Portfolio
Thresholds is were I always find myself; in between situations/fields of interest, which are in relation to each other, either oppositional or complementary. My approach is to mix them in unconventional ways. That’s how I coined the term “curarchitect”, to describe who I am: a hybrid of an architect and a curator.
Simon Banos MA in Narrative Environments
I studied architecture at the NTU Athens, where I experimented with several means of expression and aesthetic approaches, coming up with my motto #architectsjsutwannahavefun. The MA course in Narrative Environments at the CSM deepened my research on the relationship between space and the informative experience it can create. Through my interaction with several design fields I shaped my vision of cultural studies and curating. We live through changes in political and economical foundations, which occur with unprecedented speeds to match the acceleration of broadband Internet. Within this environment, the constructs of identity, liberalism, institutionalization and globalization have been long before deconstructed, the arts have switched target audience and the curators are striving to catch up or get ahead. Playing the role of a curator, I got over the typical positioning of objects and the respectfulness towards the artists’ ego. My goal is to initiate algorithms where the artists and the audience co-create the final “artistic events”. The subject and the notion of authorship disappear during the making, while the curator herself is the conductor, bringing the right ingredients together or causing artistic accidents and conflicts. I create engaging, immersive environments which provide the visitors with a platform to “enter the void” and spice up their lives. The “#emoji_milan” interactive display tried to capture the -co-existing in the city- layer of the language used in social media. The intersection and merging of physical and digital worlds is further developed in my project “LIGT” which alters phygital data. In addition, I have a strong interest in self-referential critique towards architecture. The provocative “DeCorbuziers” exhibition played boldly with Le Corbusier’s persona. In our participation at the Venice Biennale 2016 Greek pavilion, my team and I investigated the many #facesofarchitecture in performance art, choreography, visual arts and curating, mapping all the young, Greek, architectural Frankensteins out there!
Casting nomadism and the cultural dialogue Collaborators: Annya Suhardi (MAMF) & Hanna Brooks (MAMF)
Currently, I’m working on my MA Major Project titled “D-iD: Diffused Identities”. It is a psychological term used in this case to describe the transitional phase one experiences when entering a new sociopolitical, cultural and moral structure. I comment on the process of acculturation modern nomads experience. I argue against the romantic view that it happens naturally through globalization. Instead it has been rendered obsolete and counterproductive by its repetitiveness, not invited but actually forced by economical and political situations/decisions such as the echoing 2008 financial crises, unstable war areas and Brexit. Fueled by my personal experience in London, I’m traveling through a mixed media, performative installation. It will be produced in a hand-in-hand collaboration with the artists, in a truck, roaming around Europe, stopping where there’s an emergency, such as potential exit from the EU.