alonnisos Municipality, ecological agencies, Forest Office, Volos immigrant support group, immigration agency, etc.) will be invited together with the previous guests to develop the project into a permanently open forum on this particular island.
The project is already in progress and its duration will be determined by the action taken by people regarding Youra and according to the contracts being drawn up. If we conceptualize the project’s structure (built event) as the plot of a live, realistic theatrical play, then the roles of the participants will be identified with their actual participation. The project will officially come to an end at a specific date and time to be announced. The results of the ISLAND – built Event project (discourses and constructions) will be placed in containers (mobile exhibition spaces) for viewing, while sheets submitted by the participants will be compiled into a large book to which new material will be able to be added (the book will be bound with removable screws). Thus, although presented as a temporally specific ‘theatrical’ event, the project will remain permanently open. The first stage in the process will be presented in a separate edition. The staging of such an architectural project (built event) aims at composing the content and unfolding the process dialectically through ongoing transformations in the internal time of the project’s constructions.
ARISTIDE ANTONAS & FILIPPOS ORAIOPOULOS
PS: All who wish to take part in the two days of discussions for the ISLAND – Built Event project (a project of talks and constructions) must register by 30 April so that the necessary arrangements can be made (tickets, accommodation, etc.):
Filippos Oraiopoulos (e-mail:…; fax: (+30) 24210 74272, 2310 266387; mobile: (+30) 69…)
Aristide Antonas (e-mail:…; fax: (+30) 24210 74272, 2310 266387; mobile: (+30) 69…)
At the moment, the program is as follows :
Friday, 13 May, afternoon meeting at the Architecture Department in Volos
Saturday, 14 May, 07:00 depart for Alonnisos from Volos
» , 10:00 arrive at Alonnisos and depart for Youra
» , 12:30 – 18:00 visit the island, presentations and discussions
» , 21:00 return to Alonnisos, overnight stay
Sunday, 15 May Depart for Volos in the morning or afternoon (at each participant’s discretion).
Tuesday 8 MARCH 2005:
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Architect Manolis Berahas, head of the support group for the immigrants who were shipwrecked on 26 December 2001 on the island of Youra, presented his experiences and thoughts on the condition of immigrants in Greece today to the students: immigrant routes (east - west), Greece as a transitional point, legislative framework, living conditions.
Mehdi Salehi, student in the Department of Architecture, described his personal experiences as an immigrant: the lack of an identity card constitutes the best strategy in order to obtain a residence permit.
The map of the island was presented on a 1:50000 scale map.
A discussion followed.
[ Scanned image of the newspaper, photograph of the presentation and the map. ]
Tuesday 15 MARCH 2005:
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First visit (Aristide Antonas, Filippos Oraiopoulos) to the island of Youra following repeated postponements over a period of two months due to bad weather conditions. The issue of a visiting permit by the Skopelos Forest Office and Alonnisos Port Authority was necessary before the trip.
The trip to Youra lasted three hours with the flying dolphin and six hours with the Evangelistria fishing vessel belonging to Vassilis Kalogiannis. During the visit, the visitors were escorted by Nikos Anagnostou, guard from the Alonnisos Forest Office. Photo shoots, video recordings and discussions with the guard and boatman on their experiences on the island, and especially on the 26 December 2001 shipwreck, for which they provided their own personal testimony.
2½ hour stay on the island and return on the same day. Night on Alonnisos and return to Volos at dawn on the next day.
[ photographs, Mr. Vassilis’ diary, the text of Mr. Vassilis’ speech, dialogues between Vassilis and guard ].
Tuesday 22 MARCH 2005:
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Architect Sophia Vyzoviti (PhD), an associate of the BUILT EVENT workshop, presented the program (views and techniques) on the protection of marine parks in Greece, and especially in the Sporades islands, to which Youra belongs. Sustainable fishing was at the centre of all programs. Presentation of feasibility and technical description of artificial reefs.
[ A text and data from the Service’s CD must be included. ]
First attempt in the built event workshop to describe the island by using the photographs and by reading the map. New narrations on the island gathered from different sources. Thoughts on new constructions on the island.
Tuesday 29 MARCH 2005:
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Archaeologist Dimitris Kourkoumelis presented a survey of shipwrecks in the Mediterranean from antiquity till recently, and especially of shipwrecks in the Northern Sporades island complex. He described the conditions of the shipwrecks by focusing on the weather conditions, geography and the vessels’ construction. He discussed ideas on illicit trade in underwater antiquities, net fishing at ancient shipwreck sites and on fishing resorts. The “Alonissos shipwreck” not far away from Youra is one of the most important submarine finds.
[ photograph from the talk’s setting and visual material from Dimitris Kourkoumelis’ presentation ]
Discussions on the built event workshop.
Presentation of new narrations and construction projects.
[ project sketches ]
Tuesday 5 APRIL 2005:
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Tasos Sakellaropoulos, historian and expert researcher of places of exile for political prisoners, accompanied the built event workshop that took place outside the classes of the Department of Architecture on their trip to Trikeri island in the Pagasitic Gulf, a place of exile for women during the most recent civil war in Greece. Participants in the workshop were transported to the Trikeri mountain village by a bus belonging to the University of Thessaly (trip lasted approximately 2 hours); from there they took a taxi (approximately 15 minutes) and a boat (approximately 10 minutes).
Immediately after their arrival at the island’s beach, Tasos Sakellaropoulos explained the system governing the exile of political prisoners in Greece (arrests, organization of camps, torture, everyday way of life, prisoners’ culture, ideology, transfers, selection of places of exile) from the time of the Metaxas dictatorship (1936) to the more recent military dictatorship of the colonels (1967), and mainly during the time of the civil war. A discussion on the specific site on the island followed.
A visit, on foot, to the area around the island’s monastery, where exiled women were held, and to the area surrounding it. There is almost no concrete trace of the area where the tents were put up. Residents’ narrations and a guest book from the women’s visits, who return each June to the place of their suffering. Two books on the places of exile (with ample photographic material), which Tasos Sakellaropoulos brought with him, provide the only picture of the place of exile. Coexistence of the holy monastery and place of exile, different forms of desertion and isolation.
Meal on the island; return trip with discussions on the bus and arrival in Volos at night.
[ text by Tasos Sakellaropoulos and photographic material ]
Tuesday 12 APRIL 2005:
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Biologist Panos Dendrinos, who is in charge of organizing the northern Sporades marine park, presented the concept and organization of the marine park, and particularly the actions and institutions that are working to protect the Mediterranean monk seal (monachus monachus). He described their way of life, living conditions and topological requirements for the reproduction of mammals in the island complex’ sea caves, which form part of the marine park. Regional classification, assessment and ordering of the seals’ habitats (from their place of birth to the place of survival).
A discussion followed mainly on the special method employed in creating artificial areas for the birth and survival of seals.
[ photographic material from the discussion and the material used by the speaker himself ]
Saturday 16 APRIL 2005:
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First visit of the built event workshop to the island of Youra.
Departure from Volos at 8 a.m. and arrival on Alonnisos at 11 a.m.
March / protest by the residents against the reduction of ship lines.
Departure from Alonnisos at around 11:15 together with two guards from the Forest Office, who were to spend more days on the island. Before visiting the island, a visiting permit with a list of all the names of the visitors to the island (22 persons) was issued by the Skopelos Forest Office and Alonnisos Port Authority.
Arrival on the island of Youra at 2 in the afternoon. Anchored on the north side due to the south winds.
Visit and tour of the residential space of the guards with the guards as guides. The built facilities on a leeward part of the island enjoy a view of the Sporades archipelago, between the two anchoring points (NE, SW) and are five minutes away from “Cyclops’” prehistoric cave, which has been locked by archaeologists. There are two built “complexes”. The first includes a deserted house from the first prison facility together with the ruins of one stone and one iron reservoir, as well as a shelter for the King’s hunting dogs. The second complex has wire fencing at some parts, but the greater part is fenced with a stone enclosure used in the past, possibly part of the monastery. In the enclosed area, one finds the monastery’s church, which has been restored, the guards’ residences and accommodation for ten hunters. This is the result of reuse following significant changes and extensions on the ruins of the pre-existing monastery.
A visit to Cyclops’ cave, supervised by the guard who keeps the keys. Traces of prehistoric habitation; it has already been excavated by the Greek Archaeological Service. It has a 22 metre difference in height and an opening of about 10 meters.
The goats are indiscernible. Problems arise in terms of guarding them to ensure the authenticity of their “identity”. The protection of the island is related to a pure race of rare goats and the secureness of their integrity.
Departure at 5 in the afternoon. The return trip included the circumnavigation of the island. The sea was rough due to the south winds. The northern part of the island is steep with a series of caves close to or at a distance from the sea.
Discreet presence of the coast guard speedboat guarding the marine park.
[ Georges Bataille on animals, Theory of Religion, fragment to include ]
Return via a small convoy at 9 p.m., slightly worn out by the cold and surge of the sea.
Sunday 17 APRIL 2005:
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Return trip to Volos cancelled due to the stormy winds (over 8 on the Beaufort scale).
On the occasion, the possibility of the next visit and the meeting of all participants in the island is discussed. The vessel “Odyssey” is in the Alonissos port.
Visit to the main village at noon (the place where the first inhabitants of the island settled). Lunch and dancing performed by the residents. The visitors from the built event workshop participated.
At night, a coast guard official phoned to inform A. Antonas and F. Oraiopoulos that two of the participants in the workshop had dived into the dark, rough sea and advised greater caution.
On the next day, Monday 18 April, at 06:15, before sunrise, the navigation restriction was lifted, therefore allowing the travelers to return to Volos.
[ photographic material, designs, discussions ]
19 APRIL 2005:
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Discussions at the built event workshop at the Department of Architecture on new thoughts and proposals following the visit to Youra.
[ photographs, sketches, discussions ]
Friday, 13 MAY 2005:
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Late afternoon, Volos, introductory meeting held at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Thessaly with those participating in the meeting/two-day conference/trip to Youra.
Saturday, 14 MAY 2005:
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Departure for Youra at 7 a.m. on the M/S Odyssey. The participants were 12 guests from Greece and abroad and 34 more architects, artists, philosophers and scientists who expressed an interest in the project.
The Pagasitic Gulf has calm waters, but outside the gulf the north-easterly winds cause swells.
After 2 hours at sea, during which breakfast had been taken and the passengers got to know each other, sometimes discussing topics related to the ISLAND_BUILT EVENT project, a video was shown inside the ship, presenting the informal account of Vassilis Kalogiannis, a fisherman and hunter from Alonnisos who regularly runs the route from Alonnisos to Youra and back again in his small boat in order to fish and to transport the forest guards who monitor the island. He gives an account of when the shipwrecked immigrants were found on 26 December 2001. He was the first to find them and also helped them.
Filippos Oraiopoulos and Aristide Antonas then took the floor and described the context within which the project was to take place, directing the passengers’ interest to two issues:
(a) the type of project: Built_EVENT
(b) the scope of the project: ISLAND
Their talks are recorded. Antonas and Oraiopoulos carried with them some texts describing what they would speak about on board. Here is what these printed papers were writing:
[ Filippos Oraiopoulos’ paper ] :
“In the post-network age, one perceives a certain resistance and lack in the semantic and material function of the place. On the one hand, the physical place as a venue of events (talks and constructions) continues to fight against being effaced by the intangible website. On the other hand, the website makes local events universal, even though it is often characterized by an inability to convert local events (talks and constructions) into events of all-embracing significance.
The choice of a deserted place, an island, as the extreme version of obscurity, prohibition and oblivion, contains in itself the aspiration that it will lead to the experimental treatment of this resistance and lack. Such a treatment can take place by leaving the place’s identity hanging and by seeking the generalisation of this pending state based on the purposeful conception of random ‘poetic events’.
Therefore, on the verge of a momentary memory and oblivion for the mythological, historical and recent events on the island of Youra (Cyclops’ cave, destruction of monastery, ecological protection and hunting of wild goat, shipwrecked immigrants in December 2001), a forum for ‘poetic’ creation has been formed by means of the BUILT EVENT project, initial approach: an identity pending.
This is the forum through which the BUILT EVENT project has taken place. It is a live construction of events with an executive character. It has a beginning and an end, and is spanned by a live, non-descriptive procedure that does nevertheless have a mimetic nature, in the Aristotelian sense, i.e. a poetic mimesis of the types of event and not of the images representing them.
The procedure began at the moment when the e-mail containing the text on the ISLAND_BUILT EVENT project’s creation was sent, at which time the same text was also put up at the Department of Architecture of the University of Thessaly.
The executive procedure has various concurrent levels –there could be more or less – of successive live events. These events may be succeeded by others on each level but they are structurally linked within, forming the plot of the ISLAND_BUILT EVENT project.
The first level of events is held at Thessaly University’s Architecture Department every Tuesday, where experts were invited to present topics related to events that the island’s mnemonic space already contains (shipwrecked immigrants, shipwrecks in general, marine park, places of political exile).
The second level entails the presentation, each Tuesday, of talks and constructions by the students taking part in the project, in this way incorporating the educational process into it.
The third level of events took place every fifteen days or so (on Wednesday afternoons) and contains theoretical pursuits: art, verbal expression, technologies, communications, philosophical discussion on the concept of the island, architecture, cinema, travel).
The fourth level comprises trips taken to the island of Trikeri (where women were exiled during the civil war) and the island of Youra:
First trip to Youra (A. Antonas, F. Oraiopoulos), by ship sailing the regular route and a chartered boat
First trip to Trikeri (T. Sakelaropoulos, A. Antonas, F. Oraiopoulos, architecture students at Thessaly University), by coach and a chartered boat
Second trip to Youra (A. Antonas, F. Oraiopoulos, architecture students at Thessaly University), by ship sailing the regular route and two boats.
Third trip attended by guests (Greeks and foreigners, with multiple approaches - philosophy, science, architecture, art), students from different Schools (Patras, Athens, Volos) by chartered ship ODYSSEY.
The third trip to Youra consisted of talks, discussions, exchange of opinions and constructions.
One last trip may be made to present constructions and actions as an offer to the island.
The creation of events may continue randomly and unpredictably up until another last trip, which will maybe mark the end of the project.
Each event consists of a group of smaller events of a structural, unstable, incomplete and executive nature, as a type of forum, or possible conditions whose purpose is to set into motion purposeful inventions of new talks and constructions following direct / live contact with the place itself, where possible.
The structure of the above events seems to be analogous (similarities and differences) to the structure of theatrical events. The enactment of the text and roles is absent in the built event since each person presents his or her personal action and view.
If all these events are to be created with certain people being present in order to invent talks and constructions on the island’s pending identity – which aims at attempting a form of ontology for the particular place – one will have to include all the talks and constructions of all those who did not experience the place directly, as well as the talks and constructions not made by all those who were invited and could not respond and by anyone who was absent in the construction of the pending identity of Youra. However, the latter can never happen and so the island’s identity will be eternally pending. The Youra ISLAND_BUILT EVENT project has nevertheless helped to change the island’s pending identity. But in what direction and at what hidden depth? One possible answer could be the description – as far as this is possible – of its plot, as the minimal common trace that unites the internal structures of the events that built this type of project with talks and constructions. In such a type of project, the creation of talks and constructions and their organization in the form of an exhibition and book cannot but be the ashes that remain after the actual procedures creating the events have been performed”.
Then Aristide Antonas spoke. His speech was recorded by Lukas Bartatilas, fragment No 66 in the Island Built Event’s film archive. His printed paper contained fragmental thoughts he did during the evolution of the project. His talk highlighted only some of them.
[ Aristide Antonas’ paper ]:
“The return from digital to conventional sites is not to be understood here as a simple comeback. Something has changed in conventional locality after the familiarization with electronic networks. This return has its ways to introduce distance as a structure of politics. The return to the specific site of deserted island in the northern Aegean sea, under new terms for descriptions and constructions, is related to what could be understood as a post digital conception of space in the Island_BuiltEvent project. The lost proximity of the site is, in the case of Youra, only paradigmatic. - - - - A theater play is performed here. We are chosen actors that play a role that every one conceives as of his own. We record abundantly whatever happens. We don’t know if the play is the archive of these recordings or the trip we are doing now. Recording is a trip. + + + + in the post-network era one can detect a problem of proximity to any locus. A new problem of “place”, traced today, needs a post-network definition. - - - - The phenomenon of detachment from conventional space –which transcends the narrow limits of architecture– has consequences for space “itself” in the conventional meaning of the word. The question one might ask here is, “What would it mean if we were to return to ‘space itself’ under conditions where the concept of ‘space itself’ has been dealt a severe blow?”. What would be the consequences of some post-network proximity to any specific place? + + + + the process whereby something noteworthy is built by the gaze, i.e. about the inventions of the gaze, produced out of a jumble of dead materials. - - - - the act of listening to some silence is already a strong act. + + + + a process which retrieves meanings out of the deserted island once that island is chosen, as soon as someone is called to pay special attention to it. What was hitherto presented as forgotten and unworthy of attention is retrieved and re-examined through a call for the visitor’s gaze. The mechanism of the project forcibly draws something from oblivion to the daylight; it includes the act of revealing and is inevitably dependent upon the person who sees. The island we try to observe is rebuilt by the gaze which subverts the difference between the forgotten and the admirable and introduces the unimportant into the realm of importance. - - - - to project a listening to a specific silent place. + + + + The process of any island description is conceived as a construction, signed by the person who sees. Island_BuiltEvent is a collection of such signatures that describe by constructing. - - - - The constructed description that resurrects the relic is an event on the body of the island which takes place on a specific time. A Built Event marks the insignificant island as important. + + + + The built event: 3months theater play around a specific island. - - - - Each text and each photograph from the BuiltEvent procedure can be conceived as the dead remain and the trace of a never formed theatrical identity. + + + + Every construction on the island forms a specific description of the island. Any description of the island is already a construction. - - - - Constructing a field for descriptions. + + + + The description of the island fixes for a moment the meaning of a gaze: a meaning which describes also the eye that sees. - - - - Difficult descriptions! + + + + The island will remain programmatically unreachable, dark. Between darkness and the dazzle from excessive light, the island ends up invisible, the gaze that looks at it remains blind. However, one can discern on the body of the island the signatures and dates which attest to the mechanism that sheds light on something dark at the specific moment in time. The mechanism which identifies the island binds the living person to the significance of the dead site. - - - - Deserted place, prohibited visit. + + + + Moreover, the deserted island is recognised as important while remaining useless. Its retrieval marks a sudden change in its character: the useless becomes admirable. - - - - the specific subject on which we centre does not lend itself to any specific, obvious reading. The special, local element was chosen so as not to facilitate focusing no matter how close one gets to it. The advance towards the deserted island of Youra, the persistence on its specific presence, is turned into the predetermined experience of some infeasible arrival. + + + + Focusing generates a deliberate diffusion of meaning. - - - - We get close to the island of Youra, but its enigma keeps us off. Devoid of any obvious interpretation, such sites lend themselves to different parallel readings. We cannot inhabit them, and yet –now more than in the past– we are condemned to inhabiting only some similar ones. + + + + Any mechanism for approaching the selected sites takes into account the impossibility of arriving at them. - - - - The special local element is sought in situ. The island is turned into a meeting point. The mechanism for approaching the island generates in-situ encounters, itineraries around it, testimonies about it from the people who meet there. + + + + The island is organized in the journal of the meetings, as a narrative whose heroes are those who meet. The local and special element is generated by the testimonies of the people at these meetings. - - - - the hard, conventional post-network site is presented as a function of meetings, as a function of its lightweight, fleeting, live elements. + + + + A simple logbook is organized at the ‘core’ of the site. The island is formed through an organized group visit and finalized through the meetings, deeds and words which were attached to them. In this approach the documents of the meetings replace the island ‘itself. The meetings build the island, at the same time abolishing any local homogeneity and unity of it. - - - - “the ability of the gaze to reveal something hidden”: a description of every construction. + + + + The island formalizes the process of a revelation, and this process is determined by the signature of the beholder. - - - - The signature corresponds to some attachment which engraves the experience of seeing the island on its body. The gaze discerns something as a new island and at the same time attaches a pre-existing thing on it. Through this mechanism the gaze can see sites which are hard to describe. The attachment reminds one of a creative structure. The island appears as a receptor awaiting modifications from different attachments. + + + + The island becomes a mechanism of attachments and a field of assortments. - - - - Definition: a signed attachment. + + + + a visit of the site or a thought about it from afar constitute complex intellectual operations. - - - - the travel to the descriptions and to the constructions of the island constitutes an architectural journey. + + + + The travel to the island of Yura: an art of building islands. - - - - the architecture of conceiving which can be understood as an art. + + + + The paradigmatic representation of the island, through its meeting point is itself an open structure. - - - - A visitor’s gaze distorts the vague shapes and renders them familiar. + + + + The island patiently bears the constructional, formulating power of each gaze. But which island is that? This collection of attachments turns visitors into witnesses to the existence of a common local sub-base which appears nowhere. The visitors to the island are witnesses to an absence. And this open absence can be attested to but not recorded: it is what is missing from any record. - - - - Different records build incompletely various local paradigms. The lack behind this insufficiency lies behind any paradigmatic approach to the site. + + + + The depth of the site is – in this case – made of absence. - - - - As an example, the island is described and constructed through inherently faulty definitions. As a paradigm, the island has become a meeting, a function of testimonies, a conceptual mechanism, a series of paradigmatic structures, an architecture of juxtaposed elements, a catalogue or a diary. + + + + Different meeting points have been set in the same place. Different paradigms at the same island, different landscapes for each observant visitor: each built description is waiting for another, speaks of the other, inside a deserted area with no limits and no real foundation: Youra, northern Aegean sea”.
The long journey in the Sporades archipelago continues, during which time the passengers held discussions in small groups.
At around 1 p.m., the ship makes a stop at Alonnisos for supplies and in order for the guard Nikos Anagnostou – who is to accompany the participants on the trip – to embark. Nikos Anagnostou was to help point out the place where the ship had run aground, give the participants a tour of the island and take charge, as it was his duty to do, of the visit to the prohibited area.
At around 3 o’clock the ship approached Youra after having sailed past many uninhabited islets in the Northern Sporades at a short distance from their coasts. During this part of the journey dolphins from the marine park approached the ship. Here the water was choppier and the captain informed everyone that in all likelihood he would not be able to approach the island, making disembarkation impossible. The island has no pier and the only option was for the ship to approach it on its south-western, rocky side (the winds were north-easterly), which is relatively sheltered. However, even though the waves are small here, it is still very dangerous because of the eddies formed by strong winds that swoop down from the island’s mountain and which can force a ship onto the rocks. The sea is very deep here and is not suitable for anchoring.
After some difficult maneuvers, the captain succeeded in approaching the island and mooring.
The passengers disembarked on the island and followed the winding path up the steep slope.
The artist Zafos Xagoraris unpacked the equipment he had brought to make a sound installation. At the entrance of a large cave, he placed 6 loud speakers and a transformer system, which magnified the sound made by the ship, the sea and the wind.
In the yard of the makeshift but familiar prison facilities, two pergolas made from cheap materials, a monastery-style marble well, a single stone column as well as a large table and a bench with chairs created the area allocated for views to be presented, ideas to be expressed and for each visitor to take part in the project and discussion.
The architect Alexis Dallas was the first to express his views and aspirations for the island and focused on the subject: HORS TEXTE (to be posted later in its edited form). Sophia Vizoviti, Menelaos Kokkinos, Zafos Xagoraris, Alcyone Boucharaki, Evi Papageorgiou, Ron Walkey, Eva Manidaki, Spyros Papadopoulos, Aristide Antonas, Yannis Papayannakis, Filippos Oraiopoulos, Yannis Arvanitis and other visitors described the projects under way and expressed their opinions on the ISLAND_BUILT EVENT project.
Lucas Bartatilas recorded the speeches made in the guard’s house garden on video.
Yannis Arvanitis tuned into the radio frequencies received on the island and recorded them using his own small receiver.
Time passed and the risk of a difficult return journey made it necessary to return to the ship at 7 p.m.
Going down the path leading to the island’s small facilities, along the ground there was a series of tags with the participants’ names written on them, which Yannis Papayannakis had placed at the point where each participant had stopped.
After having a meal and weather permitting, the captain was required to sail around the island as stipulated in the charter agreement. The ship did manage to sail along the north-western side of the island, but could not continue as it would have to go out into the open sea of the Aegean, where the sea was too rough for sailing. Before the ship began its return journey, at around 8 p.m., from the cape of Tambouras one could see the impressive Mount Athos. The return journey to Alonnisos was difficult due to rough seas, but the atmosphere of a night-time journey in the Sporades archipelago prevailed, with one-on-one and group discussions. Food, night-time walks in Patitiri and an overnight stay at a hotel. On the next day’s itinerary was a visit to the main village of Alonnisos and surveying the archipelago from there. The return to Volos was scheduled at midday with the catamaran sailing the regular route. A few travelers returned early in the morning.
[ catamaran leaflet to insert here or a picture from the hotel in Alonnisos island ]
Wednesday, 25 MAY 2005:
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At 7.30 p.m., Gerasimos Vokos, professor of philosophy at the Department of Political Sciences of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, discussed the topic ‘ISLAND’.
For professor Gerasimos Vokos, in the tradition of Western thought, the concept of the island has gathered a huge wealth of meanings and penetrating singularities, particularly when it is presented in a semantic pair: island-sea, i.e. as a place-journey, junction-relationship. This is due to the fact that it functioned as a genetic mechanism of a boundless wealth of transferences to metaphysics and language. In the first instance it was able to schematize and generate, with precision, penetrating thoughts on the type of truth (Hume, Kant,…). In the second instance, it generated a series of literary texts (Vern, Byron,…) and essays (Moore, Carl Schmitt,…) , capable of expressing pragmatistic, political, utopian, futuristic, anthropological and social aspects.
Wednesday, 1 JUNE 2005:
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At 7.30 p.m., Yiannis Chatzigogas, assistant professor at the Department of Architecture of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, presented the topic: architecture as cinema and the cinema as architecture, using the relationship between architecture and the cinema at the level of narration and composition as an example.
He presented two projects of the journal Archis in which he took part.
The first project was an architectural performance held in the enormous modern ruins of the cultural centre of East Berlin, with architects Koolhaas, Jenkins and others. The symbolic protest, the speeches and the polysemy of the banners strove to add a modern political dimension to the event and to drag the issues of May ’68 out of oblivion and into the issues of the city.
The second project aspired to provide a modern conceptualization of architectural theft, as the absence of the real. It took place in two places: Berlin’s Pergamum Museum (where the ancient temple is exhibited) and the actual site in Pergamum where the ancient temple was built, where its representation exists.
Wednesday, 22 JUNE 2005:
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An open invitation was issued for an outdoor party held at a house in the little village in Pelion named Servanantes, for the ISLAND_BUILT EVENT project. Over 50 people (academics, students, guests) attended the party. Moments: the coincidence of the Pagasitic Gulf and the olive groves of Pelion being lit by the full moon, the attention paid to the acoustics of the music played and the screening of videos, photographs and images from the projects of the ISLAND_BUILT EVENT project (Youra) on a stone wall.
Tuesday, 28 JUNE 2005:
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Last collection of projects and notes kept by the travellers.
Monday, 4 JULY 2005:
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Elena Kapobasopoulou and Tassos Govatsos were awarded at the U.I.A.’s student competition for their projects on the ISLAND_built EVENT project (Youra). The presentation and awards took place at the U.I.A. Conference in Istanbul.
Thursday, 7 JULY 2005:
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Last reception of texts and first bounding of the material in a recheargable book.
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project commencement
ISLAND _ BUILT EVENT:
A text describing the project was sent via e-mail to recipients who might be interested in it. Recipients of the e-mail were included in the project. The project involved a series of approaches on Youra, a wild, deserted island which is part of the Northern Sporades islands; it is an island of shipwrecks, where access to visitors is prohibited. The island is protected by guards of the Forest Office. The sea surrounding the island is protected by the coast guard.
The text describing the project was also posted on notice boards at the Department of Architecture of the University of Thessaly’s School of Engineering. The ‘landscape workshop’, an 8th semester course, was incorporated in the project, as was the conceptual design course: a built event workshop was organized, open to anyone who wished to participate in it with presentations and talks on projects in progress.
Initial analysis of the project and presentation to students in the Department of Architecture.
The text describing the project which was posted and distributed is the following:
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
UNIVERSITY OF THESSALY / SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING / DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE + + + + + + + LANDSCAPE WORKSHOP / ARISTIDE ANTONAS - CONCEPTUAL DESIGN WORKSHOP / FILIPPOS ORAIOPOULOS / PEDION AREOS 38334 VOLOS
ISLAND – built EVENT
A SERIES OF DESCRIPTIVE CONSTRUCTIONS, INITIAL APPROACH, AN IDENTITY PENDING : The project revolves around the island of Youra. The island lies in the Aegean sea, six hours from Volos, and is part of Magnesia Prefecture’s Sporades islands. Youra is deserted, as are most of the islands in the region. Some of them (Trikeri, Alonnisos) were places of exile for political prisoners, while others belonged to Mount Athos monasteries (Kyra Panagia, Pappous) or were used as pastures (Piperi). The small number of buildings on Youra (traces of a small monastery, a preserved church, ruins from the first installation of the first guards, today’s installation of the guards) points to the island’s deserted state. Until being ceded to the Greek State, Youra was a hunting ground for Greece’s kings. The island also has mythological associations, since – legend has it – the Cyclops’ cave is placed –according to a legend- there. Shipwrecks are a common occurrence at Youra; many sunken ships and their loads are gradually being located in the deep waters of the greater region. A ship carrying 200 immigrants ran aground on the deserted island on 26 December 2001. Youra is located in the middle of the Alonnisos marine park; it is a protected biotope and may not be visited without special permission from the Sporades Forest Office. The island is guarded by two to three guards who have rotating ten-day shifts.
The ISLAND – built Event project constructs the island’s pending identity. The interest lies in the difficulty of forming a local identity, seen as a dynamic, creative act. Specific events have led to the island being identified as a certain form: thus, it has become an island of shipwrecks, of politics, of ecology, of desertedness or of isolation, depending on one’s perspective. Each individual act performed on the island has formed or reformed it as a different form. The built event that is being organized, involving the presentation of projects and talks on the island, will replace the island’s lack of identity (lack of generality) with something. The island’s pending identity is thus a platform or an open forum. The place is interpreted as a collection of produced narrations describing it and of constructions that it awaits. It is defined by patience. This patience (which welcomes and organizes the pending identity) characterizes the project. The project is presented as an action stemming from this patience.
The procedure involved in bringing the project to fruition entails the following practical steps:
A. Artists, philosophers, anthropologists, scientists and architects as well as the students from the University of Thessaly’s TAM School of Architecture: (final year students and graduates) and other Schools are invited to participate in the project.
B. From the start of the spring semester students will work on the project of the University of Thessaly’s TAM School of Architecture. With the students’ involvement in the project’s production process, it is the educational process that is introduced into its production process, and not the other way round.
C. Discussions and debates will be held at the TAM Department of Architecture between special guests and the students, on issues relating to the island of Youra and which also concern other islands in Magnesia Prefecture (Trikeri, Alonnisos, Kyra Panagia, Pappous, etc.). One month after the project’s commencement – on 5 April – the students and any of the guests who are interested will visit the island of Trikeri, and on 16 and 17 April there will be a first visit to Youra, heading from Alonnisos and via the Sporades islands.
The insistence on the place itself cannot be understood without conceptualization. An itinerary and a meeting on the island form a research field on intentions and inventions of the island. Intentions and inventions are presented through discourses and constructions. In the field of the uncertain island, the place itself and any identity of the place stay suspended. In the same field the built event is the notion that provides a substitute for identity without betraying suspension. The decision, the coincidence and the incident organize each time temporary structures of the built event.
The two days of discussions have been organized as follows: Having agreed to participate in the project from the start and having received the available material (conception of the project – key concepts, photographs, geographical, historical and anthropological material, written accounts, etc.), the participants will visit the place on 14 May (Saturday) during a joint trip. There, they will share their initial thoughts on the subject and exchange views at the place itself (Youra), weather permitting, or on the closest inhabited island (Alonnisos). In the meantime, once the project has commenced, the participants will be able to send their thoughts or projects (material that they have developed with a specific construction in mind for the island or letters expressing their agreement, objections or alternative ideas pertaining to the project’s organisation), thus creating interventions throughout the project’s duration by developing a network that promotes the ongoing exchange of information and critiques. They can bring or send the final draft of their (philosophical, anthropological, scientific, poetic, theatrical and other) speech and their constructions (whether in the form of art, film, photography, music or other) by June, at which time – if necessary – one last visit to the island will be arranged, marking the ‘end’ of the project.
D. During the project’s production, based at the TAM Department of Architecture in Volos, artists, philosophers, anthropologists, architects and scientists will, alone or in groups, present talks or constructions referring or corresponding to a visit to the island of Youra or other similar places in the Magnesia region (Trikeri, Alonnisos – places of exile; Pteleos beach – place of shipwrecked immigrants, etc.). The same participants can also present a new talk or construction specifically on the particular project during these two days.
E. Lastly, different agencies (Department of Architecture, University of Thessaly, Alonnisos Municipality, ecological agencies, Forest Office, Volos immigrant support group, immigration agency, etc.) will be invited together with the previous guests to develop the project into a permanently open forum on this particular island.
The project is already in progress and its duration will be determined by the action taken by people regarding Youra and according to the contracts being drawn up. If we conceptualize the project’s structure (built event) as the plot of a live, realistic theatrical play, then the roles of the participants will be identified with their actual participation. The project will officially come to an end at a specific date and time to be announced. The results of the ISLAND – built Event project (discourses and constructions) will be placed in containers (mobile exhibition spaces) for viewing, while sheets submitted by the participants will be compiled into a large book to which new material will be able to be added (the book will be bound with removable screws). Thus, although presented as a temporally specific ‘theatrical’ event, the project will remain permanently open. The first stage in the process will be presented in a separate edition. The staging of such an architectural project (built event) aims at composing the content and unfolding the process dialectically through ongoing transformations in the internal time of the project’s constructions.
ARISTIDE ANTONAS & FILIPPOS ORAIOPOULOS
PS: All who wish to take part in the two days of discussions for the ISLAND – Built Event project (a project of talks and constructions) must register by 30 April so that the necessary arrangements can be made (tickets, accommodation, etc.):
Filippos Oraiopoulos (e-mail:…; fax: (+30) 24210 74272, 2310 266387; mobile: (+30) 69…)
Aristide Antonas (e-mail:…; fax: (+30) 24210 74272, 2310 266387; mobile: (+30) 69…)
At the moment, the program is as follows :
Friday, 13 May, afternoon meeting at the Architecture Department in Volos
Saturday, 14 May, 07:00 depart for Alonnisos from Volos
» , 10:00 arrive at Alonnisos and depart for Youra
» , 12:30 – 18:00 visit the island, presentations and discussions
» , 21:00 return to Alonnisos, overnight stay
Sunday, 15 May Depart for Volos in the morning or afternoon (at each participant’s discretion).
Tuesday 8 MARCH 2005:
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Architect Manolis Berahas, head of the support group for the immigrants who were shipwrecked on 26 December 2001 on the island of Youra, presented his experiences and thoughts on the condition of immigrants in Greece today to the students: immigrant routes (east - west), Greece as a transitional point, legislative framework, living conditions.
Mehdi Salehi, student in the Department of Architecture, described his personal experiences as an immigrant: the lack of an identity card constitutes the best strategy in order to obtain a residence permit.
The map of the island was presented on a 1:50000 scale map.
A discussion followed.
[ Scanned image of the newspaper, photograph of the presentation and the map. ]
Tuesday 15 MARCH 2005:
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First visit (Aristide Antonas, Filippos Oraiopoulos) to the island of Youra following repeated postponements over a period of two months due to bad weather conditions. The issue of a visiting permit by the Skopelos Forest Office and Alonnisos Port Authority was necessary before the trip.
The trip to Youra lasted three hours with the flying dolphin and six hours with the Evangelistria fishing vessel belonging to Vassilis Kalogiannis. During the visit, the visitors were escorted by Nikos Anagnostou, guard from the Alonnisos Forest Office. Photo shoots, video recordings and discussions with the guard and boatman on their experiences on the island, and especially on the 26 December 2001 shipwreck, for which they provided their own personal testimony.
2½ hour stay on the island and return on the same day. Night on Alonnisos and return to Volos at dawn on the next day.
[ photographs, Mr. Vassilis’ diary, the text of Mr. Vassilis’ speech, dialogues between Vassilis and guard ].
Tuesday 22 MARCH 2005:
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Architect Sophia Vyzoviti (PhD), an associate of the BUILT EVENT workshop, presented the program (views and techniques) on the protection of marine parks in Greece, and especially in the Sporades islands, to which Youra belongs. Sustainable fishing was at the centre of all programs. Presentation of feasibility and technical description of artificial reefs.
[ A text and data from the Service’s CD must be included. ]
First attempt in the built event workshop to describe the island by using the photographs and by reading the map. New narrations on the island gathered from different sources. Thoughts on new constructions on the island.
Tuesday 29 MARCH 2005:
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Archaeologist Dimitris Kourkoumelis presented a survey of shipwrecks in the Mediterranean from antiquity till recently, and especially of shipwrecks in the Northern Sporades island complex. He described the conditions of the shipwrecks by focusing on the weather conditions, geography and the vessels’ construction. He discussed ideas on illicit trade in underwater antiquities, net fishing at ancient shipwreck sites and on fishing resorts. The “Alonissos shipwreck” not far away from Youra is one of the most important submarine finds.
[ photograph from the talk’s setting and visual material from Dimitris Kourkoumelis’ presentation ]
Discussions on the built event workshop.
Presentation of new narrations and construction projects.
[ project sketches ]
Tuesday 5 APRIL 2005:
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Tasos Sakellaropoulos, historian and expert researcher of places of exile for political prisoners, accompanied the built event workshop that took place outside the classes of the Department of Architecture on their trip to Trikeri island in the Pagasitic Gulf, a place of exile for women during the most recent civil war in Greece. Participants in the workshop were transported to the Trikeri mountain village by a bus belonging to the University of Thessaly (trip lasted approximately 2 hours); from there they took a taxi (approximately 15 minutes) and a boat (approximately 10 minutes).
Immediately after their arrival at the island’s beach, Tasos Sakellaropoulos explained the system governing the exile of political prisoners in Greece (arrests, organization of camps, torture, everyday way of life, prisoners’ culture, ideology, transfers, selection of places of exile) from the time of the Metaxas dictatorship (1936) to the more recent military dictatorship of the colonels (1967), and mainly during the time of the civil war. A discussion on the specific site on the island followed.
A visit, on foot, to the area around the island’s monastery, where exiled women were held, and to the area surrounding it. There is almost no concrete trace of the area where the tents were put up. Residents’ narrations and a guest book from the women’s visits, who return each June to the place of their suffering. Two books on the places of exile (with ample photographic material), which Tasos Sakellaropoulos brought with him, provide the only picture of the place of exile. Coexistence of the holy monastery and place of exile, different forms of desertion and isolation.
Meal on the island; return trip with discussions on the bus and arrival in Volos at night.
[ text by Tasos Sakellaropoulos and photographic material ]
Tuesday 12 APRIL 2005:
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Biologist Panos Dendrinos, who is in charge of organizing the northern Sporades marine park, presented the concept and organization of the marine park, and particularly the actions and institutions that are working to protect the Mediterranean monk seal (monachus monachus). He described their way of life, living conditions and topological requirements for the reproduction of mammals in the island complex’ sea caves, which form part of the marine park. Regional classification, assessment and ordering of the seals’ habitats (from their place of birth to the place of survival).
A discussion followed mainly on the special method employed in creating artificial areas for the birth and survival of seals.
[ photographic material from the discussion and the material used by the speaker himself ]
Saturday 16 APRIL 2005:
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First visit of the built event workshop to the island of Youra.
Departure from Volos at 8 a.m. and arrival on Alonnisos at 11 a.m.
March / protest by the residents against the reduction of ship lines.
Departure from Alonnisos at around 11:15 together with two guards from the Forest Office, who were to spend more days on the island. Before visiting the island, a visiting permit with a list of all the names of the visitors to the island (22 persons) was issued by the Skopelos Forest Office and Alonnisos Port Authority.
Arrival on the island of Youra at 2 in the afternoon. Anchored on the north side due to the south winds.
Visit and tour of the residential space of the guards with the guards as guides. The built facilities on a leeward part of the island enjoy a view of the Sporades archipelago, between the two anchoring points (NE, SW) and are five minutes away from “Cyclops’” prehistoric cave, which has been locked by archaeologists. There are two built “complexes”. The first includes a deserted house from the first prison facility together with the ruins of one stone and one iron reservoir, as well as a shelter for the King’s hunting dogs. The second complex has wire fencing at some parts, but the greater part is fenced with a stone enclosure used in the past, possibly part of the monastery. In the enclosed area, one finds the monastery’s church, which has been restored, the guards’ residences and accommodation for ten hunters. This is the result of reuse following significant changes and extensions on the ruins of the pre-existing monastery.
A visit to Cyclops’ cave, supervised by the guard who keeps the keys. Traces of prehistoric habitation; it has already been excavated by the Greek Archaeological Service. It has a 22 metre difference in height and an opening of about 10 meters.
The goats are indiscernible. Problems arise in terms of guarding them to ensure the authenticity of their “identity”. The protection of the island is related to a pure race of rare goats and the secureness of their integrity.
Departure at 5 in the afternoon. The return trip included the circumnavigation of the island. The sea was rough due to the south winds. The northern part of the island is steep with a series of caves close to or at a distance from the sea.
Discreet presence of the coast guard speedboat guarding the marine park.
[ Georges Bataille on animals, Theory of Religion, fragment to include ]
Return via a small convoy at 9 p.m., slightly worn out by the cold and surge of the sea.
Sunday 17 APRIL 2005:
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Return trip to Volos cancelled due to the stormy winds (over 8 on the Beaufort scale).
On the occasion, the possibility of the next visit and the meeting of all participants in the island is discussed. The vessel “Odyssey” is in the Alonissos port.
Visit to the main village at noon (the place where the first inhabitants of the island settled). Lunch and dancing performed by the residents. The visitors from the built event workshop participated.
At night, a coast guard official phoned to inform A. Antonas and F. Oraiopoulos that two of the participants in the workshop had dived into the dark, rough sea and advised greater caution.
On the next day, Monday 18 April, at 06:15, before sunrise, the navigation restriction was lifted, therefore allowing the travelers to return to Volos.
[ photographic material, designs, discussions ]
19 APRIL 2005:
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Discussions at the built event workshop at the Department of Architecture on new thoughts and proposals following the visit to Youra.
[ photographs, sketches, discussions ]
Friday, 13 MAY 2005:
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Late afternoon, Volos, introductory meeting held at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Thessaly with those participating in the meeting/two-day conference/trip to Youra.
Saturday, 14 MAY 2005:
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Departure for Youra at 7 a.m. on the M/S Odyssey. The participants were 12 guests from Greece and abroad and 34 more architects, artists, philosophers and scientists who expressed an interest in the project.
The Pagasitic Gulf has calm waters, but outside the gulf the north-easterly winds cause swells.
After 2 hours at sea, during which breakfast had been taken and the passengers got to know each other, sometimes discussing topics related to the ISLAND_BUILT EVENT project, a video was shown inside the ship, presenting the informal account of Vassilis Kalogiannis, a fisherman and hunter from Alonnisos who regularly runs the route from Alonnisos to Youra and back again in his small boat in order to fish and to transport the forest guards who monitor the island. He gives an account of when the shipwrecked immigrants were found on 26 December 2001. He was the first to find them and also helped them.
Filippos Oraiopoulos and Aristide Antonas then took the floor and described the context within which the project was to take place, directing the passengers’ interest to two issues:
(a) the type of project: Built_EVENT
(b) the scope of the project: ISLAND
Their talks are recorded. Antonas and Oraiopoulos carried with them some texts describing what they would speak about on board. Here is what these printed papers were writing:
[ Filippos Oraiopoulos’ paper ] :
“In the post-network age, one perceives a certain resistance and lack in the semantic and material function of the place. On the one hand, the physical place as a venue of events (talks and constructions) continues to fight against being effaced by the intangible website. On the other hand, the website makes local events universal, even though it is often characterized by an inability to convert local events (talks and constructions) into events of all-embracing significance.
The choice of a deserted place, an island, as the extreme version of obscurity, prohibition and oblivion, contains in itself the aspiration that it will lead to the experimental treatment of this resistance and lack. Such a treatment can take place by leaving the place’s identity hanging and by seeking the generalisation of this pending state based on the purposeful conception of random ‘poetic events’.
Therefore, on the verge of a momentary memory and oblivion for the mythological, historical and recent events on the island of Youra (Cyclops’ cave, destruction of monastery, ecological protection and hunting of wild goat, shipwrecked immigrants in December 2001), a forum for ‘poetic’ creation has been formed by means of the BUILT EVENT project, initial approach: an identity pending.
This is the forum through which the BUILT EVENT project has taken place. It is a live construction of events with an executive character. It has a beginning and an end, and is spanned by a live, non-descriptive procedure that does nevertheless have a mimetic nature, in the Aristotelian sense, i.e. a poetic mimesis of the types of event and not of the images representing them.
The procedure began at the moment when the e-mail containing the text on the ISLAND_BUILT EVENT project’s creation was sent, at which time the same text was also put up at the Department of Architecture of the University of Thessaly.
The executive procedure has various concurrent levels –there could be more or less – of successive live events. These events may be succeeded by others on each level but they are structurally linked within, forming the plot of the ISLAND_BUILT EVENT project.
The first level of events is held at Thessaly University’s Architecture Department every Tuesday, where experts were invited to present topics related to events that the island’s mnemonic space already contains (shipwrecked immigrants, shipwrecks in general, marine park, places of political exile).
The second level entails the presentation, each Tuesday, of talks and constructions by the students taking part in the project, in this way incorporating the educational process into it.
The third level of events took place every fifteen days or so (on Wednesday afternoons) and contains theoretical pursuits: art, verbal expression, technologies, communications, philosophical discussion on the concept of the island, architecture, cinema, travel).
The fourth level comprises trips taken to the island of Trikeri (where women were exiled during the civil war) and the island of Youra:
First trip to Youra (A. Antonas, F. Oraiopoulos), by ship sailing the regular route and a chartered boat
First trip to Trikeri (T. Sakelaropoulos, A. Antonas, F. Oraiopoulos, architecture students at Thessaly University), by coach and a chartered boat
Second trip to Youra (A. Antonas, F. Oraiopoulos, architecture students at Thessaly University), by ship sailing the regular route and two boats.
Third trip attended by guests (Greeks and foreigners, with multiple approaches - philosophy, science, architecture, art), students from different Schools (Patras, Athens, Volos) by chartered ship ODYSSEY.
The third trip to Youra consisted of talks, discussions, exchange of opinions and constructions.
One last trip may be made to present constructions and actions as an offer to the island.
The creation of events may continue randomly and unpredictably up until another last trip, which will maybe mark the end of the project.
Each event consists of a group of smaller events of a structural, unstable, incomplete and executive nature, as a type of forum, or possible conditions whose purpose is to set into motion purposeful inventions of new talks and constructions following direct / live contact with the place itself, where possible.
The structure of the above events seems to be analogous (similarities and differences) to the structure of theatrical events. The enactment of the text and roles is absent in the built event since each person presents his or her personal action and view.
If all these events are to be created with certain people being present in order to invent talks and constructions on the island’s pending identity – which aims at attempting a form of ontology for the particular place – one will have to include all the talks and constructions of all those who did not experience the place directly, as well as the talks and constructions not made by all those who were invited and could not respond and by anyone who was absent in the construction of the pending identity of Youra. However, the latter can never happen and so the island’s identity will be eternally pending. The Youra ISLAND_BUILT EVENT project has nevertheless helped to change the island’s pending identity. But in what direction and at what hidden depth? One possible answer could be the description – as far as this is possible – of its plot, as the minimal common trace that unites the internal structures of the events that built this type of project with talks and constructions. In such a type of project, the creation of talks and constructions and their organization in the form of an exhibition and book cannot but be the ashes that remain after the actual procedures creating the events have been performed”.
Then Aristide Antonas spoke. His speech was recorded by Lukas Bartatilas, fragment No 66 in the Island Built Event’s film archive. His printed paper contained fragmental thoughts he did during the evolution of the project. His talk highlighted only some of them.
[ Aristide Antonas’ paper ]:
“The return from digital to conventional sites is not to be understood here as a simple comeback. Something has changed in conventional locality after the familiarization with electronic networks. This return has its ways to introduce distance as a structure of politics. The return to the specific site of deserted island in the northern Aegean sea, under new terms for descriptions and constructions, is related to what could be understood as a post digital conception of space in the Island_BuiltEvent project. The lost proximity of the site is, in the case of Youra, only paradigmatic. - - - - A theater play is performed here. We are chosen actors that play a role that every one conceives as of his own. We record abundantly whatever happens. We don’t know if the play is the archive of these recordings or the trip we are doing now. Recording is a trip. + + + + in the post-network era one can detect a problem of proximity to any locus. A new problem of “place”, traced today, needs a post-network definition. - - - - The phenomenon of detachment from conventional space –which transcends the narrow limits of architecture– has consequences for space “itself” in the conventional meaning of the word. The question one might ask here is, “What would it mean if we were to return to ‘space itself’ under conditions where the concept of ‘space itself’ has been dealt a severe blow?”. What would be the consequences of some post-network proximity to any specific place? + + + + the process whereby something noteworthy is built by the gaze, i.e. about the inventions of the gaze, produced out of a jumble of dead materials. - - - - the act of listening to some silence is already a strong act. + + + + a process which retrieves meanings out of the deserted island once that island is chosen, as soon as someone is called to pay special attention to it. What was hitherto presented as forgotten and unworthy of attention is retrieved and re-examined through a call for the visitor’s gaze. The mechanism of the project forcibly draws something from oblivion to the daylight; it includes the act of revealing and is inevitably dependent upon the person who sees. The island we try to observe is rebuilt by the gaze which subverts the difference between the forgotten and the admirable and introduces the unimportant into the realm of importance. - - - - to project a listening to a specific silent place. + + + + The process of any island description is conceived as a construction, signed by the person who sees. Island_BuiltEvent is a collection of such signatures that describe by constructing. - - - - The constructed description that resurrects the relic is an event on the body of the island which takes place on a specific time. A Built Event marks the insignificant island as important. + + + + The built event: 3months theater play around a specific island. - - - - Each text and each photograph from the BuiltEvent procedure can be conceived as the dead remain and the trace of a never formed theatrical identity. + + + + Every construction on the island forms a specific description of the island. Any description of the island is already a construction. - - - - Constructing a field for descriptions. + + + + The description of the island fixes for a moment the meaning of a gaze: a meaning which describes also the eye that sees. - - - - Difficult descriptions! + + + + The island will remain programmatically unreachable, dark. Between darkness and the dazzle from excessive light, the island ends up invisible, the gaze that looks at it remains blind. However, one can discern on the body of the island the signatures and dates which attest to the mechanism that sheds light on something dark at the specific moment in time. The mechanism which identifies the island binds the living person to the significance of the dead site. - - - - Deserted place, prohibited visit. + + + + Moreover, the deserted island is recognised as important while remaining useless. Its retrieval marks a sudden change in its character: the useless becomes admirable. - - - - the specific subject on which we centre does not lend itself to any specific, obvious reading. The special, local element was chosen so as not to facilitate focusing no matter how close one gets to it. The advance towards the deserted island of Youra, the persistence on its specific presence, is turned into the predetermined experience of some infeasible arrival. + + + + Focusing generates a deliberate diffusion of meaning. - - - - We get close to the island of Youra, but its enigma keeps us off. Devoid of any obvious interpretation, such sites lend themselves to different parallel readings. We cannot inhabit them, and yet –now more than in the past– we are condemned to inhabiting only some similar ones. + + + + Any mechanism for approaching the selected sites takes into account the impossibility of arriving at them. - - - - The special local element is sought in situ. The island is turned into a meeting point. The mechanism for approaching the island generates in-situ encounters, itineraries around it, testimonies about it from the people who meet there. + + + + The island is organized in the journal of the meetings, as a narrative whose heroes are those who meet. The local and special element is generated by the testimonies of the people at these meetings. - - - - the hard, conventional post-network site is presented as a function of meetings, as a function of its lightweight, fleeting, live elements. + + + + A simple logbook is organized at the ‘core’ of the site. The island is formed through an organized group visit and finalized through the meetings, deeds and words which were attached to them. In this approach the documents of the meetings replace the island ‘itself. The meetings build the island, at the same time abolishing any local homogeneity and unity of it. - - - - “the ability of the gaze to reveal something hidden”: a description of every construction. + + + + The island formalizes the process of a revelation, and this process is determined by the signature of the beholder. - - - - The signature corresponds to some attachment which engraves the experience of seeing the island on its body. The gaze discerns something as a new island and at the same time attaches a pre-existing thing on it. Through this mechanism the gaze can see sites which are hard to describe. The attachment reminds one of a creative structure. The island appears as a receptor awaiting modifications from different attachments. + + + + The island becomes a mechanism of attachments and a field of assortments. - - - - Definition: a signed attachment. + + + + a visit of the site or a thought about it from afar constitute complex intellectual operations. - - - - the travel to the descriptions and to the constructions of the island constitutes an architectural journey. + + + + The travel to the island of Yura: an art of building islands. - - - - the architecture of conceiving which can be understood as an art. + + + + The paradigmatic representation of the island, through its meeting point is itself an open structure. - - - - A visitor’s gaze distorts the vague shapes and renders them familiar. + + + + The island patiently bears the constructional, formulating power of each gaze. But which island is that? This collection of attachments turns visitors into witnesses to the existence of a common local sub-base which appears nowhere. The visitors to the island are witnesses to an absence. And this open absence can be attested to but not recorded: it is what is missing from any record. - - - - Different records build incompletely various local paradigms. The lack behind this insufficiency lies behind any paradigmatic approach to the site. + + + + The depth of the site is – in this case – made of absence. - - - - As an example, the island is described and constructed through inherently faulty definitions. As a paradigm, the island has become a meeting, a function of testimonies, a conceptual mechanism, a series of paradigmatic structures, an architecture of juxtaposed elements, a catalogue or a diary. + + + + Different meeting points have been set in the same place. Different paradigms at the same island, different landscapes for each observant visitor: each built description is waiting for another, speaks of the other, inside a deserted area with no limits and no real foundation: Youra, northern Aegean sea”.
The long journey in the Sporades archipelago continues, during which time the passengers held discussions in small groups.
At around 1 p.m., the ship makes a stop at Alonnisos for supplies and in order for the guard Nikos Anagnostou – who is to accompany the participants on the trip – to embark. Nikos Anagnostou was to help point out the place where the ship had run aground, give the participants a tour of the island and take charge, as it was his duty to do, of the visit to the prohibited area.
At around 3 o’clock the ship approached Youra after having sailed past many uninhabited islets in the Northern Sporades at a short distance from their coasts. During this part of the journey dolphins from the marine park approached the ship. Here the water was choppier and the captain informed everyone that in all likelihood he would not be able to approach the island, making disembarkation impossible. The island has no pier and the only option was for the ship to approach it on its south-western, rocky side (the winds were north-easterly), which is relatively sheltered. However, even though the waves are small here, it is still very dangerous because of the eddies formed by strong winds that swoop down from the island’s mountain and which can force a ship onto the rocks. The sea is very deep here and is not suitable for anchoring.
After some difficult maneuvers, the captain succeeded in approaching the island and mooring.
The passengers disembarked on the island and followed the winding path up the steep slope.
The artist Zafos Xagoraris unpacked the equipment he had brought to make a sound installation. At the entrance of a large cave, he placed 6 loud speakers and a transformer system, which magnified the sound made by the ship, the sea and the wind.
In the yard of the makeshift but familiar prison facilities, two pergolas made from cheap materials, a monastery-style marble well, a single stone column as well as a large table and a bench with chairs created the area allocated for views to be presented, ideas to be expressed and for each visitor to take part in the project and discussion.
The architect Alexis Dallas was the first to express his views and aspirations for the island and focused on the subject: HORS TEXTE (to be posted later in its edited form). Sophia Vizoviti, Menelaos Kokkinos, Zafos Xagoraris, Alcyone Boucharaki, Evi Papageorgiou, Ron Walkey, Eva Manidaki, Spyros Papadopoulos, Aristide Antonas, Yannis Papayannakis, Filippos Oraiopoulos, Yannis Arvanitis and other visitors described the projects under way and expressed their opinions on the ISLAND_BUILT EVENT project.
Lucas Bartatilas recorded the speeches made in the guard’s house garden on video.
Yannis Arvanitis tuned into the radio frequencies received on the island and recorded them using his own small receiver.
Time passed and the risk of a difficult return journey made it necessary to return to the ship at 7 p.m.
Going down the path leading to the island’s small facilities, along the ground there was a series of tags with the participants’ names written on them, which Yannis Papayannakis had placed at the point where each participant had stopped.
After having a meal and weather permitting, the captain was required to sail around the island as stipulated in the charter agreement. The ship did manage to sail along the north-western side of the island, but could not continue as it would have to go out into the open sea of the Aegean, where the sea was too rough for sailing. Before the ship began its return journey, at around 8 p.m., from the cape of Tambouras one could see the impressive Mount Athos. The return journey to Alonnisos was difficult due to rough seas, but the atmosphere of a night-time journey in the Sporades archipelago prevailed, with one-on-one and group discussions. Food, night-time walks in Patitiri and an overnight stay at a hotel. On the next day’s itinerary was a visit to the main village of Alonnisos and surveying the archipelago from there. The return to Volos was scheduled at midday with the catamaran sailing the regular route. A few travelers returned early in the morning.
[ catamaran leaflet to insert here or a picture from the hotel in Alonnisos island ]
Wednesday, 25 MAY 2005:
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At 7.30 p.m., Gerasimos Vokos, professor of philosophy at the Department of Political Sciences of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, discussed the topic ‘ISLAND’.
For professor Gerasimos Vokos, in the tradition of Western thought, the concept of the island has gathered a huge wealth of meanings and penetrating singularities, particularly when it is presented in a semantic pair: island-sea, i.e. as a place-journey, junction-relationship. This is due to the fact that it functioned as a genetic mechanism of a boundless wealth of transferences to metaphysics and language. In the first instance it was able to schematize and generate, with precision, penetrating thoughts on the type of truth (Hume, Kant,…). In the second instance, it generated a series of literary texts (Vern, Byron,…) and essays (Moore, Carl Schmitt,…) , capable of expressing pragmatistic, political, utopian, futuristic, anthropological and social aspects.
Wednesday, 1 JUNE 2005:
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At 7.30 p.m., Yiannis Chatzigogas, assistant professor at the Department of Architecture of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, presented the topic: architecture as cinema and the cinema as architecture, using the relationship between architecture and the cinema at the level of narration and composition as an example.
He presented two projects of the journal Archis in which he took part.
The first project was an architectural performance held in the enormous modern ruins of the cultural centre of East Berlin, with architects Koolhaas, Jenkins and others. The symbolic protest, the speeches and the polysemy of the banners strove to add a modern political dimension to the event and to drag the issues of May ’68 out of oblivion and into the issues of the city.
The second project aspired to provide a modern conceptualization of architectural theft, as the absence of the real. It took place in two places: Berlin’s Pergamum Museum (where the ancient temple is exhibited) and the actual site in Pergamum where the ancient temple was built, where its representation exists.
Wednesday, 22 JUNE 2005:
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An open invitation was issued for an outdoor party held at a house in the little village in Pelion named Servanantes, for the ISLAND_BUILT EVENT project. Over 50 people (academics, students, guests) attended the party. Moments: the coincidence of the Pagasitic Gulf and the olive groves of Pelion being lit by the full moon, the attention paid to the acoustics of the music played and the screening of videos, photographs and images from the projects of the ISLAND_BUILT EVENT project (Youra) on a stone wall.
Tuesday, 28 JUNE 2005:
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Last collection of projects and notes kept by the travellers.
Monday, 4 JULY 2005:
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Elena Kapobasopoulou and Tassos Govatsos were awarded at the U.I.A.’s student competition for their projects on the ISLAND_built EVENT project (Youra). The presentation and awards took place at the U.I.A. Conference in Istanbul.
Thursday, 7 JULY 2005:
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Last reception of texts and first bounding of the material in a recheargable book.
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