Constantly present in contemporary culture, play due to its abrupt and unexpected nature has been put under manifold and -one could claim- inspired control mechanisms: absolute connection with infancy or idleness, educationally tooled to infuse common principles and behaviours. Ιn the 20th century, in the sake of the socially engaged communicational strategies, play has been used from arts institutions to propagate the inclusive cultural model. Participatory art practices, public programming built on the triptych of “play-create-learn” have functioned as attempts to orchestrate the notion of play and the playful practice of art into hegemonic narratives. Artists themselves, are invited to constrain their playful power of experimenting, creating, interacting with the material and the immaterial to pace with the prevalent art industry.
Irini Karayannopoulou, Anna Lascari, Irini Bachlitzanaki and Anastasia Pavlou (Fellow 2019) explore the possible ground of the element of play through various practices, media and gestures in the recently founded space of Automatic Transmission.
Curator: Christina Petkopoulou (Fellow 2019)