The Bankorgs

Furthermore, considering particularly the situation of Greece, where the economic crisis has been followed by a tremendous humanistic crisis leaving thousands of people homeless in the streets, I proposed corresponding significant changes in the ways that Performance Dinners No 8 would be realized in Athens. As the sight of people queuing up on bread lines prevailed in the centre of the city of Athens where most of the art venues are located, I suggested not having any food and/or drinks on the table of the Performance Dinners No 8 in Athens. Instead, a dinner table with empty dishes and glasses should be used, thus making a political statement. In addition, I proposed that the performance be open to the public.

For the realization of the performance I invited twenty-one creative practitioners, fine and visual artists, choreographers, film directors, art researchers, curators, art historians and performers to respond creatively to the notion of ‘cyborg’ in relation to the emergence of the imaginary entity ‘bankorg’.

The performance entitled The Bankorgs opened to the public on December 4, 2015, at the theatrical stage of BIOS Centre in Athens. It started at 7:00 p.m. and finished at 9:30 p.m. without intermission. The invited participants realized the performance in a space packed with almost two hundred viewers. During the performance, the participants sat around a rectangular table and deposited into the empty plates in front of them objects of their choice that symbolized survival and/or resistance. Then, one by one they presented an individual performance sitting or standing in front of the table and using any media of their choice, i.e. photography, video projection, sounds, music, songs, participatory performance and so on.

Undermining dichotomies such as theory versus praxis and logos versus ‘image’, The Bankorgs suggested a reconfiguration of a theoretical text provided by Donna Haraway out of which a new concept came to the foreground to be used as the basis for a series of performative acts and political comments.


PARTICIPANTS:

Katerina Athanasiou | Tzeni Argyriou | Maria Adromachi Chatzinikolaou | Myrto Farmaki | Grigoris Gaitanaros | Dimitris Halatsis | Fotis Karageorgiou | Eleni Lyra | Catherine Maffioletti | Georgia Mavragani | Despina Meimaroglou | Ioulia Mermigka | Vassilis Noulas – Kostas Tzimoulis (collaboration) | Leda Papaconstantinou | Maria Paschalidou | PASHIAS | Lea Petrou | Annetta Spanoudaki | Mo Throp | Syrago Tsiara


PARTICIPANTS’ PERFORMANCES: 

  1. “Motherland’s smell is narracji” I got it from my mom (05:00) Katerina Athanasiou
  2. Blank (05:00) Tzeni Argyriou
  3. Re-emerging wisdom (05:00) Maria Adromachi Chatzinikolaou
  4. The Procrustean Bed (04:00) Myrto Farmaki
  5. Bankman (05:00) Grigoris Gaitanaros
  6. Service (05:00) Dimitris Halatsis
  7. The Invisible (05:00) Fotis Karageorgiou
  8. My body (05:00) Eleni Lyra
  9. Untitled (07:00) Catherine Maffioletti
  10. Words in Athens, Music I do not want (05:00) Georgia Mavragani
  11. Sorry I’m Greek (05:00) Despina Meimaroglou
  12. Soundorg (05:00) Ioulia Mermigka & Kyrck
  13. A Cyborg Manifesto an Afternoon of November 2015 in an Apartment in Athens (04:00) Vassilis Noulas – Kostas Tzimoulis
  14. Stich goes the needle (05:00) Leda Papaconstantinou
  15. Shining on Traces of Escape (04:00) Maria Paschalidou
  16. Untitled action (05:00) PASHIAS
  17. Atlas (05:00) Lea Petrou
  18. No comment (05:00) Annetta Spanoudaki
  19. Resilience (03:00) Mo Throp
  20. Time Bank (05:00) Syrago Tsiara

PERFORMANCE:

- The Bankorgs Collaborative Long-duration Performance, Performance Dinners No 8. BIOS Theatrical Stage, Athens, Friday 4 December 2015, 7:00 - 9:30 p.m.

Video documentation: Takis Lyras | Aris Aggelou

Photographic documentation: Tasos Frangou

Video editing: Takis Lyras

Graphic design: Nicolas Kouniniotis

Translation: Eleftheria Tsitsa


*** The Performance Dinners is a research project organized by the S&F group and is based on a series of dinners provided by the organizers for approximately 25 artists/academics who are invited to make a five minute contribution in which they ‘perform’ their response to the theme of that particular dinner in a way which is relevant to their own practice and/or contemporary discourse on subjectivity (Throp, 2015). Each dinner draws its theme from a particular feminist theory. The dinners are not open to the public and they typically take place in an academic institutional environment. Furthermore, artists participating in these dinners do not know each other’s presentations beforehand.