fragments and the Narrative

https://www.neme.org/projects/hosted/fragments-and-the-narrative

Poetry, Images and Thoughts on the Contemporary World

Wednesday 12 June, 2024 19:00 at NeMe Arts Centre, Limassol

Christos Panagiotou (scholar, digital artist), Stella Voskaridou (writer) and Nicos Synnos (scholar, animator) will discuss and compare the postmodern literary style of Stella Voskaridou with the experimental animation of the early 20th century, and particularly the animation of Oskar Fischinger. Specifically, the discussion will examine the relationship between Stella Voskaridou’s works Fov and Mikromichanismoi (tr. Micromechanisms) and Oskar Fischinger’s experimental animation Visual Poetry.

As Christos Panayiotou notes, the two creators share a similar drive to experiment with the limits of language, form and meaning, as well as an interest in examining the relationship between the part and the whole. Another common element between the two creators is the use of the structural elements of music as a basis for establishing their narratives, of sound and of fragmented linguistic or visual elements as materials for the construction of narratives and stories. Yet despite their similarities, they differ in their world views. While Fischinger’s work celebrates unity, continuity and unified structures, echoing the – broader – centralising tendencies of Modernity and Modernism, Voskaridou’s literary work embraces disconnection, fragmentation and decentralisation, perhaps in response to the broader cultural, social and historical context in which it was created, and perhaps even that of Cyprus; A context that addresses the need to separate memory from history, to separate history from temporal coordinates or notions of origin, and the need to formulate a fluid and fragmentary order of archiving and narrating historical events, collective memory and collective cultural expression that escapes the centralised and integrated patterns of narrative in Modernity.

In short, although the two creators use similar tools, the comparison reveals their different views of the relationship between the part and the whole, unity and fragmentation, as well as their divergent views on the issue of narrative agency, informed by their different cultural and historical contexts.

The event is organised by the Lab for Animation Research, Cyprus University of Technology, Bibliotropio, and NeMe.