“Codes Under the Shadows”

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“Codes Under the Shadows”

 

Aglaia Naka, drama-pedagogue, Greece

Christos Rachiotis, actor, animator, teacher, Greece

 

 

WORKSHOP
Athens International Conference "Theatre/Drama & Inclusive Education"

Athens 23 March 2025

Hellenic Theatre/Drama & Education Network (TENet-Gr)

Language: Greek

 

Short description

"Codes Under the Shadows" is a digital installation and community outreach program to cultivate empathy. By showing audio-visual material on the subject of unseen social problems (e.g. Statelessness) and using experiential activities, theater techniques and educational drama, it aims to develop empathy and improve social skills.

The goals set are:

1. How can the subject be visualized using new technologies,

2. The role of the viewer in an artistic work with social reflection

3. The drastic evolution of the visitor's role, from passive spectator to creator.

 

 

Part A

We attempt a "meeting" with stateless people. The invisible (socially) people. A symbolic synthesis of coexistence with inverted terms. They become the protagonists and we the shadows.

When the participants enter the facility, they see a table on which there are individual cards – applications for citizenship. They all have a rejection stamp on them. They all have their own QR code. Next to the tabs there is a scanner (barcode scanner). It is the means by which the viewer, by selecting a tab and scanning it, follows the story of its (the tab's) "owner".

We choose to use a machine (barcode scanner) that symbolizes the speed of information regarding the description of a product. Based on the code-number correspondence, we get information about people who, deprived of their "personal" number (eg ID number, passport, A.F.M.), the modern social structure makes them invisible.

By pressing the trigger of the barcode scanner, the story of some socially invisible person is revealed to us and at the same time the symbolic reversal of roles takes place, as a photographic camera captures our shadow in the frame of the audio-visual message of the person telling us his story.

Using audio-visual media (computers, camera, projector, digital scanner) we watch them narrate their personal odyssey to obtain citizenship. We are transported to their own environment, with them now being living - dynamic images. In this frame (photographic material) the poles are reversed. The "invisible" people are the protagonists and we have the role of the passerby, the uninvolved shadow.

 

Part B:

After completing the route of the installation, the participants gather in the area of the experiential laboratory. The workshop begins with warm-up and familiarization games in order for participants to move from the individual experience of the installation to the collective experience of the group.

Then with the use of two objects that symbolize light and shadow (a yellow ball, a blue ball) the participants through movement games get the trigger for reflection in relation to their own experience of visibility and invisibility, initially at the level of feeling "when do I feel visible?" When do I feel invisible?"

The feeling slowly evolves into a strong identity of "when am I visible?" "When am I invisible?", which in turn leads to the concept of privilege and non-privilege. Moving on to the main part of the workshop photographs taken during the workshop are placed on the floor, and in between the phrases of the 'invisible people'.

With role-playing games and techniques of thought detection, participants are invited to step into the shoes of the "other", the "foreigner", the "invisible" and become his voice, literally. Stories were exposed, voices were heard, the 'invisible' for the first time became 'visible' and then what?

The last activity that concludes the workshop will lead the participants, as themselves again, through a corridor (of consciousness) to decide the continuity of all the "invisibles" that came into contact during the workshop and how they themselves can affect. Feedback follows.

 

 

Note:

No previous experience is required.

Participants are asked to wear comfortable clothes and to be available to step into roles with a reflective attitude.

Some of the workshop’s activities might include (non-aggressive) physical contact.

 

Aglaia Naka was born in Larissa Greece. She graduated from the Department of Theater Studies of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of Patras in 2010. She has been working as a theater expert for 14 years. She plans and animates theater-pedagogical programs and experiential workshops for groups of children, teenagers and adults in collaboration with private and public institutions. She has taught drama education in primary and secondary education. She directs adult and children's theater shows and participates as an actress in children's theater shows, forum theater and performances. She is a collaborator of the Hellenic Theatre/Drama & Education Network (TENet-Gr) as teacher trainer and also participating in its forum theatre performances for schools.

 

Christos Rahiotis has been living and working in Chania Greece since 2003 (with the exception of the period 2010-16).As an actor (High School of Dramatic Art "Archi" 1998), he has been working since 1989, trying out different types of theater. He has participated in theater performances, television series, broadcasts (television and online, dubbing and films (short and long). In the audiovisual field (postgraduate studies in "Audiovisual Arts in the Digital Age", of the Ionian University), he has participated in digital art festivals in Greece and abroad. He has served in the Educational Radio and Television of the Ministry of Education (2010-16, television program manager - cameraman - editor), having participated as a trainer in educational programs, festivals and European programs, on the subject of filmmaking. Since 2015, he is a member and trainer of the Hellenic Theatre/Drama & Education Network (TENet-Gr), taking on animation in groups of different ages.