PERCEIVING ACADEMY

(top image) PERCEIVING ACADEMY, CYPRUS, Urban Sound Score, composed and directed by Eric Ellingsen, 2018-2021. Eleven Perceiving Academy participants of the participant selected at least three urban elements that repeat in a 3km loop in Nicosia, and were asked to map the frequency and intervals of those urban elements as systems. Together, the map is a loop moving through both the North and the sound side of the divided city of Nicosia, Cyprus. The path starts and ends at the UN Buffer Zone, Famagusta Gate. To determine the route, each person is asked to stay as close to the UN Buffer Zone as possible while walking along public streets and spaces. Along the way, landscape urbanism rhythms emerge as each person assigns notation marks for each of the urban elements. Notations are compiled and collectively transferred into one Urban Sound Score by Eric Ellingsen. This score guided individually designed performances for the closing walk and public choir. For the record, each participant made audio recordings in a professional sound studio. The individual tracks were layered and looped into a sound path, and lathed into limited edition vinyl records.

(curators/creative directors) Katerina Neophytidou, Katina Kosta
(collaborators/partners) E.K.A.T.E. CYPRUS CHAMBER OF FINE ARTS
(EΠIMEΛHTHPIO KAΛΩN TEXNΩN KYΠPOY); European Mediterranean Art Association – EMAA; The Cultural Services of the Cyprus Ministry of Education, Culture, Youth and Sports
(Production team) Marcus Papageorgiou & AV Playroom Sound Recording Studios

(bottom image) PERCEIVING ACADEMY, THESSALONIKI (2016-2018). The Perceiving Academy curriculum included walks led by experts on various knowledge fields, centered around the way in which we see and perceive the city as space, as well as on how we co-develop structures and relations within it. As a reaction to their walks, the participants designed, constructed and publicly presented a series of temporary sculptures-interventions-structures that functioned as a point of convergence within public space, a place for meetings and debates, a starting point for renegotiating the interpretation and use of urban landscape.

(curators/creative directors) Christos Savvidis, Lydia Chatziiakovou
(scientific expert) Dr. Sotirios Bahtsetzis
(collaborators/partners) Mayor and Municipality of Thessaloniki, Greece; Goethe-Institut, Thessaloniki; ArtBOX (creative arts management); Thessaloniki International Fair – Helexpo SA