THE ΤΕΛΟΣ SOCIETY speaks to Sozita Goudouna, Founding Director of Greece In USA
Greece in USA is a non-profit organization with a global reach that promotes knowledge of contemporary and ancient Greek Culture while fostering international cultural cooperation, experimentation and social engagement. The organization's extensive programming includes commissioned artists' and curators' projects, residencies, educational and ecological initiatives and the commitment to cultivating a sensible culture of innovation and thought leadership.
We are dedicated to offering innovative and unique programs in education and the arts, all exploring the evolving diversity and richness of Greek and Cypriot cultures. The non- profit organization seeks to generate new thinking about the arts and promote cross- cultural dialogue through partnerships and new platforms of creation.
The organization promotes international exchange of practice and knowledge in the arts - visual and sound art, dance, architecture, theatre - research on the methods used in curatorial and performing practices and investigation of points of intersection between the arts, science and the public sphere by means of interventions, collective actions, educational programs and publications.
Greece in USA aims to collaborate and build long-lasting partnerships with leading institutions and individuals who actively engage with Greece and its culture and to convey a comprehensive and distinctive representation of Greece and Cyprus by producing cultural and educational programs that encourage intercultural dialogue and enable cultural involvement.
Our principal goals are:
ï‚· To shape and envision the image of contemporary Greece in the United States beyond existing stereotypes
ï‚· To recalibrate the assumed center of Greek national narratives to include those who have often been denied historical recognition.
ï‚· To transform the way Greek histories are told and produce projects that reflect the vast, rich complexity of Greek culture.
ï‚· To support Greek inspired cultural practices by welcoming and nurturing new ideas and influential perspectives
ï‚· To commission, produce and present contemporary Greek and Cypriot culture that grapple with many of the pressing social and political issues of our time
ï‚· To foster Greek scholarship and cultural research within the American educational system
ï‚· To develop a transatlantic network for the exchange of culture and ideas
ï‚· To strengthen the development of structures in cultural policy & leadership, and foster worldwide mobility.
Greece in USA is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization registered in the State of New York, tax-exempt ID no. 85-0828531. Contributions to Greece in USA are tax-deductible to the fullest extent allowed by law. Greece in USA's launch is under the auspices of the Greek Ministry of Culture.
HYPEROBJECTS
edited and published by THE ΤΕΛΟΣ SOCIETY
November, 2020
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What is the findability of the art-object? In the production of art-objects the artist is in the simultaneous process of thinking-as-production and acting-in-thinking. Yet the object itself, the very result of the artistic endeavour, does not engender the direct perception of its meaning – it is veiled and obscured. It is this hermeneutic veil, a linguistic and coded interface that allows the unravelling of the mystery of the art-object.
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Perhaps, ‘the art’ can only be found in this veil that has been carefully constructed for the viewer – who is absent the moment of creation, yet as present as the material itself. In accordance with this the artist can only create in the absence of themselves, there is no artist, nor creation nor observer. What is left is a speculative field that we now need to redefine, find new language for and new perspectives of understanding.
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The ephemeral experience of the art-object is both transcendental and necessarily imminent to experience - yet we are happy to reduce this to mere understandable terms. In the moment, the art object creates a singular transhuman experience and event. How can we begin to understand the multiple and singular poetics of experience of this?
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It is also the veil, under which the art-object is produced, in which its power to shift perception is anchored. Is the real ‘weight’ of the object, as Harman described in its trinary qualities; or as Baudrillard may offer, only in the system of objects? As we become more embedded within the hyperreal surfaces of a world teetering towards the precipice of ecological crisis, perhaps we must explore the potential for art-objects to affect or generate Morton’s hyperobjects.
In this context, objects break the liminal spaces of understanding and have the power to create ontological dissonance.
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In this call for papers for the TTS forthcoming anthology of essays, we are asking you to explore the speculative space where art can happen. This is necessary in the juncture of both human and cultural history, as we continue to redefine and articulate the art-object in its hyperreal form.
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Georgia Kotretsos, Artist | Professional Spectator | Founder of THE TELOS SOCIETY, Greece
Mehul Sangham, Team of Advisors, THE TELOS SOCIETY | Executive Director, Culture Hack Labs, South Africa/Canada/Costa Rica
Abdellah Karroum, Board of Advisors, THE TELOS SOCIETY | Founder of L'appartement22, Morocco
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