Ioli Kavakou's "Daemonologie or A Spectral Wake for all the Weird Sisters" was presented before live audience at Centrale Fies, Dro, Italy on July 29th, 2023 as one of 19 AEROPONIC ACTS of WHERE THE MOON IS UP curated by Elisa Giuliani.

Here you will find the documentation of Ioli Kavakou's presentation as filmed by Baha Görkem Yalım. The written report is by Giulia Crispiani and it includes a summary of the comments by esteemed guest respondents.

Daemonologie or A Spectral Wake for all the Weird Sisters

Ioli Kavakou's question: How much do you need to suppress, to be your most rational self?

Ioli's introduction: Daemonologie or A Spectral Wake for all the Weird Sisters, is a work of speculative fiction, dramatising an encounter between the Sphinx, contemporary Cassandras and Eleni Kikidou, a 20th century Greek medium and clairvoyant. Kept in a neuroscience lab, where scientists are attempting to harvest their abilities, six women are holding a vigil for their primordial sister, who ate herself in order to escape.

In this temporary architecture, between wake and séance, disjunct histories, myths and realities are allowed to coexist and be reimagined. Weaving together seemingly disparate narratives, the piece seeks to undermine the idea of an objectively interpreted, unified reality, while pondering the complex genealogy that gave birth to the modern, rational individual. Juxtaposing the oracular to the scientific, Daemonologie treats the poetic as that which predates, but also destabilises, the neutral universality claimed by the superstructure of science.

Giulia's report: The space is pitch dark, echoing watery noises and some steady beat. Four performers laying under a table slowly stand up and move toward the other table, unwrap candies and pour water into a glass and drop what they unwrapped there. A spotlight turns on and one performer sits in there and read, surrounded by candles–“it is always night”—speaks of an inter-dimentional assembly. Meanwhile another performer spray paint on a roll of paper—“I’ve been in this space for a long time.” Two performers on the back are dripping a liquid on each others mouth. Music becomes more severe—“she 400 years old. Gate 57 is open but if we knew we would have never agreed” They write something on each other legs. “I was three when I first sensed a friend’s distress. (…) Monstrous motherhood cannot nurture but ominous futures.” One performer is manipulating something that looks like a really hard paste and the two behind keep pouring drips in different positions—“collapsing astronomical times (…) Her severed head kindly asked when I am done would you kindly eat my tongue.”—they light candles all stand up and read from their screens—“show us what you saw, a memory of past life”—with the sound of stomping feet. Then they all become one four headed figure.

Phanuel Antwi I love the contradiction that implies critique in the questioning. It’s an interesting observation to call the attention to. To be your most rational self, how much do we need of us? It takes me to rationality—a critique of rationality at the level of the psyche. Because of the fashion and clothing I am reading you folks as mediums. Then I think of experiment and rituals—ritual as a form of technology. The figure of Cassandra is one that hunts me a lot, for the feminist speculative fiction, it is fascinating in that sense to be able to offer prophecies. What is regarded as rational and reason, if we were to think of time, there were two different time zones for believers and non believers. Cassandra is still not fully understood. How do you reinvent these women? How do bring them into the now? How can we live with them and think with them.

Ayesha Hameed When you brought up a title, I thought what is repressed of rationality, and what I saw was a dramaturgy of the repressed. What does it mean to stage something? Your text was beautifully written but my attention kept going to what was happening on stage. Every element is so tight, the light changes and spotlights. I can imagine this going again and again and again, in another loop and endless space. There’s something transforming in this final figure. Then this kind of illusion of endless repetition. So tight, amazing, thank you. And this language without language—how do you enact it?

Francesco Urbano Ragazzi This is an oneiric piece, some subliminal images in the back of our minds, you words were creating a path, while there were images in front of our eyes. This sort of “Suspiria” was intriguing, but I feel that there’s an answer to be found in the final composition you created with your bodies at the end. The light was the best part of the piece. I want to encourage you to go further with this irrational side of it all.

 In the beginning I was attracted to little details and the mystery around them. The smell of the spray was subtle but evident, these atmospheric details and the words were working together, it’s like a Joan Jonas piece, her practice resonated here this idea to overcome a media, in a ritualistic way.

About Ioli Kavakou

Ioli Kavakou's "Daemonologie or A Spectral Wake for all the Weird Sisters" was presented before live audience at Centrale Fies, Dro, Italy on July 29th.

Find the overview of all nineteen AEROPONIC ACTS 2023 here: WHERE THE MOON IS UP

In italiano: 

TITOLO: Daemonologie o una veglia spettrale per tutte le sorelle strambe.

DOMANDA: 

Daemonologie o una veglia spettrale per tutte le sorelle strambe è un'opera di narrativa speculativa che drammatizza l'incontro tra la Sfinge, le Cassandre contemporanee ed Eleni Kikidou, una medium e chiaroveggente greca del XX secolo. Tenute in un laboratorio di neuroscienza, dove gli scienziati cercano di sfruttare le loro capacità, sei donne vegliano per la loro sorella primordiale, che si è divorata per fuggire.

In questa architettura temporanea, tra veglia e seduta spiritica, storie, miti e realtà disgiunte possono coesistere ed essere re-immaginate. Intrecciando narrazioni apparentemente disparate, l'opera cerca di minare l'idea di una realtà oggettivamente interpretata e unificata, riflettendo sulla complessa genealogia che ha dato vita all'individuo moderno e razionale. Accostando l'oracolare allo scientifico, Daemonologie tratta il poetico come ciò che precede, ma anche destabilizza, l'universalità neutrale rivendicata dalla sovrastruttura della scienza.