Loukia-Alavanou-2023-140X148-English-for-web

Interview Excerpts from "Exiles: Loukia Alavanou in Conversation with Darian Leader" February 20, 2022 (Catalogue of the Pavilion of Greece, 59th Venice Biennale) Loukia Alavanou First of all, I am very interested in the theatricality of the medium. If I'm not mistaken, it was Antonin Artaud who introduced the term 'virtual reality' in relation to his theatre of cruelty. And I think there are many aspects of that kind of cruelty in the way that I work. VR is an ideal space to kind of free-associate—I always use montage as free association in my work. And the fact that you put the viewer in such an isolated, but at the same time common space (in Venice they will be in a space that is like a VR cinema), that tension is extremely interesting to me. I've made this conscious choice, because in a way there is also something nostalgic in using this medium. Although the narrator may use the plural 'we', there is another level to it, one of loneliness, of isolated subjectivity. Darian Leader Say more about that loneliness of the VR viewer. LA To me, VR is akin to dreaming. It gives an artist a space which she can relate to the state of dreaming, because of this loneliness. And, of course, there is something very seductive about the 3D element. It's really present, like in dreams.