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The Muses Project -A Dialogue Between Art and Science I 8 February – 10 March 2017

Opening Reception: Wednesday, February 8th 2017, at 20:00At the House of Cyprus - Embassy of Cyprus in Athens, Greece

Antonia Papatzanaki, Domes with Dark Light, 1990

Urania, Muse of Astronomy and Astrology – Astronomy

By Ioannis N. Archontakis

Director of the Contemporary Art Museum of Chania - Oliverpress

● Antonia Papatzanaki

Domes with Dark Light, 1990. Installation: Plexiglas, fluorescent fibers, and black light (variable dimensions).

According to the ancient Greek philosopher, mathematician, geometrician and theorist of music, Pythagoras of Samos (580 BCΕ - 496 BCΕ), the four sisters sciences are numbers (mathematics), shapes (geometry), harmony (music), and astronomy. These disciplines are interrelated and are found within one another in encompassing spheres. In combining these four sciences with the ancient Greek alphabet, which includes numbers and musical tones, is concluded that Astronomy = aster (star) + nomos (law), and a-ster = that which is not supported, thus Astronomy = the universal laws that govern the untenable, the self-existent. The laws are defined by music (harmony), geometry (shapes), mathematics (numbers) and all of these overflow in the ether, the space surrounding the celestial spheres.

All four Pythagorean sister sciences seem to collaborate and govern the visual work of Antonia Papatzanaki with an internal synergy and balance. Her Domes refer to parts of celestial spheres, which encompass absolute mathematical organization, clear geometric mapping, and rhythmic harmonious unfurling, following as much the Pythagorean principles as the scientifically proven timeless laws of universal order. Imprints of cosmic luminous flows inside a dark beyondness. The infinite and the finite are deliberately implicated at the edges of the dome, the heavenly firmament that the artist manufactures. An A-chronon (timeless) and a-topon (non-place) locus. It includes the void and the immaterial. It balances between the void and the whole.

Papatzanaki focuses her emphasis on the limited mass of her work using fluorescent fibers that glow with the assistance of black light. The light of the fibers is dim as it moves within the marginal frequencies of visible light, and their brightness is affected by the light of the environment, where they are dynamically develop. The result leads to rearrangement and diversification of the perception of the architectural space within which they reside.

Behind the mathematical precision of the construction and the elliptical or superlative geometry of perception, the laws of the macro-universe dominate unwaveringly in Papatzanaki’s constructed intimate visual micro-space. The research of the work extends to the concept of the void that is contained within matter and the contemplation of the space between the heavenly bodies. Her worlds, ablaze in their orbits, leave their linear mark on their pre-planned course by completing a pre-existing path, whose minimal part may be obvious and visible yet able to decrypt the whole. The whole is deliberately there, in the construction. Her space provisions anticipate the eternal perpetual state of celestial bodies, either in the overt side of the orbits or the dark side of the computational methods of Papatzanaki. With mathematical precision, the planetary course of her routes continue forever and remain unaffected by any external deliberate or inadvertent interference of others, well documented and protected within her cosmic heavens. Primordial and timeless, they inhere in the dynamics of cosmic structures.

The planetary cosmodrome of Papatzanaki in its micro-scale moves, flows, and evolves independently of human presence, underlining the minimum participation of man in the cosmic process. It is self-existent, primordial, and unaffected by the existence of the human factor and perhaps marks the finiteness of humankind and the temporality of its planet in the flow of cosmic eternity.

At the same time, the only sovereign and supreme being, you, the viewer, as a kind of Almighty, observe and superintend the celestial domes of Papatzanaki with the gaze of the absolute connoisseur and reader of the universe. You, the centre of gravity of the whole world, the spearhead in the development of the mind. You, the arrogant creature, the holder of the illusion that the whole world is made for you....

 


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