From Skanderbeg Square to Syntagma Square and 705km of road between Tirana and Athens, across the Albanian/Greek border. I do not know at this point that many of the borders that I have just ‘slipped’ through will be closed off behind me by the time I return home. Fences being planned behind me.
I am no stranger to Athens. This does not make it easy. I can navigate this city, and familiarity becomes the problem. Graffiti covers the city. This becomes a problem. No wall space. Flood lights, and cafe lights, mean its too light. This becomes a problem. Too many people. Another problem. The problems become interesting, because I cannot find a space…
I try to avoid Syntagma Square, as it feels too much of a circus. I am however drawn to it as a democratic space, a space of public gathering and one that resonates with shift and change.
It is also the place with least Graffiti. I surrender to Syntagma Square. I am however lost in the crowd. It pulses with tourists. I cannot hear the city. Feeling pushed and pulled I find a corner that is too light, too dissolute, and so I project onto marble. This is the least successful performance of the trip. I cannot listen, and I am unable to ‘enter’ the performance and this leaves me feeling more like an ‘operator’. while I ‘operate’, people walk up and down the stairs, some watch from above.
Disorientation has seemed crucial to my process. No time to understand the surrounding heightens the sense of place, and the sense of my body in the space. But here, for tonight, an irritability prevails.
