The first project is based on staircases as palindromic metaphors and the phonematic
character of Georges Perec’s Les Grande Palindrome. Staircases can be considered as
a way of designing under constraint, like a text written under constraint. In stairs, as in
palindromes, there is structurally a centre of balance where all of its distinct elements
are mirrored – every step has its counter one – and although direction has two
different alternatives, the route remains the same and can be read in a similar way.
Even if time is linear, stairs can be experienced non-linearly, depending on direction,
the location of the body inside the system, or circulation. Stairs have the ability of
mirroring themselves as well as mirroring time. Using the same staircase throughout
time, you mirror yourself in different but similar timelines. It is a repetitive procedure
where palindromic movement lies in the fact that, although the content is the same,
various almost imperceptible factors create the difference. You can read the same
content in different directions and at different times while remaining within a
constrained symmetry. Staircases, although belonging to a system, work
independently of it. They constitute a system within a system, related to it but at the
same time referring to itself. They break the linearity of space and, by implication, the
‘irreversibility of time’.^† This makes them a very particular spatial characteristic.

The value of mirrored symmetry has been chosen as a main feature for the
editing of the video throughout its entire length. Split screens always show the same
plane mirrored with different time variations, same time flow in both screens, very
slight time differences between screens, acceleration of time in only one, or
completely different time sequences of the same plane. The result also aims at a more
graphical interpretation of structural elements as an attempt to alter their meaning, as happens in a palindromic text. The Grande Palindrome (1969) by George Perec is
read both forwards and backwards as an attempt to examine its phonetic structure
determining also the duration of the film. The combination of sound and image – both
of them reflected – aims at the game of orientation and disorientation.

The video can be played backwards or forwards.

Participants: Efi Dementi, Ioannis Kouvidis and Stamatios Zografos.
Voice by Aggelos Abazoglou.

^† Greber, Palindrome Semiotics.