Efi’s video “bed-line” invites us to mentally traverse a sterile, claustrophobic environment that includes more than one single spatial dimension in its space and more than one single temporal dimension in time. It emanates the energy of the absent, suffering bodies (visualized through the hybrid objects-beds) and their stories, their individual space, their individual time, their individual memories, yet all of them leading to the generic concepts of loss and pain, their universalism and their anonymity. Loss and pain transcend individualism. …The abrupt, rather frightening, repetitive and monotonous sound of her video underscores the subliminal theme of ‘chance’. The unexpected and random events that exalt uncertainty have been repeatedly glorified by romantic movements, yet there are times when the stereotypical, predictable, conventional, typical of the human existence becomes appreciated. It is when the unpredictability of our body’s fragility shakes our existence. Her environment is a space of dialogue between uncertainty and chance, and the comfort of predictability. The accumulation of generic-type beds bursts the protective bubble of personal space we are all comfortable in and take for granted. Efi Spyrou’s work dissects an archetype, that of physical frailty, pain and finally loss. And for that she uses a language that is immediate and pertinent
Theoni Scourta Art Historian January 5, 2011
Efi’s video “bed-line” invites us to mentally traverse a sterile, claustrophobic environment that includes more than one single spatial dimension in its space and more than one single temporal dimension in time. It emanates the energy of the absent, suffering bodies (visualized through the hybrid objects-beds) and their stories, their individual space, their individual time, their individual memories, yet all of them leading to the generic concepts of loss and pain, their universalism and their anonymity. Loss and pain transcend individualism. …The abrupt, rather frightening, repetitive and monotonous sound of her video underscores the subliminal theme of ‘chance’. The unexpected and random events that exalt uncertainty have been repeatedly glorified by romantic movements, yet there are times when the stereotypical, predictable, conventional, typical of the human existence becomes appreciated. It is when the unpredictability of our body’s fragility shakes our existence. Her environment is a space of dialogue between uncertainty and chance, and the comfort of predictability. The accumulation of generic-type beds bursts the protective bubble of personal space we are all comfortable in and take for granted. Efi Spyrou’s work dissects an archetype, that of physical frailty, pain and finally loss. And for that she uses a language that is immediate and pertinent
Theoni Scourta Art Historian January 5, 2011