Presentation of Twin Automat’s Xoanon at the November 2018 issue of Vogue magazine, (nr 9, the art issue, curated by Paulina Olowska)
Text by Delia Gonzalez
Of Death and Other Demons, on view at CAN Gallery in Kolonaki, is the third group exhibition curated by the gallerist Christina Androulidaki exploring the theme of darkness and death. Death should not be seen as an end but instead as a heightened sleep. A sleep that can lead you through initiatic mysteries you may one day awaken from. The film Xoanon by artist duo Twin Automat, Irini Karayannopoulou and Sandrine Cheyrol, takes up this idea. It travels from religious to paranormal phenomena depicting the need of mankind to wake up and understand the universe and praise someone for its creation.” You try to blame someone for why things are the way they are or why they even exist. This is the message behind the film.”
I sit with the enigmatic Irini, on the terrace of her studio on a sunny afternoon in Pangrati, Athens, to listen to her convey the importance of these mysteries, knowledge and her art. ”Mysteries have to be kept as mysteries because they are about a secret universe; if revealed they lose their power. And knowledge can kill, the more you know, the more you have preconceptions. Preconceptions can be dangerous, you won’t go far in your experiments if you already know what to expect.”
Irini also works with painting and collage. Her work is ephemeral and intuitive. It aieves what all works of art aim for:entry into the world of the untouchable. Irini’s sphere is filled with boundless filters that open the passageway to the unconscious universe, where creativity and evolution preside.
Time is a thief: it slowly erases those inestimable moments. Left behind are traces of fossils, a history that once prevailed. Myths that hunt us as tales: were they real or mirrors of truth?
All that were left over were half men or were they anecdotes or resemblances of the gods? Civilisation has not been able to expand because it is still permeated by the strength of history.