RESIDENT OF BRIDGES IN September 2019 - THEATROPOLIS OPAP

At the residency my aim was to find a way to engage and play with audiences’ expectancy and frustration while using the linearity of time as an allay, through which I could explore the feeling of essentially being stuck in time. I employed various methods in order to make this feeling visceral and understand how it relates to or informs my work. I used repetitive tasks, loops, parentheticals - both through movement and speech - studying my train of thought and allowing the disjointed mind/body traveling to happen. Observing everyday thought patterns, anxieties, obsessions and letting them interrupt my initial trajectory. All of this was forming the way with which I would connect with the piece and convey it’s message. In order to determine the audience’s relationship to the work, I decided to bring technology in as a mediator. During the residency, I observed when and how I felt the need to interacted with my phone, the internet and how it was becoming another obstacle to my plans. I payed attention to how I ‘connected’ with the people around me through technology, as well as everyday interactions and questioned popular culture interventions through social platforms and in generally focused my attention to our relationship with social media. I continued my researched on relevant mental disorders, such as Anxiety, OCD and ADHD to discover common patterns of behaviour that also relate to what I have been practising and which would be explored further within the work. 

The residency provided the ideal circumstances for my work to be developed. Having 24/7 access to the space and living essentially there, enabled me to fully connect with the environment where I would perform in. Since my project is dealing with the notion on time, the circumstances allowed for necessary breathing and experimentation stages of the process to unfold. I felt very welcomed from the lovely team and able to completely disconnect and focus. I gained valuable perspective on my work which really helped push it to it’s current form.

180C is a process-based performance investigating the friction between memory and identity, within the current era of hyper-information and technological assimilation. Particularly how technology and social media are altering our ways of thinking and interacting with each other. Suspended in time between observation and expectation, the real and virtual. The performance draws parallels to obsessive compulsive and attention deficit disorders and attempts to locate the self in this equation, vis-a-vis the context of a live audience.  An intimate, disjointed journey, through the unpredictability and absurdity of the mind.

BIO

Nikolas Kasinos is a multidisciplinary artist, born in Cyprus, currently based in Berlin. He graduated in 2011 from the London College of Communication, University of The Arts, London where he received his degree in Film & Video. In 2014 he co-founded OUROBOROS with visual artist Jeremy Carne, focusing on creative video works and in 2016, he initiated the contemporary collective RELAPSE, with artists Vasiliki Antonopoulou and Dimitrios Michailidis, curating exhibitions with artist from around the world.

Having as a core performance and video art, his artistic practice involves the exploration of identity, gender, transformation and mutation through the observation of human behaviour as it is exhibited within the media, popular culture, online platforms and socio-political structures. Using his body as a subject - he explores the collective representation of ‘the self’ within these contexts. Works includes live and video performances, audio-visual installations, dance and photography.

He has exhibited and performed at several venues internationally, including Moderna Museet (Stockholm) Skånes (Mälmo) The Yard (Limassol) Galeria Zé dos Bois (Lisbon), The Performance Shop (Limassol), Skogen (Gothenburg), Weld (Stockholm), Flux Factory (New York), Arena (Berlin) Chelsea Theatre, Peltz Gallery, Trip Space, London TOPOHPOBIA, Royal College of Art, David Roberts Art Foundation, Cafe OTO, The Horse Hospital (London), Pattihio Theatre (Limassol) and Technochoros ETHAL (Limassol).

Residencies include The Yard (Cyprus), Ze De Boi (Lisbon), ImPulsTanz (Vienna), Dance4 (Nottingham), Weld (Stockholm), Skogen (Gothenburg).

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