>> 1. Τραγούδι του ρακοσυλλέκτη (Rag-picking Song) LYRICS<br/><br/>My fingers. Scraped by juts. Cuts into scars.<br/>Dusts and muds creeping into tired veins.<br/>And my toes. Swelling and cracking. Pussing.<br/>There are no ointments. Salves cannot be made.<br/>Rags have not been seen for generations<br/>(Long ago poached, and stowed away or burnt). <br/>Fragile threads left over are sparsely found.<br/>The grains of their fibres erode to air.<br/>As the winds whip the flame, rattling glass,<br/>Dispersing them further (hidden away).<br/><br/>Congealing fragments, compressed into strings,<br/>Twining with each other, formed into ropes,<br/>Braided into networks, structuralized,<br/>Through intricate additive processes,<br/>Infinitesimally woven swatches,<br/>Which may, through combinatory tactics,<br/>Be adjusted in breadth, altered to suit,<br/>Pulled into shapes, crammed into crevices,<br/>Used to conceal, for a moment or two,<br/>Illegalized actions, objects, or flesh.<br/><br/>Since we are no longer in the age where<br/>Wealth accumulates itself as symbol<br/>And we are now living in the age of<br/>Wealth articulated as metaphor,<br/>All forms of the symbolic have been culled<br/>(To objectify the metaphoric)<br/>And all forms of the expressive suppressed<br/> (Mitigating variations in forms)<br/>(As these variations make legible<br/>Structures functioning through opacity).<br/> <br/>And that being so: gleaning from these shards;<br/>And that being so: weaving from these lints;<br/>And that being so: fearing detection;<br/>And that being so: risking erasure;<br/>And that being so: (though this day will come)<br/>Stalking the soil and the stagnant water,<br/>With hairs draped like flames, eyes piercing the dark,<br/>Acclimatized to the microscopic<br/>(Though lenses, too, may never be produced)<br/>I search for the variants on these grounds.

>> 2. Τραγούδι του οπτομέτρη (Lens-grinding Song) LYRICS<br/><br/>"Its colored grains form dunes obeying the<br/>Winds that blow into the scene from outside."<br/>(Inasmuch as a lens is a shapened <br/>Facilitator formed for optical<br/>Laws to converge within the various<br/>Given material and temporal<br/>And kinetic and spatial conditions,<br/>And fluctuating luminosities,<br/>Built to exhaust the permutations of<br/>Ocular physics (in and against time.))<br/><br/>"Fates decided not through choice but with the <br/>Oscillating tendencies of those winds."<br/>(Inasmuch as an image is a form <br/>Built with light which can concretize a view<br/>Made visible by and within these laws<br/>And structured within the logics of the<br/>Given material and temporal<br/>And kinetic and spatial conventions<br/>Within which organisms must function<br/>(Within which we decompose in time.))<br/><br/>"Plucked from the multitude, a grain of sand<br/>Thrown in an eye can cause its removal."<br/>(Inasmuch as an image, formed as such<br/>And physicalized, is like a body:<br/>Traceable ("I can feel you here with me");<br/>Desirable ("I want your skin with mine");<br/>Governable ("A touch not permitted");<br/>Mutable ("Gouging eyes, severing tongues");<br/>Disappearable ("Body no longer");<br/>Untraceable ("Memories are formless".))<br/><br/>"Sucked from the multitude, a grain of sand<br/>Ingested by mollusk grows to a stone."<br/>(Inasmuch as a representation <br/>Is as improbable and tenuous<br/>As the world and the lives it represents<br/>While being for them prisms for meaning:<br/>Formed without images I form them (for<br/>A past that is unable to see them,<br/>A future that does not yet want them, and<br/>A present that does not know what they are.))

>> 3. Τραγούδι του ηχοσυλλέκτη (Sound-collecting Song) LYRICS<br/><br/>Absence accumulates actions against.<br/>Before: beings (blackened, bleached), bodies (boiled,<br/>bombed, braided, bubbling), buildings (burnt, butchered).<br/>Cameras coaxing colours, concealing.<br/>Culled (decapitation decided).<br/>Deciphering decomposed dialects.<br/>Dispersing distrusts, dropping drowning dusts.<br/>Eyes facilitating feeling fiction.<br/>Fingers flayed, flesh fluctuating (formless).<br/>Glass gleaning granular grammars (growing).<br/><br/>Hands have heat here. Horizontal humans<br/>ignored, illegalized, imageless.<br/>In inaudible infinitesimal<br/>instincts (intricate, invisible) it<br/>knows language laws, layering light like lines.<br/>Loyalties make meaning metaphoric.<br/>Microscopic mistakes, momentary<br/>movements, mutable myth narratives: no<br/>noises obey optical orderings.<br/><br/>People permitted processes, produced<br/>projections recalibrating reflex,<br/>removed representation ruthlessly,<br/>scattering seeing, silencing singing.<br/>Solitude structures subjectivity.<br/>Suppressed symbols, synchronized tendencies,<br/>tendernesses, tendons, tenuousness.<br/>These things, threaded through time, tiring tongues;<br/>torn tracings, twisting undetectably,<br/>unravel untraceable variants.<br/>Your words without voice, visibilities<br/>undetected, touching tongues tightening.<br/>Silent scenes representing removals.<br/>Poached organs, operated on meanings.<br/>Mouths momentarily loosen, language<br/>kills itself, images hollow, grammars<br/>fragment, forms fluctuate, flesh falls, eyes exit,<br/>dialectical desires decompose,<br/>cameras burn, bodies asphyxiate,<br/>appear again. Acclimatized absence.

>> 4. Τραγούδι του χορού (Dancing Song) LYRICS<br/><br/>Inventory of reflexive movements:<br/>The tracing of sweat over follicles;<br/>The chipping off of an eroded tooth;<br/>The quiver of lips when refraining speech;<br/>The charring of skin as it’s melting off;<br/>The way tendons twist when loving something;<br/>The way knuckles gnarl when maiming someone;<br/>The wind from an eyelid flicking out dust;<br/>The rub of grasses in cracks between toes;<br/><br/>Acts produced with intention to be seen:<br/>…rips the curtains…sings…exits…rises…bends…<br/>softly inspects…congeals…sings…rides…turns…stops…<br/>slithers up…listens…sings…clenches…hides…looks…<br/>motionsickens…shoots…screams…sleeps…appears…lifts…<br/>drags by hair…enters…sprees…confesses…lines…<br/>crawls on knees…laughs…maneuvers…mirrors…runs…<br/>drops…steps…tramples…sings…gathers…agitates…<br/>sings…crashes…runs…climbs…closes the curtains…<br/><br/>Places where situations unravel:<br/>Anxieties. Archives. Assasinations.<br/>Assembly Lines. Consultancy firms. Decapitations.<br/>Drownings. Economics. Exhibitions.<br/>Factory Wages. Gravitational re-calibrations.<br/>Killing sprees. Loss of body. National anthems.<br/>Nervous ticks. People. Shipwrecks. Recessions.<br/>Solitude. Songs. Subprime mortgages.<br/>Adoring eyes and their loosening skins.<br/>Things. Track-lines. Video simulations.<br/><br/>Observing your assembly of movements,<br/>torn from an infinite inventory <br/>of potential movements (bendings, shivers,<br/>sweeps, flicks, sighs); each quiver reminding that<br/>all objects reverberate constantly,<br/>all bodies flow in equilibrium,<br/>and that if time can stretch like rubber-bands<br/>perhaps we can tighten it with tension<br/>enough for our movements to be tandemed<br/>(momentarily, if possible, even).

>> 5. Τραγούδι της απογραφής (Transcribing Song) LYRICS<br/><br/>Inventory of fragments (overheard):<br/>-- calculation -- decision making -- sound --<br/>-- reorderer: -- you reordered my words --<br/>-- my body’s order -- you reordered me --<br/>-- trees -- dreams -- stars -- coffee grounds -- the flight of birds<br/>and their own livers -- swooning – wonderment --<br/>-- but what is a word? -- is it a cipher? --<br/>-- or is it a symbol built with ciphers? --<br/>-- your eyes returned from a despotic land<br/>where no one knows the meaning of a glance --<br/><br/>Collected (for future decipherment)<br/>-- redbreast -- weeping -- autumn light -- tenderness --<br/>-- and what does it mean? -- and what is meaning? --<br/>-- being a symbol is it bodily? --<br/>-- (a body connotes; your body connotes) --<br/>-- a myth, like all myths, constructed upon<br/>a fiction meant to represent a truth --<br/>-- a narrative to suggest a future --<br/>-- your; eyes, voice, hands, lips -- our: silences, words --<br/>-- light: in absence, as or if it returns --<br/><br/>Constructing symbols (to connect sounds):<br/>-- what is a body? -- matter or symbol? --<br/>-- colours -- forecastings -- logics -- taste -- distrust --<br/>-- what is a symbol? -- to whom do we speak? --<br/>-- for whom do we speak? -- for whom are we us? --<br/>-- as beings with subjective potential --<br/>-- impulses -- compulsion -- our pulse -- contempt --<br/>-- distribution of electricity --<br/>-- forces to be examined or ignored --<br/>-- your eyes -- crashing jets -- stained glass -- rent -- prisons --<br/><br/>Cobbling grammars (threading symbols in rows):<br/>-- suppression of crime -- war operations --<br/>-- and what am i? -- symbol of myself? --<br/>-- a surface for a projection of you? --<br/>-- a conduit to decipher myself? --<br/>-- are futures horizons of the present? –<br/>-- are impulses constructions of language? --<br/>-- is this why we don’t know what language is? --<br/>-- those not asphyxiated by absence<br/>of light circled crazily, like ants -- still –

>> 6. Τραγούδι της εκτροφής περιστεριών (Pigeon-breeding Song) LYRICS<br/><br/>In pitches inaudible to humans:<br/>A body: flayed; governing; of water<br/>(The first thing to do is slice off the beaks:<br/>Free of a mouth they cannot make noise)<br/>Scattering, dropping, dispersing fragments<br/>(at North Fourty-one degrees Forty-three minutes Fifty-two point Zero Two<br/>East Twelve degrees Seventeen minutes Twelve point Five seconds):<br/>Skin bubbling, boiled before butchering;<br/>Split from the palate down to the sternum;<br/>Poison corroding the stomach lining;<br/>(You, protagonist: enjoy this pain, too)<br/><br/>In dialects imperceptible to humans:<br/>A body: of water; flayed; governing; <br/>(The next thing to do is to tar the wings:<br/>Invisible against the blackened sky)<br/>Scattering, dropping, dispersing fragments:<br/>(At the place next to where we last left them):<br/>The flicker of the sponsors' commercials<br/>Intervals of colour fall on your neck<br/>(Refrigerators, toothpastes, smiling cheeks)<br/>Synchronized with the spasms in your gut<br/><br/>With veiling meshes rendered in marble:<br/>A body: governing; of water; flayed; <br/>(One must always poach and stomp the lain eggs:<br/>Nesting instincts compromise loyalties)<br/>Scattering, dropping, dispersing fragments:<br/>(at the points where language layers like fogs):<br/>Endlessly circling rose-coloured ruins;<br/>(As rain bleaches, as sun burns [over time]);<br/>As heat coaxes coals from grey-black to white;<br/>As support shifts from buildings to scaffolds<br/> <br/>With subjectivities rendered as walls:<br/>A body: defined by fragilities<br/>(Twist off the neck if a mistake is made:<br/>No room for error; pragmatic, ruthless)<br/>Scattering, dropping, dispersing fragments:<br/>(With meanings carved out, like shavings of lead):<br/>(Silent, against the light of the sunset);<br/>Undetected detonations of bombs;<br/>Cameras operated by shadows;<br/>As meanings hollow again: with "An End"...

PRODUCTION NOTES:

Exhibition title: BROADCAST: Redundant as eyelids in absence of light.
Location: Bureau Audio
Duration: September 2018
Translation: Dimitris Politakis (English to Greek),
Panagiotis Tzanavaris (Greek to Sfyria)
Performer: Panagiotis Tzanavaris
Acknowledgements: Eva Birkenstock, Giovanni Carmine, Erin Carroll, Hampus Lindwall