The Live Performance - 18th International Architecture Exhibition Venice Biennale 2023

18th International Architecture Exhibition Venice Biennale 2023 - Cyprus National Participation

From KHIROKITIA to MARS

Petros Lapithis, Lia Lapithi, Nikos Kouroussis, Ioanna Xiari
Cyprus Space Exploration Organization

In many ways human civilization owes its progress to plants, knowing which kind of seeds to harvest. Nature is a configuration of technology, rewriting genetic codes.
The cabin bags contain silver wheat seeds in test tubes. At the opening performance the artists share the tube with their audience. During the Khirokitian era, the wild Einkorn wheat was very hard to gather, as the ears were loosely attached to the stem and fell to the ground before they could be collected. But due to a natural genetic mutation of the past, the cells remained as a solid band on stalk when ripened and new wheat never let go of its seeds. On the artists-astronauts shoulders, perk digital cameras live-project onto the walls of the exhibition space. In a post internet digital network world, like real space simulations, Lapithi and Kouroussis share their movements in real time with the audience in conjunction with the architecture of the space they occupy. 84 mirrored tiles of archaic syllabary are used for the performance as images of repetition, expansion, enlarging the feeling of depth, infinity and vastness.