Locus Solus

Alastair Mackie
selected works
video

 Following its successful presentation at a number of leading European cultural events – and its previous visit to Greece last November Locus Solus by Out of the Box Intermedia returns to Athens with the participation of a group of established and emerging artists from the UK: Mat Collishaw one of the Young British Artists (YBAs), for the first time in Greece, Simon Tegala, James P Graham, Martin Sexton, Melia Kreiling, Xristina Penna, Julieta Kilgelmann, Artemis Papageorgiou, Marenka Gabeler, Cressida Kocienski, Brigit Deubner, Balint Bolygo, Mary Yacoob, David Howells, Mischa Twitchin, Gabriella Daris, Steve Harvey and curator James Putnam.

Locus Solus is based on Raymond Roussel’s novel Locus Solus(Solitary or Unique Place, 1914), in which a scientist fits out his luxurious laboratories in a villa near Paris, each room demonstrating one of the ingenious inventions of his encyclopaedic mind.

Locus Solus represents the spaces and exhibits of a museum of inventions/cabinet of curiosities. The curatorial approach is based on this format in order to imprint the intersections of visual and performing arts and architecture. The exhibition presents seven different happenings, staged by Sozita Goudouna, which will be rotated at a daily basis in the spaces of the museum.

Raymond Roussel’s work focuses on the interaction between art and science and has influenced a number of important writers such as Marcel Duchamp, Michel Foucault, Jean Cocteau and many others. This exhibition aims at re-approaching Locus Solus in relation to its impact on these writers and groups as well as contemporary art.