myrto farmaki
Myrto Farmaki
artist filmmaker
About
I am an artist and filmmaker and my work addresses ideas of transhistorical and intergenerational trauma crossing borders between psychoanalysis and philosophy. Using an interdisciplinary approach, I develop systems drawn from paradigms of live performance and theatrical tools, psychoanalysis and ritual, archived sound and a non-edited structure, in order to challenge formal strategies of engagement.
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My work has featured in various places including BBC radio, ICA (London), Wellcome Collection, BFI, Tate Britain, Genesis Cinema (London), Bios (Athens, Greece). I have also participated in various symposia and conferences including Wild Minds (ICA London), Bangorgs Performance Dinners no.8 (Athens) and the International Conference on Artistic Research (Plymouth) amongst other artists, philosophers and academics such as Jean Christophe Bailly, Lynn Turner, Ben Rivers, Mo Throp, Maria Paschalidou. I have also been published in ARWEI catalogue Plymouth University.
Recent commissions include the live performance event 25' by 25' for the exhibition at the Welcome Trust Smoke and Mirrors: The Psychology of Magic and the sound piece 10 Lime Street for BBC New Creatives.
PROJECTS
Imparted Pattern
Film, in progress
Allegorically exploring mediumship and the experience of being haunted, the unexpected arrival of eerie images, that troubles our ability to distinguish self from other, reality from fiction, magic and science, expanding the ways temporality and reality are acted out.
25' by 25'
performance, 2019
A spoken word performance inspired by transcripts from the seances of the medium Margery Crandon addressing matters on ‘hauntology’ and the significance of women’s voices through psychical expression.
Dining Evolution
Film, 2018
10 characters at a dinner party, with the viewer challenged to absorb both their difference and sameness within an extended and elliptical image. The work exposes the frame of form and language, with both conversations and camera going ‘round and round’ endlessly. The film is mesmeric and disorientating, challenging its content and form. Its characters are uneasy with themselves and at odds with their fellow guests, trapped within a prevailing loop of after dinner absurdity.
Taxonomy
Film, 2017
An observation of a performance that remains within the confinements of a stereotyped role. "Taxonomy" is the outcome of a methodological experiment where 7 actors were asked to improvise a stereotyped role (eg a politician) using previously unseen task cards that would initiate interaction.
Amorphous
photos, 2017
Âmorphous looks at the struggle of a person attempting to shape the space of an identity within the confines offered by society. Inspired by ideas on Butoh the video features a character trying to move from a pre-condition to one that is shaped and identified by other, less visible formations, such as those communicated through certain elements hidden behind a wall.
Condemned
Film, 2016
Condemned is centred around an apparently pathological human phenomenon: the requirement to follow and be accepted as part of a group, denying ourselves any psychological freedom. More precisely, inspired by the awakening of communal truths detaining our freedoms, it tells the story of a family - the smallest community, and first we are exposed to - theatrically, and in extreme slow motion.
The Procrustean Bed
Film, 2015
The Procrustean Bed explores the influence society has on one's self-development through life’s different stages: childhood, school, work, relationship, retirement and death. An omnipresent symbol of constraint, the Greek myth of Procrustes’ bed is used to expose the various realities we are forced to adhere to.