The Plotless Room_I Lie to History

'The path to awareness might be to not suppress ones own unconscious, to let history (..) be lived through by ones own unconscious, so that the awareness of history finally occurs through an experience of ones own unconscious'. (Theweleit, Klaus (1977): Male Fantasies, Volume 1: Women, Floods, Bodies, History) For Vassiliea Stylianidou (Thessaloniki GR, 1967) artistic creation is a continuous process of confrontation with public and private history, that is, public and private spaces. In Stylianidous two-part installation 'The Plotless Room_I Lie to History' the various phases of experienced real and yet-to-be experienced fictitious stories are tightly woven into an atmospheric ensemble of moving images, text fragments and music composed by Joerg Lindenmaier. The result is a complex panopticum whose elements seem to be both universal as well as personal, accidental as well as intentional. A web is spun of referential threads, binding together images from the artists private sphere as well as from historically and culturally relevant places and events. Stylianidou emphasizes their simultaneity and subtly points out that it is not only our imagined world, but also the representations of public history that are generated according to certain (un)intentional patterns. Filling the main room of the gallery is the model of a house frame, which is ubiquitous in Greece and symptom both of the real estate speculation collapse as well as the failure of familial harmony. Ironically, the artist found this dystopic element that so shapes the landscape of Greece again in Berlin, in slightly different manifestation. Among the city´s multitudinous (de-)construction sites is one of particular prominence: that of the Palast der Republik (Palace of the Republic of the former GDR). With its dismantling vanishes one of the last governmental buildings of a political and social utopia (or dystopia). As at other sites of real history in Berlin, (neo-)historicizing monstrosities will be built in its place the result of veritable re-construction frenzy. Once again or ever yet, here like there, the pursuit of utopia/distopia is virulent and historical manipulation (or lie) thrives not only in the private realm but on the state level as well. Although the images, texts and space come together to suggest quite clear a position, The Plotless Room remains accessible to allow the observer to investigate and form relationships and narrative networks. Stylianidou addresses further themes in her work such as family, power and language. In doing so, she creates a richly associative model for utopian historical revision that challenges us to re-cycle and re-construct ones own present within ones personal history. This exhibition is part of the European Month of Photography 2008.
Translation: Alisa Anh Kotmair