Kostas Ioannidis

Costas Ioannidis is an artist who works primarily with sound to create unexpected situations in unexpected places. ‘For your own safety’ is a sound installation in which a series of security messages is heard in the privacy of a public toilet. The work is based on the idea that sound in itself can acquire a very threatening dimension in situations of danger. For example, the sound of a siren can be even more ominous than the events that ensue. Under the pretext of security, the presence of official authority has become more overt and surveillance has intensified. However, warning people of possible danger makes the danger seem more real and the need for stronger state protection more urgent. Based on this logic the use of security warning messages – and surveillance - in public places, may become more widespread in the near future. However, the proliferation of warning systems, paradoxically, makes them less instead of more effective, because they ultimately engender indifference. At the same time, Ioannides reminds us that privacy is becoming more of a luxury than a right and that public space is increasingly being seen as a site of potential threat and mishap.

White Season, 1998/2004, Sound installation, Athens (Monastiraki district) & New York (White Box Gallery). Courtesy the artist.

The book, New York Public Library

'SILENT KILLING'

In the era of “The War against Terrorism”, the battlefield has been moved to neighborhoods all over the world. The unexpected air strikes, the criminal proceedings against anyone who dares to dissent, and the sudden bombings are all the “logical” consequences of war.
The horrific impact of war is partly the effect of the extreme extent to which a sense organ such as the ear is stimulated. Infernal noise and absolute silence. During his active military life, a now retired Vietnamese general witnessed several B-52 bombings on the Ho Chi Minh route.

-When we heard the bombers, we would often start to sing. In this way we tried to sing away the sound of the bombers and the explosions. Some of us would start ranting and raving at the top of our voices at the American pilots.
The worst moments were those after the first bombardment. Every one would go completely silent, because from experience we knew that, usually rather soon after the first, a second, even more terrible raid would follow. And of course, you had no way of knowing whether you would survive the second one too. After such bombing, not only the people were silent, but nature fell still as well. Birds did not move anymore. Even the wind seemed to have been swept away. A terrifying, almost stifling silence had us in its grip.

The animation shown at the top of each page of this website is based on the work "For your own safety" by Kostas Ioannidis.

www.blindear.org