The diploma design thesis “House of saliva and dust”, by Georgios Fytas, is an art installation -dimensions 3.00m x 1.50m- on the redefinition of the abandoned arcade of Arsakeio in Athens. It is based on the hidden new life that the space acquired due to its decline. Through the spatial narration of a “nightmare tale” the parasitic habitation that invades the space is presented, creating new hybrid worlds. The installation aims to highlight the relationship between person and building as one suffering body.

-text by the authors

Introduction

Entering the gallery as if in a sealed hall of the city of the past and tracing its present reality -the genius loci of the place emerges the identical relationship between the images of misery, with the phrases left on the walls by current users. Inspired by the emotional charge that the space exudes in combination with their existential dimension phrases, the space is captured in relation to its current inhabitant, as the same suffering body.

The installation is a brutal scientific experiment in the form of the mutilated body and building as well as in its plot story by creating a monster.

Main idea

The new form of life “pseudo-life” – “low – life” acquired by space parasitically (homeless, drug addicts, beggars, gypsies, prostitutes, criminals, etc.), becomes the central idea on the basis of which the building “rebuilt” and returns to its new occupant.

All dissolved and reshaped in new psychological terms situations and the uses of illegal users. The mutilated body of this resident is presented to become the new city for its passions.

The tragic figures that inhabit this underworld environment, are characterized as exiled, doomed people who enter the gallery in order to look for a substitute, for their personal gap. In the mythical rendering of space, this search for a substitute takes the form of a room-sin route with uses that refer to the current illegal functions of the arcade.

Plot

The impoverished portico of Arsakeio is transformed into a roof for intruders, under which a labyrinthine world is organized for dark instincts. Its seven rooms become a stadium for corruption and trap. The result of this course is creating a monstrous creature, between organic and inorganic matter, a “human” transplanted into furniture.

The tragic end of the story is to declare the nature of the character as a cursed nature, one object of finite use as is the case with the building.

Purpose

The installation is intended to raise concerns about the relationship between person and building: Architecture is synonymous with the person who inhabits it. Its inhabitant is the soul of the building. Changing the resident, buildings die, and can automatically be turned into a grave. What happens in a place where the resident changes? what goes on? It, therefore, emerges as a position commentary – you look at a beautiful building, and inside it prevails the desolation, the disorder – the hell.

Credits & Details

Project Title: House of saliva and dust

Project type: Diploma thesis project

Student: Georgios Fytas

Supervisor: Loukia Martha

Institution: University of West Attica | Department of Interior Architecture


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