Moving Sand / Topos An audiovisual essay by Floros Floridis and Jeanine Meerapfel

Artificial intelligence has a radical effect on nearly all areas of human life. The audiovisual essay Moving Sand / Topos ‒ by composer and musician Floros Floridis and filmmaker and Akademie President Jeanine Meerapfel ‒ is inspired by these changes that affect our perception of “topos” in its various levels of meaning. Through the combination of film with live, improvised music, dance and text, the essay associatively points out how digital mania and technology increasingly colonise our daily lives.

Moving Sand / Topos premiered on 29 May 2019. It was created as part of the experimental exhibition and special event project  “Wo kommen wir hin” (“Where are We Headed”), initiated by Kathrin Röggla, Karin Sander and Manos Tsangaris, which transformed the Akademie building on Hanseatenweg into a working Akademie. With the participation of numerous members this past spring, “Wo kommen wir hin” presented different approaches and strategies of artistic action and questioned their aesthetic and social conditions; it especially questioned the political potential of art.

Moving Sand / Topos will be performed again on 9 November 2019, during the Akademie der Künste's Fall General Assembly. This date, 9 November, has witnessed several consequential events in German history. Last year, the Akademie der Künste remembered the 80th anniversary of the November pogroms on 9 November 1938. This year, the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall will be the focus of public interest both in Berlin and nationwide – commemorating the day on which the wall between East and West opened. With the performance of Moving Sand / Topos, the lessons of the past are the points of departure for a view far into the future. Which changes, which chances and which dangers lie ahead of us?

Moving Sand / Topos
An audiovisual essay by Floros Floridis and Jeanine Meerapfel

Concept: Floros Floridis
Directed by: Jeanine Meerapfel and Floros Floridis
Dance: Tanzcompagnie Rubato
Live music improvisation: Elena Kakaliagou (French horn) and Floros Floridis (clarinets)
Lighting and set design: Siegfried Paul
Director of photography: Johann Feindt
Montage: Vasso Floridi
Soundtrack: Floros Floridis
Recording and Sound editing: Titos Kariotakis and Christos Charmpilas