AR—T
by Effrosyni Kontogeorgou
Performance (2014)
ice, wood, 2 iron sheets, spotlight
Original duration approx. 2 hours
Video duration 16’

Capital is dead labor, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor and lives the more, the more labor it sucks – K.Marx

Sucking is an act that our lived-body knows it before knowing. It bears both sensible and sensual meaning since our infancy. Apart from the feeding (surviving) purposes, it is also an act that displays associations of pleasure and satisfaction. According to the psychology (of the adult), our drive, the principle of pleasure, is often in conflict with the principle of reality; self-preservation, estranged labour. Could our products become so many mirrors in which we can see reflected our essential nature?
During AR—T the performer is sucking a word (logo-like) made out of ice, fully absorbed by the process. After a while the meaning of the word, as well as the act, is becoming something else. Is this a production or an elimination? Is this a narcissistic act of pleasure? Nourishment? Or obsession and self-destruction? What remains at the end?
Within the context of Performative Labour-ism /Month of Performance Art in Berlin 2014
06.05.14 at ZK/U-“Centre for Art and Urbanistics”.

Effrosyni Kontogeorgou (born 1980, Athens, GR) works with time-based media, mainly video, installation and performance. The core topic of her work is manifestations of the uncanny (Unheimlich). She displays poetic images, gestures or moments, in which the absurdity of ordinary reality is being disclosed. She is a graduate of the Athens School of Fine Arts (GR) and holds a Master’s Degree in Digital Media from the University of the Arts in Bremen (DE). She has been a masterclass student under Prof. Jean-François Guiton (Meisterschule) at the University of the Arts in Bremen (DE). Her works have been exhibited in various art spaces, galleries, museums and festivals in Iceland, Germany, Belgium, Lebanon and Greece. Effrosyni currently lives and works in Berlin and Bremen, Germany.
http://www.effrosyni.net