Picpoetry: unedited mobile photography and rapidly, almost automatic unedited poetic prose writing, ideally on the spot in order to capture the atmospherics of the specific time and space. I upload all my picpoetry on Instagram under the name picpoet – one of the oldest poets of Instagram combining visual and poetic prose. Picpoetry is a method I invented in 2009 in order to explore an ontology of presence without falling into the standard trappings of visual and textual phenomenology. There have been two waves of picpoetry. The first one, with about 600 picpoems, ended in July 2013 were all except for the very last picpoem were ceremoniously deleted for picpoet’s suicide. The second one, since 2014 and still ongoing, counts more than 1000 picpoems and can be found below and on Instagram.
PICPOETRY
The #australiapavilion with the work of #archiemoore won the golden Lion at #venicebiennale biennale. I was underwhelmed when I visited it despite being very interested in the concept. The space was flooded by a spectacular textuality (genealogy, legality, provenance) but the content remained entirely inaccessible. The text was either scribbled high up on the wall or on redacted documents behind a water moat. So it was a text not to be read: the signified (if one read the blurb) without the signifier (to paraphrase Barthes).
While this @labiennale is in many respects extraordinary, the German pavilion did it again with a chilling exploration of thresholds, boundaries between here and nowhere bridged by fragile bodies exposed to our gaze. A subtle choreography of claustrophobia. #thresholds #germanpavilion #caglailk #deutscherpavillon #biennale
There is vertigo when you lie horizontal: the direction always changes, the flatness is actually roundness, the length lasts a lifetime and then some. But it’s a vertigo your body recognises as its own, a spiralling of pores and whirlpools.
Mefistofele is having a naked shower during the prologue, The promise is delivered through heroin, Margherita is Muslim, Helene of Troy is a recital singer, and my broach is not Cartier. A night at La Fenice with @anna_sanachina_soprano_venezia @felicitymenadue and @itacaartstudio_monicamartin. First pic by @felicitymenadue
You will always wonder, is this the corridor?, you will never cease wondering even when your feet will be tangled in the green mane of your city and your gaze will be fixed in the shallows, is this the corridor I am looking for, you will always wonder, because amongst all the corridors of all the cities, you still think there is only one that will lead you home, and you will never cease wondering, even though you know you’ve walked countless corridors in countless cities and they have all led you home.
We found some pretty walls and became flowers. Or, when mum is in town, colours go wild.
This might be my favourite pic (as Ifor said, Prada wrap up) shot by @corruptnegatives of the finale of this year’s Westminster Law School Degree Show, the culmination of a year of hard work by students, colleagues and artists in residence.
glitches in the service of collective freedom
Reposted from @lawtheorylab Join us for this year’s Westminster Law School Degree Show! We are the only Law school globally with a final year Degree Show where all final year students produce an artefact reflecting on their encounter with law, justice and injustice. Personal, moving, often incredibly traumatic and therapeutic.
And it is launched! Thank you to all old and new friends for coming yesterday to usher Our Distance Became Water into the world :) we filled up Hatchard’s and apparently sold out on all copies. There will be more in store, signed in white-ink-on-dark-blue-page flourishings but until then you can get your copy at
REMINDER: All invited! I want a party! No need to RSVP, just show up.
Our Distance Became Water
In the rush of the evening, the doubles become one and the depths emerge onto the surface. Here we all are, flat and full of breath, waiting for the end of water.
My novel is OUT! And you’re invited to our Grand Launch on Wednesday 13th of March, 6-8pm, at Hatchard’s Piccadilly - only the oldest, chicest, cosiest bookshop in Britain patronised by the Royal family and republicans alike (like me ;)
We have no choice. Touch is all there is, yet touch hurls us forward, a mad sail across mad seas, a swerve and a turn, and just like that, we sink and sink; yet, just like that, scathed and drenched, we reach the edge of our horizon.
Your lines meet, I’m sure. On this space-amongst that the round stays round, your words end up in a phrase that hugs the water edge.
The space-amongst us, a different country a different season, we hold on to it like a dove in prestidigitating hands, no right to it just nestling it gently.
That word you said, how round it stayed, despite mouths and lips, ears and air, fears and forests. Maybe because in its bubble, the world formed like blood.
Bridges that don’t bridge, never wished to bridge, never claimed the other bank, never turned their back to where they started from. Bridges that don’t bridge are the bridges that really link us.
This night is like every other night: the world closes its eyes, then time visits its dreams, and we wake up every morning in a new world. This night is like every night except for one thing: the darkness is darker, the dreams are deeper, and the world might feel just a little brighter when we wake up.
And whenever we looked up,
The day of the morning of the moment you woke up for the first time, you live it again every night when you wake up when you shouldn’t, but what gushed you out and what waited to mould you? And you want to become all the parallels of all the moments that could have made you otherwise, and sleep becomes dawn.
Neither light the moon you expected but your steps will still be guided, one two as if there’s nothing above, two one as if there’s no one on your side. But you’ll know and you’ll raise your hand and you’ll touch my face, the face of the moon you sleep with. And you’ll carry on walking.
Law & Theory Lab showcase at @regentstcinema An immersive experience of our Lab work by members of staff, PhDs and undergraduates. Thinking and performing the law otherwise.
What if you turn your back to the water. It seeps in the other side. The dream you had the other night when you rode on a flat desert. The wake you had the other night when you flew like a current. It’s all there and you pretend to only drink it.
Our Westminster Law & Theory Lab is having a showcase performance at Regent Street Cinema on Wed 13th of Dec, 4:30-6pm followed by drinks.
your layers are open, your boundaries soft, your walls of glass, your support gossamer, but here, otherwise than your centre, a universe that breeds thousandfold centres and thousandfold elsewheres, your embrace is always wounded marble
The geography of your signature, darts across tomorrow’s skies, oh I forgot to breathe, is this slow enough? must I learn how to reverse? yes, breathe and look up, something always drops, gently landing on your lap.
The memory of whales floating overhead us, what was this caress, the soft polyester blanket that made darkness a home, we brought in the sound of a flight landing, we landed on the belly of a city in a tin box.
This eye never opened. We waited. Then stories went round, that the eye could see us even when shut. But we still waited. We wanted to see ourselves seen.
The boy and his (legal) tools
Law as performance part 3 at The Westminster Law & Theory Lab, Friday 10/11/23. In this clip:
Law as performance part 2 at The Westminster Law & Theory Lab, Friday 10/11/23. In this clip:
Law as Performance part 1 at The Westminster Law & Theory Lab, Friday 10/11/23. In this clip:
“and if your sky touched my earth”
A girl’s hair on the wind, the perfume after you leave, the last sound of the orchestra before the applause, l’heure bleue, your face just turned away: remember me but ah forget my fate.
Its reflection a path to the reflected. But not a straight line. We had to slide across the round of a planet that was breathing its slow nocturnal wheeze. This is the only way to reach the moon mother. Or you just come out and see it on the lake of your garden.
Turn your back to the sacrifice.
When his skin extends and becomes like yours, soft, breathing, elastic, and you see yourself seeing yourself, and in the fold a layer of love (to oneself? to the other?) blossoms into iridescent peacocks.
We awarded unanimously the @nufftromso 2023 International Jury Best Film 🏆 to Bear by @morganefrund
The angel floating over your head was after all your desire. You greeted each other and began your evening.
The day when no one fell into that pool was a good day. @lenitavisan and @legitphotographer skies and doves and swans and futures and loves
Elated to be part of this Baltimore show but above to be a member of the Mnemosyne international artists’ group that has weathered distances, pandemics, technological hurdles and simply the passage of time over the past three years. Hurrah to @artemisherber for holding us all together through thick and thin.
Law As Performance: A Workshop
15 mins of fame. 5’ 05” to be precise. The video @jan.hogan.731 and I made in 2020, just before the pandemic, while I was on an art residency at Hobart’s School of Fine Arts, Tasmania, has been selected to be shown at the Financial Times Business of Art Summit this past weekend. We are elated that this still beautiful piece of work (ha!) got another airing.
See me for what I am: one that doesn’t fit, one that envies, one that understands, one that forgives. Let your synthesis egg-crack like a planet on which you landed too hard.
Sinking Islands: Solomon Islands, oil and gold leaf on discarded gondola wood with discarded Murano pieces, 30x30cm, 2023
and while we were all posing, the city lost its patience and took a dive underneath us. We didn’t feel ready to move though.
There was a name I kept on forgetting. It shouted my dreams, lifethrobbing yet moistlined, but never coming out the other side. I flew a fly saving itself from the waters. That dream too ended up nameless.
Time’s toil darkens under the sun that looks into its other side: the longest shadows that become swallowed by the longest light.
And while you wait, count from ten backwards all the ones you want to see, all of the me that might never show up, all of the you that would become if my me showed up. And when you’ve reached two, stop and wait in the round of your breath.
When did your roads become storms and your buildings earth? When did your water fill with loss and your air with waiting? Was that the moment we all became observers? Or had you known earlier?
How fast do you need me to sink? Sell me, show me, stunt me. Forget me but ah remember my fate.
What of the afternoon that arrived early? It became a song you sung in a hall with curtained yellow walls.
The geometry of bodies: place them carefully on top of each other in a pyramidal formation. Allow the heat to travel up and consume the bodies from within. Once the fire is going, add the surrounding space, including a large chunk of sky. When the bodies become one, lift the whole thing and gently dip it in the water. The sea will turn a soft orange. Serve it immediately.
He found where to stand. His body assumed the right pose. The sea had calmed. But he couldn’t jump.
They noticed that they could find themselves more easily if, instead of looking straight into their own eyes, they turned their backs and reached behind them pointing in the air at the back of their heads. They then felt their own skin touching them back, familiar like a mother’s caress, but also other, as if they themselves had finally become the ones they were afraid of.
It turned so slowly that no one could tell. Yet it turned. The wall eventually became a field of sunflowers, the tube was replaced by a peacock. If you had stayed, you could have reached out and touched its feathers.
I am currently writing a text report on the Venice biennale and I’m focusing on the uses of text which were many, varied and often disturbing. I might therefore change my mind while I think of the issues. But as it stands, the visual and aesthetic impact on me was insignificant (and dare I say, not just me: in this madly packed preopening, with the longest queues for every pavilion I’ve ever seen, the Australian pavilion had no queues whatsoever). (Signifiers without signifieds perhaps but hey)
Pic3 by @elias_alpha_2
This year the students created artefacts on their moment of encounter with the law or justice or injustice that made them realise their political responsibility as law students. We had paintings, installations, sculptures, photography, collages, videos, performances and above all we had vast emotions, strong political positions and some exceptional creativity. We have also had the privilege of showing the poetic film PROGRESS (1968) on racism and the windrush generation directed by our alumna and now artist and filmmaker @adacotton together with @de_archive and coproduced with @africanstreetstyle
Thanks to this year’s @lawtheorylab artists in residence @jules.rochielle @danaetheo10 @__b.13.r__ @marsoriviere and Yue Ang. Huge thanks also to the dream team @jchryssostalis @__._.dg._.__ Anna Chronopoulou and Uche Ani, as well as @waltzandwendt and the sweet volunteers facilitated by @marloesspreeuw for installing in a battle against time!
Huge thanks to @westminster.law.school for all the love and support and of course to the @uniwestminster for providing the freedom and space to bring art and law together at Ambika P3.
Already planning 2025!
@lalou_zone meditative political project of dialogue beyond the machine.
This Thursday 21st of March at Ambika P3, Marylebone Building, University of Westminster, from 4 till 7pm.
Ceremonies and Film Show by our alumna turned ethnomusicologist, artist and filmmaker @adacotton will commence at around 5pm. We will also have a special iftar moment at around 6:15.
Let @op27ewaart know if you’d like to attend so we add you to the list.
#westminsterlawschool #universityofwestminster #law #art #lawandtheory #exhibition #london #marylebone
eris.press/Our-Distance-Became-Water
(Link on profile too)
Pics by @elias_alpha_2
Top floor, Hatchard’s Piccadilly, this Wed 6pm with David Cunningham, Polly Gould and me launching this most floatable of books.
Our Distance Became Water, Eris 2024.
Preorder at
eris.press/Our-Distance-Became-Water
The Book Launch with Polly Gould
& David Cunningham
Wed 13th March, 6pm
Hatchard’s Piccadilly
No RSVP necessary
I will be reading from the book and discussing it with David Cunningham, Professor of English and Editor of Radical Philosophy, and Polly Gould, Artist, Author and Lecturer at Bartlett School of Architecture UCL
OUR DISTANCE BECAME WATER “A visual, philosophical novel about a world filled with water. An arresting vision of the wages of ecological disaster, Our Distance Became Water is at once lyrical, moving, and psychologically acute. Endlessly inventive in both its style and its substance, this is a singularly powerful literary response to environmental change.”
No need to RSVP - just put it in your calendar and bring friends too! I want a PARTYYYYY!!
More info at andreaspm.com
the waves would rain like time and gently quench our thirst.
@jalarka ‘s illumination of the facade of the John Soane Museum London.
You are invited to 90 mins of a continuous performance where you will go deeper with our lawscape hypnosis; become a machine with our complete Law and the Senses UWP book series; explore spatial justice in Post-Apartheid South Africa; create your own breath NFT and exercise your right to breathe; get pagan with Druids at Stonehenge; go polyphonic with our feminist chorus on Roe v Wade case; listen to legal poetry; feel the love, feel the law; meet legal ghosts, and sound out rituals of trauma.
Eventbrite on my treelink
@roocarias , PhD at the Lab
@jchryssostalis , Lab Co-Director
Harriet Samuels, WLS Research Director
@__._.dg._.__ , Lab Deputy Director
@dnlmndc , Lab Member
@picpoet , Lab Co-Director
@rnanporto , PhD at the Lab
Lucy Reynolds, CREAM
@mhamad__safa , PhD at the Lab
@op27ewaart , Undergraduate at the Lab
#intotheanalogue @langhamresearch #rainydaysfestival
Pic by @__._.dg._.__ at Law as/and/of Performance at the Westminster Law & Theory Lab, after Lucy Finchett-Maddock and I performed a third layer of the Pendragon case, this time a slow choreography of legal intimacy.
1. @anna__mcdonald_ and Anne-Marie Jacob Q&A
2. Me (Andreas) and Lucy Finchett-Maddock Rope Performance and Q&A commented by Harriet Samuels
3. @sea_._monster Secret Performance Lecture and Q&A commented by Yoriko Otomo
4. @ccareyyoung Presentation, Video extract and Q&A commented by @julielouisemarsh
1. @anna__mcdonald_ and Anne-Marie Jacob Hand Performance
with volunteers (@danaetheo10 @printz_katz Maria Aristodemou and unknown participant) commented by Harriet Samuels
1. Andreas presenting Julie Peters presenting her book Law as Performance (OUP 2022)
2. Lucy Reynolds Feminist Choir with Julia Chryssostalis and Harriet Samuels, commented by Me (but I forgot it!)
3. Thom Giddens Violent Performance lecture commented by Julie Peters and Q&A
4. @danaetheo10 Open Space Performance Lecture commented by @__._.dg._.__
Oil, acrylic and gold metal paint on canvas board, 40x60cm, 2023
Random Violence begets Random Violence begets Random Violence begets
Holy texts and holy sacrifices
Beget Randomness
Begets Nothing.
Bear/Ours by Morgane Frund is a jewel of a film. It is a study on the strengths of vulnerability when faced with an all-permeating, powerful gaze. It starts as an academic final dissertation project for the director, who has for some time been fascinated by an amateur filmmaker’s work on wild beasts and especially bears. In the footage entrusted to her by the filmmaker, she discovers multiple takes of women in public, their bodies, faces and high heels fetishized by the male gaze of the camera, a bit like wild beasts in the jungle. The director feels unable to carry on with her initial project but in a magisterial twist, what was to be a documentary about a wild beast, the filmmaker turns into the gentlest, most
instructive and open confrontation between them. These discussion scenes are interspersed with the original animal and female bodies footage. The editing is complex and multilayered, the commentary measured yet informative, the camera work unintrusive, allowing the drama between the two characters to unfold. The film is a pas-de-deux of the centrality of the gaze and ocularcentrism, male desire and how casually (even when
unintentionally) imparts aggression and violence, the corresponding female trauma and vulnerability, the all-around shame and guilt, and even the colonial attitude towards nature and to which most things are being subsumed. What is particularly touching is the way both the Director and the filmmaker try to understand each other’s perspective. Yet what one admires the most is the strong personal and professional boundaries erected by Morgane Frund when confronted with the usual disclaimers of ‘well, these women were filmed like a thing of beauty, like you would film a flower’. Frund’s treatment of her subject matter and the person in front of her, is an example to us all about considerate yet strong boundary setting against the wrongs that have saturated our structures to the point of becoming undetectable.
Our work is Now at @julioartgallery “Mapping Mnemosyne -Where am (I/WE/YOU)?" highlights a comparative view among 14 local and international artists part of the @mnemosyn_initiative , who developed artistic concepts in the connection between mapping and memory.
The title of the project, "Mapping Mnemosyne - Where am (I /We/ You)?" hints at intersecting routes of memory:
mapping devises memory to places rooting in the past, present, and the potential of future concerns telling stories about memories imprinted into our bodies - individually and collectively.
Visit us at the Julio Fine Arts Gallery
Loyola University Maryland between
October 16 – November 17, 2023 to take in this incredible exhibition!
Opening reception
Thursday, October 26 from 6–8pm
Since 2020, 14 artists from across the world formed The Mnemosyne-Initiative.
Featured artists:
Zsolt Asztalos @zsolt_asztalos_artist
Bill Adair @williamadair @goldendoorsofinfinity
Albert Bonay @albertbonay
Iris Brosch @irisbrosch @irisbrosch_art
Yiannis Christakos @yiannischristakos
Stephanie Garon @garonstudio
Artemis Herber @artemisherber
Kei Ito @kei.ito.art
Maria Karametou @maria_karametou_art
Perla Krauze @krauzeperla
Zoie Lafis @mzoiel
Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos @picpoet
Judith Pratt @pratt.judith
Marc Robarge @marcrobarge
Thanks to @_lizfaust for the incredible poster and catalog design!
#sculpturedrawingspace #akademie_3 #abywarburg #mnemosyne #mnemosyneatlas #memory #mappingmemory #exhibition #royalsculptors @loyolaartassociation @loyola.arts @gva_salon
Is all law a performance? Are rights just a way of performing our legal humanity? Is performance art as a practice similar to that of law? Are we interested in extracting the laws of performance art?
A day–long workshop on the intersection between law and performance art, with performances and presentations organised by The Westminster Law & Theory Lab around the visit of Prof Stone Peters, author of Law as Performance (Oxford UP, 2022)
riday, 10th November 2023 13:00 – 18:00
Fyvie Hall, University of Westminster, 309 Regent St, London W1B 2HT
Performers/Presenters
Julie Stone Peters, Columbia english.columbia.edu/content/julie-stone-peters
Thom Giddens
Dundee dundee.ac.uk/people/thomas-giddens
Marie-Andree Jacob & Anna Macdonald, Leeds
essl.leeds.ac.uk/law/staff/1059/professor-marie-andree-jacob
Margareta Kern
margaretakern.com
Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos
Westminster andreaspm.com
Danae Theodoridou, Fyntis
danaetheodoridou.com
Carey Young, Slade UCL
careyyoung.com
And for the ones of you who want to watch these 5’ 05” of slow dance of hands, paper, water, ink and gold leaf (see any motifs here haha), it is still online at the virtual show Jan and I put up at @daniellearnaudgallery during the pandemic.
Link to the show on my profile Linktree.
With thanks to @financialtimeslive and @mugosana
(Sonia Prina in Orlando Furioso at Malibran)
To photograph these in front of the studio where I make them is a slow process of trying to catch the light, the waters, the traffic, even the wind (yes it has happened that a piece flew into the canal!). But Venice needs to be included in the picture, just like it is included in all the sinking islands I map.