SECRETS

An interactive art project realised in cities around the world.

by Nayia Yakoumakis

Secrets is an installation spread throughout the city. It takes the form of an urban intervention since it assimilates strategies used in bill posting for the circulation, within the city, of ephemeral information. Secrets aims to question the division of the information in public and private, important and unimportant.
The project constituted by texts on paper, which contain fragments of conversations, functions as a questioning of information itself, its circulation and production, for and outside the public sphere. These conversations are rarely placed as extraordinary in anyone's memory since they are the connecting hoops and contain prosaic statements.
In contrast to commercial billboards and implicit advertising, which are constructed for immediate perceptual apprehension, these texts require the attention of the passer-by. Their impact from a distance is minimum, therefore they run the risk to be ignored by the majority of people and be read only by those who accost them.

The project promotes a specific interaction with the busy citizen, indicating different readings. The origin and validity of these fragmented dialogues remain dubious, either read as confessional and autobiographical testimonies or as fictional mediated statements.

The project was launched in London in July 2000, took place in Lavrion Greece during Mediaterra 2001 September 01 and in Rio de Janeiro in November 01. It was also presented in Rio de Janeiro in Museu de Arte Moderna and Fundacao Nacional de Arte as part of the exhibition Rio-Trajectorias.

Nayia Yiakoumaki
nayiayiakoumaki@hotmail.com