Digital Culture & AudioVisual Challenges

The current paper focuses on the intersections of contemporary art, cultural production and arts-based practices which focus on performative and digital media. It brings together the contemporary artistic and curatorial practices along with historical research by focusing on the case-study of Primarolia non-profit cultural platform, based in Peloponnese. Primarolia forms a new cultural platform with interdisciplinary and intermedia approach on concept-driven practices. The conceptual foundation is deeply rooted in the cultural and historical routes and mobilities of 19th century Vostizza currants from NW Peloponnese (Aigio, Patras, Ilia, Corinth, Kalamata, Zante) to European ports (London, Liverpool, Amsterdam, Odessa, Italy, Marseille). How past networks can be translated into new channels of knowledge and dynamic constellations of artists, academics, curators, researchers and cultural practitioners?

Since 2019, Primarolia platform develops cultural strategies and concept-based approaches towards the potential of mobilities and routes of such a seed through the triptych of contemporary art practice-culture-historical research. The current paper explores the emerging methodologies and outreach of the two contemporary art exhibitions (2019, 2020) in Aigio with invited artists from Greece, UK and Italy producing commissioned site-specific artworks, the virtual exhibition project (360ο), the digitation of historical archives and oral histories project as future conceptual data for artists in an international context, educational workshops and illustrated methodological texts, the ongoing auspices and collaborations with various universities and cultural institutions as well as the auspices of Hellenic Ministry of Culture.

Having histories, current, archives, collective memory and networks across Europe as the primal matter for experimental art practices across art, science, technology, the analysis aims to reveal emerging methodologies which perform the local and the global through different media (video/performance, installation, digital art, kinetic sculptures) and interdisciplinary research. Selected artists’ examples will be analysed in terms of their engagement with sites, practices and archives towards the production of experimental pieces through audiovisual, interactive and participatory schemes. Finally, the current paper highlights the importance of fostering intermedia and interdisciplinary networks between such artistic/cultural platforms and other cities in Greece and abroad.

The paper is relevant for the following topics/themes of the CFP: Art, Cultural Production and Dissemination / Experimental art and Cultural product / Art and Technology