Tag Archives: Temporary office

Promenade IX: Dimosio Sima; Public Reading of Pericles’ Epitaph (Thucydides, II.34-46)

..”We cultivate refinement without extravagance and knowledge without effeminacy;
wealth we employ more for use than for show, and place the real disgrace of pover
ty notin owning to the fact but in declining the struggle against it. [2] Our public men have,
besides politics, their private affairs to attend to, and our ordinary citizens, though occupied with the pursuits of industry, are still fair judges of public matters; for, unlike
any other nation, regarding him who takes no part in these duties not as unambitious but
as useless, we Athenians are able to judge at all events if we cannot originate, and instead
of looking on discussion as a stumbling block in theway of action, we think it anindispensable preliminary to any wise action at all. [3]“….

 On March 1rst, 2013, at 21.45 we realised the public reading of the funeral oration of Pericles at Dimosio Sima; the site where it is considered to be initially pronounced. The reading was based on the History of the Peloponnesian War, Book Two, by Thucydides (translated by Eleftherios Venizelos). It was performed with the contribution of Orizontas team, artists and random passers.

The performance was registrated and enriched at the Temporary office for the study and the registration of the “findings” of the reverie at the exhibition space of Orizontas gegonoton autoorganized team (88 Kerameikou str) at the context of the exhibition “Greece No Problem”


Promenade IX: Visitors

(I am reading an extract from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden)                                                              “I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.

When visitors came in larger and unexpected numbers there was but the third chair for them all, but they generally economized the roon by standing up. It is surprising how many great men and women a small house will contain…

      

One inconvenience I sometimes experienced in so small a house, the difficulty of getting to a sufficient distance from my guest when we began to utter the big thoughts in big words. You want room for your thoughts to get into sailing trim and run a course or two before they make their port. The bullet of your thought must have overcome its lateral and ricochet motion and fallen into its last and steady course before it reaches the ear of the hearer, else it may plough out again through the side of the head…”

Photos from my temporary office for the study and the registration of the “discoveries” of my reverie-travel held during the “Utopia” project at the autoorganized space of “Orizontas Gegonoton” team.

photo 1. Rika Krithara is reading Walden, sitting at the chair of society                                                       photo 2.Alexia Celia Peza is reviewing my notes from friendship chair, Maria Peza is at the society chair. Rika Krithara and Orestis Tzirtzilakis are standing.