Languages of the Unheard by Danae Theodoridou & Dimitri Papageorgiou. A live experiment of conversing in the language of protest, participatory performance, 2020.

Freiraum Festival 2020 Online ​Artistic Interventions | Saturday, October 31st, 2020 | 16:45-17:00 Greek Time (15:45-16:00 CET or 10:45 EDT) | watch live at http://www.freiraumfestival.eu

“WHAT WE MUST SEE is that a riot is the language of the unheard.” Martin Luther King 

Following a performance score, i.e. a list of instructions similar to those of a board game, Languages of the Unheard construct an online visual and auditory manifesto based on the language of signs and slogans coming from important protests in different European countries from the creation of the European Economic Community (EEC) or ‘Common Market’ in 1957 to 2020. Playing with the performativity of zoom’s feature to ‘rename’ ourselves, we will change constantly our names using the language of those signs, producing a written dialogue in the language of protest. During this dialogue, parts of our words will be audio processed and fed back into the dialogue in different ways, creating a soundscape of languages of the unheard. This ‘silent’ conversation aims to reveal the materiality of the language of protest in order to create an embodied experience of its social force. What stays from our common fights in public space when we don’t have the proximity of our bodies? How can we turn immaterial language into a material ‘action’ in the way Arendt defined the term as the human ability to initiate something in public space that addresses the many without being able to control its outcome in advance?   

Concept, creation: Danae Theodoridou
Composition: Dimitri Papageorgiou 
Participants: Kate Adams (UK), Maria Apostolakea (France), Marijana Cvetkovic (Serbia), Ivana Filip (Croatia), ​Elena Koukoli (Greece), Janeda Milio (Albania), Eleni Mylona (Switzerland), Stefanie Schweiger (Austria), Elena Stamatopoulou (Greece), Tina Yotopoulou (Greece)

Languages of the Unheard is commissioned by Common Lab – Goethe-Institut Excellency Initiative by Goethe-Institut Thessaloniki & ArtBOX in collaboration with TIF-HELEXPO, Freiraum and Institute Hypewerk for Postindustrial Design, in the context of the State of the Arts. 

About the online artistic interventions: http://www.freiraumfestival.eu/artistic-interventions.html

Freiraum Festival:

A collaborative, decentralised, democratised festival taking place simultaneously in the physical and the digital worlds.Developed jointly by more than 40 organisations spread around Europe, the Freiraum Festival includes an Online Summit and more than 20 Local Events, dealing with two issues that have been accelerated by the recent pandemic crisis: the “State of Freedom in Europe today: the ongoing biopolitical crisis and emerging social movements”, and the “State of the Arts: new formats and audiences”.During three days at the end of October (30/10-1/11), established thinkers and audiences around Europe gather to discuss these issues, online and offline, in specially conceived events which transform the local into a subjective centre.The online Summit combines a studio and teleconferencing platform (Zoom). It includes talks, discussions, artistic interventions especially made for the online format, and live connection with the local events held by the Freiraum partners.More information & programme: www.freiraumfestival.eu