"A Chat with Hystera" is an experimental short film combined with a lecture performance. This is a portion of the KORE art-based research project that explores infertility and A.R.T. (Artifial Reproductive Technologies) at the w&k Art and Science Programme of Mozarteum University Salzburg. "A Chat with Hystera" relies on histories, current practices, and the speculative future of the uterus as the organ that gives birth. Hystera used to be considered as the vessel for hosting and growing life. Here, the uterus, Hystera, is given a voice. As the day of her transplantation surgery approaches, she talks to her psychiatrist. The video will show historical representations of uteri and models of artificial uteri, along with the sound of Hystera talking to her psychiatrist and an experimental composition by Echoraum, Vienna.
"Hysteria has had a tumultuous and secretive history. She had been considered as a vessel, as the seat of hysteria, as a gift, as a secret, and as a problem. There have been numerous attempts to replace her. She is now confronted with the latest news that she will be transplanted into another body. This body belongs to someone she hosted and nurtured several years ago. She is anxious and is in therapy with her psychiatrists as the transplantation surgery day approaches. Their conversation revolves around her story, history, and uncertain future."
Irini Athanassakis lives and works as an artist and author in the Paris Region (F) and on Kea Island (Greece).
Trained in Sculpture, Transmedia Arts, Art History, and Philosophy (PhD), she co-operates with artists and scientists. Her art works and articles have been shown and published internationally. The topic of KORE and infertility is the focus of her current research, and she will release a publication named POIESIS designed by Nik Thoenen through VfmK at the beginning of 2025 to be followed by a series of exhibitions.
In her perspective, milk, hormones, and gametes are materials, agents, and systems of meaning and exchange, and are also seen as examples of symbiotic processes. She is the editor of the book 'MILK.' Gabe, Lust und Verlust (Design Nik Thoenen, Vienna: Passagen Editors), which won the Austrian Award for the most beautiful art book in 2018.
She collaborated with the microbiologist David Berry to publish 'STILLLEBEN.' Becoming Symbionts" in Performance Research on Microperformativity, edited by Jens Hauser and Lucie Strecker, in 2021. Objects, images, videos and performances on the milk and the microbiome have been shown in Le Générateur, Paris 2023, AIL Vienna 2022, Magazin 4 Bregenz 2021, Leonardo Lectures 2019 Art&Science Department at the Medical University Vienna and Cairotronica, Cairo 2018. "Almost White. Colors of Milk, a film and book edited by Salon für Kunstbuch in Vienna, have been presented in May 2024 in the Salon für Kunstbuch and at MISS READ in Berlin in September 2024. Her art-based research on KORE infertility has been showcased at TTT2016 on Corfu Island at TTT2020 online version based in Vienna and at TTT2023 on Malta (in collaboration with Dana Papachristou). The latest KORE show took place in June 2024 at Sehsaal in Vienna.
She is currently a Fellow at w+k, the Interuniversitary Institution for Science and Art at the University Salzburg and the University Mozarteum working on KORE in/fertility and also a Fellow at IPU International Psychoanalytical University Berlin on MUTTiER. Was nicht gesagt werden kann/ Kinder/Nicht Wunsch in Kunst und Klinik (MUTTiER. What cannot be said/WISH and NO WISH to have children) in art and in the clinic.
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Ionian Islands Region, Greece
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