Eva Papamargariti

Metronom: Factitious Imprints (2016) is an exploration of different scenarios where the human trace is visible through waste, technological leftovers and structural interventions on the soil. What is your idea of Eden, theme of this edition of the Digital Video Wall project?

Eva Papamargariti: In the core of Factitious Imprints lies the idea of a constantly shifting landscape, a terrain that is an amalgam of human actions on the natural world. I think that my idea of Eden is a place where notions like symbiosis, interconnection and empathy are central. A place that is inclusive and encompasses all the complications and intricacies that can occur by the entanglement among humans, critters, natural and non-natural cosmos. Also, a place where things and ideas can actually shift through openness and acceptance.

M: Factitious Imprints is the fourth video work included in the Digital Video Wall project. It focuses on the idea of a constructed and artificial nature and questions how it can be documented and defined through a palimpsest of imprints that human and natural processes simultaneously fabricate on surfaces. Are you interested in a sort of archaeology of a post natural landscape?

EP: Yes, I am very much intrigued by these in-between spaces and categories that rise when human and nonhuman processes intertwine. These chimeric artefacts that are being created intentionally or unintentionally are characterized by processes of time and hold within them a special kind of history that we cannot ignore. It is the history of human action blended with the inevitable natural process and apart from the fact that it shapes our current landscape, it also acts as a great indicator of our faulty gestures and handling of the given resources. These traces are important not only because they exist but because they are constant reminders of our activity, they are always present even in invisible ways.

M: One of the last sequences of the video is an overlapping of smartphones and technological devices. Are they the gateway to our digital transformation or just some future fossils of our time?

EP: I think they carry this dual identity and at the same time they form their own kind of intrinsic topography. Smartphones and similar technological devices are somehow quasi-objects, and they are also activators, agents – part of a wider network, invisible and visible infrastructure that is very much linked to our quotidian life and activity. So, in a material but also immaterial way these objects that we created are now shaping us by shifting our interactions and our surrounding landscape while inevitably defining in a dominant way the way we live.

M: Factitious Imprints is part of a broader project that you have presented at New Museum, New York, and at Benaki Museum, Athens. That version had a strong installative character and included a sound piece: how was the sound conceived? How did you modulate the project to adapt it to a sound-less version for the video wall?

EP: True, Factitious Imprints was presented firstly at the New Museum and then at Benaki Museum in two different versions. Both times the work carried the same meaning, but it was presented differently because the site specificity demanded the work to be flexible as well. The sound is always integral part of my work and Factitious Imprints was no exemption. We hear some mesmerizing low tempo sounds, almost like an organism that inhales and exhales and on top of that there is an ongoing narration which we can assume that is communicated by a nonhuman agent. The shifting pitch in the voice and its weird tuning suggest that the agent who narrates is also a hybrid entity that we cannot completely define.

M: In your works you explore, experiment and use tools and motifs belonging to digital graphics and you are interested in the crossroads between digital and IRL conceived spaces and dynamics. What role does this contamination play within your research?

EP: It is one of the most important features in the process I follow, when I am researching and conceiving a new concept or work. A very central step in the creative process for me is to observe. I observe my surroundings a lot, the way people act and move, the way nonhuman entities act and move as well, some seemingly unimportant moments that occur on the verge of activity and inertia. But these traces and movements belong to the same world, there is no intention on my side to separate these states of existence in digital and IRL. These crossroads that you are mentioning are part of a single topography, which you can experience through different lenses – of course the outcome differs each time depending how and where you look. For me this is a very dynamic and exciting relationship, I believe that one part feeds the other equally and this gray zone is where the most intriguing observations take place.

M: Before your Master’s Degree on Visual Communication Design from Royal College of Art you graduated in Architecture. How has your background informed your practice and research, think for example about your representation of space and your experimentation on 3D modeling and sculpting?

EP: Surely, my former studies played a crucial role in the way I perceive and approach the concepts and tools I use, both theoretically and practically. Architecture studies can open many different pathways and for me it was somehow liberating to be able to link and combine fragments of knowledge and research that belong to various ‘pools’ of data. The way I represent space and the way I design is definitely affected by this, even the way that the camera moves inside my videos is related to a sense of moving that derives from the relationship our body has regarding the space and objects that surround it.

M: In your artistic practice, you often turn to time-based media. How do you relate with different ways to present works of digital arts? Is there a medium you enjoy most, or it depends on the circumstances and on the various works?

EP: It certainly depends on the spirit of the work and what the work carries within each time. Video and sound sure contain a certain dynamic and they are very important especially when I try to create a certain kind of narration. I believe that digital tools can be used in many different ways and can help the work itself to evolve in various forms and mediums ranging from prints and sculptures to sound installations and short moving image pieces. The most fundamental aspect in this process is to keep in mind that each medium is a channel that communicates the work, and it can certainly change and obtain flexibility in order to allow the work itself to be visible and present in the most cohesive and honest way.

Eva Papamargariti is an artist based between London and Athens. Her practice focuses on moving images but also printed materials and sculptural installations that explore the relationship between digital space and material reality. She has exhibited her work in institutions, museums and festivals such as the New Museum (New York), Whitney Museum (New York), Tate Britain (London), MAAT Museum (Lisbon), Museum of Moving Image (New York), MoMA PS1 (New York), Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art (Montreal), Athens Biennale (Athens), Thessaloniki Biennale (Thessaloniki), Transmediale Festival (Berlin). Her work is featured in private collections such as Dakis Joannou Collection (Deste Foundation), PCAI Collection.

Photo credits: Katharina Tress
Courtesy METRONOM and Eva Papamargariti, 2021
19/02/2021