Giorgos Nikopoulos

The conferences "Taboo-Transgression-Transcendence in Art & Science" include theoretical presentations and artists' talks focusing: a) on questions about the nature of the forbidden and about the aesthetics of liminality - as expressed in art that uses or is inspired by technology and science, b) in the opening of spaces for creative transformation in the merging of science and art.

Shadows, objects on the surface of a cloth, characters of a story taking place in front of the eyes of the audience. Lifeless otherwise, animated throughout the performance as if not dead, iniated by emotions and aims, able of guiding the spectators through different sensations, communicating and interacting with them. On the other side of the cloth, behind the brightening lights, a single or a collective person serves the objects, those that have no breath, by performing duties such as giving voice to their language, transferring their thoughts, submitting to their authority. Moving according to what the characters on the cloth seem to manifest, distorting face, body and thought, disappearing behind the characters being animated. Perhaps the process of giving life to characters, animating, is not one-way? Perhaps there is a reverse course in this form of animation, where subject - operator - puppeteer - animator totally submits to the object being animated, representing an invitation to re-examine the concept of “doll”?
This paper focuses on the methodology of character embodiment through the analysis of an artwork where the object has been intentionally removed and the operators bend their humanness to the characters, being forced to adopt an alternative kinetic language, to perform an aberrant ritual of movements.