Sword of Damocles

At a lavish banquet, King Dionysius is confronted by his servant Damocles – a brat who is jealous of the king’s splendor and power. Through supernatural forces, the two roles are switched. The smug, inexperienced commoner becomes the king. But his joy is short-lived.
He quickly realizes that being king isn’t all crowns and cheeseburgers. With great power comes great responsibility.
.
.
Release
The Sword of Damocles
Just release it
To the authorities

Raise kindness
Above all else
Avoid the books of
Hatred behind the shelves

I will caress your
Caress your curly hair
With affection
Many a good reason to cut off your head
Then and then

Release
The Sword of Damocles
Just release it
I’m begging
You on my knees

There is no reason
To hide it from the sun
I am a tyrant
Trust me, you are not the one and only
And trust me, you are not the one and only
And trust me, you are not the one and only
Lonely person

Release
The Sword of Damocles
Release
The Sword of Damocles
Just release it
Cut the thread
Why don’t you please

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جوزيف سفوبودا
ЙОЗЕФА СВОБОДЫ
la traviata de verdi (Scenografia)
La technologie et la scénographie
Svoboda utilise les techniques de pointe en éclairage, en projection d’image et en mécanique de scène (scène cinétique) afin de s’affranchir des contraintes du lieu théâtral. La scène est pour Svoboda un instrument et un espace magique, lieu d’action de forces dramatiques, réelles, et non pas un espace illusionniste. La scénographie est une des disciplines de l’art théâtral, une composante de la mise en scène et un élément essentiel de la représentation. Elle doit donc d’être dynamique et se transformer dans le temps pour épouser l’action dramatique. La scénographie a un langage propre en tant que discipline à part entière. Svoboda apporte une contribution importante à ce langage par son travail sur la lumière et l’espace.
Lumière, matière et espace
Svoboda dit percevoir la lumière physiquement, et non pas simplement visuellement ; il trouve en elle l’inspiration pour son travail. Tout en reconnaissant son statut ” immatériel “, il la considère comme l’élément fondamental de la scénographie et la traite comme un matériau. D’abord formé en menuiserie, Svoboda affectionne particulièrement les matières brutes, notamment le bois. L’architecture représente pour lui, et ce dès son jeune âge, la somme des connaissances humaines. Formé en architecture d’intérieur, il s’intéresse à l’organisation de l’espace, à la rencontre scénique de l’architecture et du décor. Il privilégie les formes simples : la sphère, le cube et l’escalier. Svoboda croit que ” la mise en scène à l’italienne, bien qu’elle ne corresponde plus aux exigences des méthodes scénographiques actuelles, reste toujours la meilleure “.

every time the stars align
FILE LED SAO PAULO 2018
“Every Time the Stars Align” fuses different natural elements of crystals, plasma and flowers in a lava lamp environment. Red crystals freeze with rigid edges and thaws into a relaxing mood. Plasma liquid rises and falls reflecting a lava-like quality. Flowers fluctuate between a spectrum of color symbolizing intense human affections. Contradicting and uniting flat and deep spaces, the three elements compose and decompose.

compression cradle
Lucy McRae is a visionary artist from Australia that has periodically had films in ASVOFF. Compression Cradle is a futuristic approach to preparing the self for a future that assumes a lack of human touch and the machine affectionately squeezes the body with a sequence of aerated volumes that hold you tight. As McRae envisions it the mechanical touch may be an antidote for today’s ‘forever connectedness’, a behaviour that’s triggered a lonely disconnection with ourselves.

Heart Pillow
File Festival
“Heart Pillow” is a transhuman artifact that reproduces a person’s heartbeat remotely and in real time. It allows the very pulse of life to be transferred into an everyday object – a pillow – making it serve both as an extension to the user’s body and as mimicry of life itself, playing with the perceptions we might have on how life can be defined. It raises interesting questions on the meaning of the words “emotion” and “affection” and their scalability to the various modes of interaction that may arise from an augmented object. “Heart Pillow” can be used in any situations in which transferring a heartbeat into an everyday object can be interesting or useful, such as connecting a couple that is apart, to calm down new born babies with the known feeling of their mother’s heartbeat or as an extension of the self into an everyday object as a mean of reflection.

Paranoid Panopticum

The viewer activates the «Paranoid Panopticum» by entering its small corridor between two «walls». Recorded through the mirrored wall by a video camera, the viewer’s image is projected onto the opposite wall, where it becomes part of a story freely adapted by Alfred Kreijemborg in his play titled «An Echo Play» (1923), based on the Greek myth of Narcissus. Instead of returning the affections of the nymph Echo, the protagonist falls in love with his own reflection. Like with the image of Narcissus on the water, the viewer’s own reflection appears now – and the viewer observes only himself. The Panopticum, the terminus of a circulatory prison complex, is controlled from a watchtower not visible for the prison inmates. Having consciousness controlled here causes in effect the self-control among the prisoners. The paradox in this experience – control and society’s surrendering to its own mechanisms – forms the basis of Maat’s installation. Whether as the observer or observed, the viewer is consistently extradited to the panoptic omnipresence of his own all-pervading reflection.