"Beautiful as the encounter of a toilet paper factory with a bunch of dogs in an army base. . ."
Votanikosness explores the very bizarre nature of one of Athens's most central, oldest and poorest neighbourhoods and tries to exaggerate the acting forces of its inner logic until a point of creating a different way of interaction with the environment. Votanikosness presents a world of constant and dynamic movement and changes where the ruins become elements of possible spaces and instead of a steady death, spaces would appear and disappear, be constructed and deconstructed in a constant loop.
The project opposes itself to a static understanding of life where history is lived as a pure imaginary without the possibility of its modification and -thus always leaving traces of them- would play with the destruction of such.
The palace
A boarded building that wants to blow up and show what it has inside.
Romas are going up the roof through the attached crane.
They are having celebrations on the roof.
Someone else appears; they will protect their way from him.
A big collection of object starting to gather on the roof.
On the roof of the palace the things would be arranged differently every day.
Everyone would add his piece to it and take away another.
Pieces of metal construction start to build up.
A whole is made on the roof.
They would descend to the building and open it up.
A big explosion of objects would find itself on the street.
These object would get farther and farther until there is still something.
A party, a birthday, a night, and a place for nightmares.
A place for fortification, control over the site.
They would go further and take a piece of rubble from the ground.
They would rearrange it and sit on it.
A conversation starts to flow.
And it keeps on flowing.
They disagree.
The Corridor
A place of passing by.
Going through somewhere where before closed spaces had to be faced.
People would stop and look around what is inside of the space that they never could see.
People stop by and talk.
They would not know how to act.
Village people are gathering on a square.
A building explodes, gets cleaned.
A piece of a fence from another part gets attached to it.
A wash room is created.
People are coming to wash their clothes here.
Meanwhile, they are sitting down, having a coffee together.
Discussing the day.
The Wash Room
A screen appears of the reconstructed part of the wash room.
People get a projector.
A living room is created.
One night the campfire take over; smells strongly.
Next night the football game is on.
It is not always easy to decide what is going to happen.
A building has fallen apart; people can go up, jump down, reverse the stairs.
See the environment from the top.
They can be seen from the ground level.
The Watchtower
Getting out of the routines.
Moving towards verticality.
Seeing a different perspective of Votanikos.
One would go up the watchtower and be silent watching the site.
The Acropolis is so close.
The building is just growing and growing.
Pieces of cranes are attached to it, people would climb on it.
The higher they are, the more they can see.
Dogs are not coming up here.
People would see and would be seen.
A different perspective of Votanikos.
Plato's Living rooms
A place of thinking.
People would gather below the trees, the benches.
People would kiss, others would stalk them.
A wall appears.
People gather below it, draw on it, put ideas into it.
They sit below it, and every day finds different angles to it.
Cooking, eating, discussing.
A moment of calm.
You could hear the silent sounds of nature.
Birds, dogs, bees.
Water is splashing all around.
Some chairs are put together and occasionally people occupy them.
Prostitutes are cleaning their bodies.
And they forget about it for some moments.
Steam is all around.
Light is lit up around it.
Weird sounds can be heard, dogs are barking.
Loud music can be heard from a truck.
He just came to have a little fun tonight.
From behind a wall three people appear and go directly under the water.
After they would sit down on a concrete block and they light a cigarette.
"Planning and chance almost seem to be the same thing"
(Robert Smithson)
