Heraklion 13 December 2013, Greece
In the framework of its activities for the period 2013-14, residenceSEA presents the artists Rifa from Vienna and the Londoner Curtiss Cobane in their endeavour in the city of Heraklion, which concluded to the video and rap music production under title “QUIRKY VANΔALIΣΜ”. The opening of their show at the premises of residenceSEA is scheduled for Friday, 13, at 21.00. After a brief presentation of the artists’ work and the collaboration with Marietta Grammatikaki, a concert of rap, electronic and Cretan music with the appearance of the known local player MΗΝΑΣ and his group, will follow at 22.30.
According to the art critic G. Byron Davos – Artist known for the quest of the uncommon and the unexpected, Rifa and Cobane, during the time of their residency in Heraklion, have crossed through and out the streets of the city, in order to discover hidden and neglected landscapes, which were pushed aside due to the urban development and the expansion of the city’s borderline.
In their course through the emarginated streets of the city, the two artists collect the marks of their current life, already reduced to ruins, or neglect, and the remains of their past gleam: abandoned building, objects and bones of dead animals, former materials and living entities, testimonies of the urban and social history of the urban landscape.
Rifa’s hand made mask and the collection of dead animals seems a reminiscent of Joseph Beuys ‘silver mask’ and the dead hare, an attempt to draw the interest and sensibilize the public to the ecological problems and the atomic and technological threats of his times. Rifa’s intention, inversely, is to drive the spectator’s eye to the changes and degradation of the ‘ecology’ of the modern cities, the arising social problems and the consequent alienation.
Cobane’s rap music adds a valuable connotation to this attempt, since the music, as it happens with the ‘graffties’ on the walls, express the voice of an oppressed and marginated, both communicatively and socially, emerging social class (mostly young individuals) that claims an equal right to expression of its voice and views. An intention expressed via a ‘recapture’ of the public space and its ‘vandalism’ by means of graffties and public performances of music and dance.
Rifa is creating electro and indie/alternativ music, both singing and rapping his vocals. Whilst Cobane raps to everything he can. Creating text, sounds and melodies through vocals. Together they are Brian Shank’s. In this mode Rifa and Cobane come with real unorthodox sounds making music that is never the typical you would hear around Europe, rapping over both slow and hi tempo productions.
The ‘vandalism’ that Rifa and Cobane are stating is a double edged one: frst, applies to the authoritarian vandalism of the urban mutation, that obliged people to abandon a whole area, and reduce it to a ‘waste land. Secondly, the act of vandalism from the part of the emerging social groups constitutes a revolutionary gesture to the reactivation of people’s attention and sensibility for the urban and social mutations within the modern cities.
Contact:
Michela Pelusio coordinator of residenceSEA -Sensing your Environment through Art michela.pelusio@gmail.com
http://www.maakali.org/ResidenceSEA
https://facebook.com/ResidenceSEA
mobile +306981004401
Kilkis street, Heraklion, Crete
Artists: RIFA http://rifa.in COBANE http://soundcloud.com/curtisscobane
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