The Cyprus Pavilion
Biennale Arte 2024
20 April – 24 November 2024
So our ghost story goes, and so it echoes: On which side of the screen lies the ghost?
From this seemingly benign anecdote, Lower Levant Company, Endrosia and Haig Aivazian set up the façade of the Cyprus Pavilion as an ambiguous agency in a transitory state: it is unclear whether the facilities have been recently vacated, yet to be moved into, or set up as a shell for covert activities. Traces of the agency’s vision are left on view in the form of anachronistic gestures, connecting a past carried by raw materials—terracotta, sand, copper, concrete—with elusive ambitions for a quantifiable future.
“Tomorrow morning you will see”. A message blinks in Morse code, while a severed cable leaks out of a missing ceiling tile and channels the undulating tones of water and wind travelling through pipes that peer in from the canal. Below, a wildflower basks in the white glow of artificial light.
The enclosed courtyard that runs through the space turns into a copper slag-lined passageway, with horn speakers diffusing high frequencies recorded across sensitive locations in Cyprus: an “antenna island” for covert transmissions and a “quiet thoroughfare” complicit in clandestine operations. Ceramic horn speakers sprout to conjure a mode of listening that reorients attention to the land, subterranean activities and modes of extractivism.
Vibrations emanating from the end of the path beckon towards SOUNDR*, where light disperses darkness and time refracts across three vessels. A steel-mounted diptych sees a chain of particles oscillating between memory and future transmission; a city plunged in darkness is animated by a force that floods it with a red glow and rattles it with throbbing frequencies; a video game appears from behind a flipped gaming desk, trailing behind a blue gorilla wreaking havoc in a luxury development, and turning against the very edifice that brought it to life.
Thinking through the forms that vigils can take to guide us through the present moment, the pavilion integrates a ‘vigil workspace’, reanimating notions of invisible labour within the art industry to hold a space for reflection and remembrance. Within these spatial configurations, ghosting is framed as a paradoxical act of withdrawal and persistence. This form of vigilance requires an adjustment of attention; a recalibration of the senses; a commitment not only to staying with the problem of ghosts, but to drawing alliances with them and, entrusted with their agitation, dismantling and building worlds anew.
“Tomorrow morning you will see”. A message blinks in Morse code, while a severed cable leaks out of a missing ceiling tile and channels the undulating tones of water and wind travelling through pipes that peer in from the canal. Below, a wildflower basks in the white glow of artificial light.
The enclosed courtyard that runs through the space turns into a copper slag-lined passageway, with horn speakers diffusing high frequencies recorded across sensitive locations in Cyprus: an “antenna island” for covert transmissions and a “quiet thoroughfare” complicit in clandestine operations. Ceramic horn speakers sprout to conjure a mode of listening that reorients attention to the land, subterranean activities and modes of extractivism.
Vibrations emanating from the end of the path beckon towards SOUNDR*, where light disperses darkness and time refracts across three vessels. A steel-mounted diptych sees a chain of particles oscillating between memory and future transmission; a city plunged in darkness is animated by a force that floods it with a red glow and rattles it with throbbing frequencies; a video game appears from behind a flipped gaming desk, trailing behind a blue gorilla wreaking havoc in a luxury development, and turning against the very edifice that brought it to life.
Thinking through the forms that vigils can take to guide us through the present moment, the pavilion integrates a ‘vigil workspace’, reanimating notions of invisible labour within the art industry to hold a space for reflection and remembrance. Within these spatial configurations, ghosting is framed as a paradoxical act of withdrawal and persistence. This form of vigilance requires an adjustment of attention; a recalibration of the senses; a commitment not only to staying with the problem of ghosts, but to drawing alliances with them and, entrusted with their agitation, dismantling and building worlds anew.
*Named after Sounder, a codename for a joint British/American surveillance station in Cyprus which has been revealed as a key site for mass communications monitoring and interception in the Middle East.
Lower Levant Company
Peter Eramian
Emiddio Vasquez
Haig Aivazian
Endrosia
Andreas Andronikou
Marina Ashioti
Niki Charalambous
Doris Mari Demetriadou
Irini Khenkin
Rafailia Tsiridou
Alexandros Xenophontos
Peter Eramian
Emiddio Vasquez
Haig Aivazian
Endrosia
Andreas Andronikou
Marina Ashioti
Niki Charalambous
Doris Mari Demetriadou
Irini Khenkin
Rafailia Tsiridou
Alexandros Xenophontos
Forever Informed
Rafailia Tsiridou, Emiddio Vasquez
PVC pipes, steel, omnidirectional microphones, amplifier, full range speaker
Andreas Andronikou, Irini Khenkin
Glazed terracotta, polyhedral projection, enforced back, progressive jagged square edges, developing coarse textured sections
Lower Levant Company
Concrete, cement, metal rod, sand, fossils, earth, glitter
Part I: Wayback Machine to Sun City
Lower Levant Company
In collaboration with Svetlana Goncharenko
Video, 17’09”, Geomancy reading (interludes), 10’15”, stereo
Haig Aivazian
Etched copper
Alexandros Xenophontos
.- ...- .-. .. --- -. / .--. .-. --- .. -. / . -. / -. .- / -.. . .. ...
“TOMORROW MORNING YOU WILL SEE”
Drop ceiling lighting, acoustic tiles, acrylic, LED strip, metal pipe, leather, PVC, satin
Niki Charalambous, Doris Mari Demetriadou
Golden rain wood, steel, textile
The impression of the light upon my body has caused a wilting of her desire.
Pressed on your firm and barren ground, I pierce with intent out from within my belly.
And I have not one but many roots with which to see and wander,
as I stay orientated towards you, weak as you make me.
Swayed by the promise of her intention, she, who muses at my guise and dreams to reach the wild in ways not befit to you, lends her thoughts through me
To experience in the absence of your waning touch,
latent realms.
Bewildered, once more.
Pressed on your firm and barren ground, I pierce with intent out from within my belly.
And I have not one but many roots with which to see and wander,
as I stay orientated towards you, weak as you make me.
Swayed by the promise of her intention, she, who muses at my guise and dreams to reach the wild in ways not befit to you, lends her thoughts through me
To experience in the absence of your waning touch,
latent realms.
Bewildered, once more.
Lower Levant Company
In collaboration with Gaetano di Gregorio
Six channel audio, steel truss, fiberglass and resin IWATA-300, 600, 1200 horns, clay IWATA horns, compression drivers, copper slag
Marina Ashioti, Irini Khenkin, Alexandros Xenophontos
Sound by Emiddio Vasquez
Two channel video installation, 8’45” (animation, CCTV footage, LIDAR scans of forest surrounding RAF Troodos Signals Station in Cyprus), steel sculpture
This message is a house that is a watchtower that is a ghost ship that is surveillance software that is a Fata Morgana mirage, with stones placed where the living rose takes root: the erotic condition where our knowing negotiates rites, of metal and of meat.
الحلقة الثانية: كحل الليل
You May Own the Lanterns but We Have the Light
Episode Two: Eyeshadow Dark as Night
Haig Aivazian
Video, 10’40” stereo
Lower Levant Company
In collaboration with Faysal Mroueh
Video, 13’05”, office desk, marble, concrete, sound responsive fiber optic ceiling light, acoustic tile
Commissioner
Louli Michaelidou
Louli Michaelidou
Production Manager
Charles Gohy
Charles Gohy
Project Manager
Ioulita Toumazi
Ioulita Toumazi
Graphic Design
Doris Mari Demetriadou
Andreas Andronikou
Miquel Hervás Gómez
Doris Mari Demetriadou
Andreas Andronikou
Miquel Hervás Gómez
Exhibition Architecture
Alexandros Xenophontos
Alexandros Xenophontos
Technicians
Jean-Frédéric Gohy
Erwin De Muer
Riccardo Clementi
Kwinten
Jean-Frédéric Gohy
Erwin De Muer
Riccardo Clementi
Kwinten
Publishers
Archive Books
Cyprus Deputy Ministry of Culture – Department of Contemporary Culture
Archive Books
Cyprus Deputy Ministry of Culture – Department of Contemporary Culture
Supporters
psi foundation
Pylon Art & Culture
The Kerenidis Pepe Collection
Niki Hadjilyra
psi foundation
Pylon Art & Culture
The Kerenidis Pepe Collection
Niki Hadjilyra
Organiser
Acknowledgments
Iwan Arjanto
Alexis Charalambous
Elpida Frangeskidou
Svetlana Goncharenko
Gaetano di Gregorio
Byron Macrides
Konstantina Michael
Faysal Mroueh
Dirk Versluis
Cloudy Works
Iwan Arjanto
Alexis Charalambous
Elpida Frangeskidou
Svetlana Goncharenko
Gaetano di Gregorio
Byron Macrides
Konstantina Michael
Faysal Mroueh
Dirk Versluis
Cloudy Works
Associazione Culturale Spiazzi,
Castello 3865, 30122 Venice,
Boat Stop – Arsenale
cyprusinvenice.org.cy
CONTACT
Tuesday – Sunday
11 am – 7 pm , 20 April – 30 September
10 am – 6 pm, 1 October – 24 November