Inflated Liquidity

Project Conceptualisation by Nicolina Stylianou
Performed by Melissa Garcia Carro, Ioli Kaskani and Nicolina Stylianou

20:00-21:00

Inflated Liquidity is a body-sculpture instrument in its prototyping form developed during Nicolina Stylianou’s artistic residency at Thinker Maker Space of CYENS Centre of Excellence.

Inflated Liquidity – prototype 01, consists an air-generator, a body-sculpture, a soundbox and eight flue pipes. The body-sculpture hosts the air from the air-generator and through movement and pressure the performer sends the air to the soundbox. The flue pipes let the wind pass through a slit and hit the upper lip and further causes the wind to oscillate. The oscillation is produced by an in-out repetitive movement.

The sounds of Inflated Liquidity are equally dependent on the performers’ body movements, strength and synergy that actively interact with the vibrating sound waves of the sculpture. Creating a performative loop between the body, the movement and the sound through and within the body-sculpture. Inflated Liquidity is a co-inhabitant of multiple spaces (body, structure, rules and play, space) and a process to explore relational communication between bodies in space.  The instrument’s rhetorics discuss the social, intimacy, play and pleasure, humour, the act of consent and the negotiation of space and agency. The work traces the mechanics of Hydraulis, Pipe Organ, Accordion, bagpipe, and the 19th c. Suspension machines for musculoskeletal therapy, treatment and strength.

With the completion of the performance an Exhibition will follow on the 21th of July 2022, at the TMS Exhibition Area. More information on the relevant section.

Inflated Liquidities:
Prosthetics, Body-sculptures and Inflatables

16:30-17:30

by Nicolina Stylianou

The talk will focus on Nicolina’s artistic work and the process of making the first prototype of Inflated Liquidities as part of her artistic residency at CYENS – Thinker Maker Space.

Making the Lyraei

17:30-18:30

by Mihalis Shammas

In this talk, I will be presenting the story of the Lyraei instrument. The Lyraei is an electromagnetic string instrument for drone music, created for the purposes of my own artistic practice. We will go through a few of my previous projects to follow how this idea was shaped, and afterwards explain the details behind designing and engineering the instrument.

Historically Informed Audiovisual Synthesis

18:30-19:30

by Derek Holzer

How can we use audiovisual instruments from the past to help us imagine instruments of the future? My name is Derek Holzer, and I am a Media and Interaction Design researcher at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. My work explores vintage audiovisual synthesis technology used by schools, electronic music studios, television, radio, and various composers in Sweden during the 1960s and 1970s. A number of these instruments are unique specimens which represent visionary, idiosyncratic, and often commercially unsuccessful attempts to reinvent creative production methods according to specific visions of the future. During this talk we will see and hear some of these instruments, think about what sort of utopias they represented during their time, and consider how those correspond to the dreams and possibly fears of today.

Inflated Liquidities:
Prosthetics, Body-sculptures and Inflatables

by Nicolina Stylianou

15:00-19:00

Inflated Liquidities: Prosthetics, Body-sculptures and Inflatables is a workshop on how to think with the body so as to build inflatables prototypes with silicone often used in soft robotics. According to Kirk M. Besmer, “in re-embodiment, one’s body is both here and there”, also meaning that their presence is in two spaces simultaneously (Besmer 2015). Given that, “Inflated Liquidities: Prosthetics, Body-sculptures and Inflatables” is an artistic attempt to synthesise new forms of sensing the space, site and body, like a probing cane that extends one’s senses and desire to navigate through simultaneous spaces(body, space, and perception) when in motion. When one’s body is within a body-sculpture, they are stimulated to unravel their psycho-spatial indeterminatere-embodiment that shifts from one (i.e., the intimate) space to the other (i.e., social).

The workshop will assist participants to think with the body so as to build inflatables prototypes with silicone often used in soft robotics.