Panos Kouros and Elpida Karaba.

Archive Public. Performing Archives in Public Art. Topical Interpositions.

Patras: Department of Architecture, University of Patras and Cube Art Editions, 2012

Within the flexible limits of archival art today, Archive Public practices archival art as intervention in public space, questioning the dominant hegemony and allowing for possibilities of solidarity actions. It aspires to the creation of a broader productive collaboration network triggered by two theoretical research assumptions and an open body of works which tries out archival interventions in conflicting urban situations, in Patras and other european cities.

The book includes theoretical hypotheses on archival practice in contemporary art, art works that were specifically created for the project, as well as an anthology of essays by contemporary thinkers who elaborate on particular issues of the archive in relation to the public sphere and theories of democracy, the notions of institution and instituting practice, interventions in the shifting urban condition, the philosophy and archaeology of media as well as the global flows of migration and media. Interventions focus on the urban and social condition of Patras, as it is influenced by a translocal dynamics which produces interrelations with other localities.

Texts by Arjun Appadurai, Ioannis Chorianopoulos, Wolfgang Ernst, Boris Groys, Panos Kouros, Elpida Karaba, Oliver Marchart, Gerald Raunig, Saskia Sassen.

Works by Yota Ioannidou, Maria Konti, Gregoris Pharmakis, Lina Theodorou, Stefanos Tsivopoulos, Vangelis Vlahos, Nayia Yiakoumaki.