I/E Elefsis

Tarek Atoui was invited by locus athens to create a new work for Elefsina as part of the Aisxylia Festival 2015. Elefsina, site of the Ancient Eleusinian mysteries, is a post-industrial city steeped in myth on the outskirts of Athens.

Atoui will present I/E Elefsis, based on his in situ investigation of the sonic landscape of Elefsina and his collective instrument I/E. Atoui invited the field recordist Chris Watson to collect the sounds of the ancient site, the port and the derelict oil factory that is now the exhibition site of the festival. These collected sounds form the basis for a new narrative of the city: a new musical composition by Tarek Atoui inspired by ‘musique concrete’ and three performances by Greek and international musicians. The improvisational dialogue between the musicians and Elefsina’s unmediated sounds will punctuate the exhibition’s timeline and reactivate the space.

Atoui also invited the photographer Alexandre Guirkinger to document the sound recording process. This documentation, the recordings and the composition will be accessible to the public in I/E, a sound-proof shipping container that is a collective instrument devised by Atoui. In Elefsina I/E will function as an information center for the exhibition, as a point of reference, as a listening station and as a performance platform.

Tarek Atoui is a prominent sound artist and composer. At the core of his work is an ongoing reflection about the notion of the instrument and on the act of performance as a complex and open process. Chris Watson is a key figure in field recording and founder of the Sheffield group Cabaret Voltaire. Alexandre Guirkinger is a photographer who works with different format analogue cameras. locus athens is an independent nomadic arts organization run by Maria-Thalia Carras and Olga Hatzidaki whose program evolves around the public sphere of Athens and the production of new works.

Ιn parallel with I/E Elefsis two educational workshops will take place; one run by Chris Watson, supported and organized by Onassis Cultural Center and a community workshop with young local volunteers, supported by EUNIC (European Union National Institutes for Culture) and organized in the context of the Arts for Social Development program.

I/E Elefsis was produced by Chantal Crousel Gallery.