Towards the Bank of the Future, 2013 information

Theo Prodromidis

Towards the Bank of the Future

2K, stereo, 7'30"

2013

commissioned by the Onassis Cultural Centre-Athens for the Visual Dialogues 2013

presentation text:

"Towards the Bank of the Future" observes and engages with two conceptual axes. 

The first axis derives from the analysis of Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics, where Aristotle presents the problematic of a definition of the "work of man". In the same way that Aristotle sets the work of man in motion, this form of a life that is activated by the operation of Logos, Cavafys repositions life, or a form of life at least, in the sphere of History, a history of action, an action beyond a simple livelihood (ζῆν).

At this exact point, the work focuses on the second axis, on the concept of historicity, thus the specific position and use of History in the work of Cavafys. The poet frequently narrates in his works, of a man who is historically located either in the classical or the modern times.The above element is the one that transforms the work of Cavafys to a significant moment of modernity in poetry. The displaced historicity of the form, where the atemporal collides with the historical.