Stavros Gasparatos & Lars Jan, LAPSE

From July 25 to August 14, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center presents LAPSE by Stavros Gasparatos and Lars Jan at the Left Wing of Stavros Niarchos Hall. Two spirited artists of the modern generation join forces in an evocative audiovisual installation that nullifies time and distance, creating a unique experience for visitors.

LAPSE is an incident of immersion in an audiovisual environment formed by a person traveling long distances across spacetime. Through the sonic compression of time, achieved via the use of a pioneering time-lapse audio technique applied by Stavros Gasparatos, this original installation features a co-existence of light, image and sound that breaks the boundaries of realism and “interprets” life through the sounds that surround us. In this first collaboration of Stavros Gasparatos with Lars Jan, the public is invited to partake in a unique experience that draws its raw materials from the random, the perpetual, and the collective unconscious.

The installation envelopes the viewer in an intense soundscape of urban life. Since 2019, Stavros Gasparatos has traveled to the biggest and most vibrant metropolises around the world (New York, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Berlin, Paris, London, Bucharest, Tokyo, Shanghai, Dubai, etc.), and has recorded 360° audio routes and soundscapes. Then he processed the material by means of a special method called time-lapse audio technique, which allows sound to be temporally compressed without being distorted. Thus emerges a multi-dimensional audio pathway, where everything peripheral comes in center focus, in an attempt to reclaim the concentration of listening in the city.

This material is visualized by Lars Jan through the figure of a woman floating along hundreds of kilometers on the river Acheloos, drifting/submerged and isolated in the flow of perpetual mobility. The recordings were made in the Prefectures of Evrytania (Templa Bridge, Kremasta Lake) and Aetolia-Acarnania (Babalio, Katochi, Acheloos Delta). Jan is one of the most highly regarded artists of his generation in directing multimedia works and large installations, and this marks the first time that his work is presented in Greece.

LAPSE does not seek to accurately represent the world, but to shed light on personal routes and everything that goes on around us, in order to show that we are collectively part of a symphony, a synthesis, a composition of all the fragments of everyday life. 

LAPSE

Co-Creator, Music Composition, Sound Installation Design & Originated by: Stavros Gasparatos
Co-Creator, Film Director & Visual Installation Director: Lars Jan
Creative & Executive Producer: Konstantinos Sakkas

Commissioned By: SNF Nostos - Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF)
Co-Produced By: Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center
Produced By: Delta Pi

Line Production -Technical Execution: View Master Events

Associate Architect: Vassilis Saltas 
Touring Supervisor: Manolis Vitsaxakis  
Renders & Plans: Sofia Keramida 
Composer’s Assistant: Alexandra Katerinopoulos  
Documentation: The ArchLabyrinth
Texts editing: Rallou Avramidou 
Touring administrative manager: Remco van der Meer
Production manager assistant: Anna Vakontiou
Line Production Assistant: Katerina Kazou

“LAPSE” FILM CONTRIBUTORS  

Directed & Written by Lars Jan 
Director of Photography & Drone Operator: Tasos Fytros / FlyingDog Aerial Media
Performed by Dominiki Drakopoulou, Emmanouela Pechynaki, Efi Koutsakou
Costumes Designer & Wardrobe: Konstantina Mardiki    
Edited by Studio Lars Jan Inc.  
Video Graphics: Michalis Neromyliotis
Sound editing: Studio 1-2-3
Casting by Delta Pi productions
Line Producer: Maria Drandaki / Homemade Films  
Line Producer: Giannis Karantanis 
Location Scout & Unit Production Manager: Giorgos Karoris 
Drone Operator Assistant: Giannis Gemeliaris
Production Coordinator & First AD: Malvina Lorida 
Production Assistant: Danai Giannakopoulou  
Line Production Assistants: Dimitris Dimitriou, Stefanos Dimopoulos
Medic: Stelios Tsalikis / Pashna 
Legal Consultant: Theodoros Chiou 

This work was commissioned by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) to be presented in the 2020 edition of SNF Nostos; its debut was postponed due to the pandemic.

Stavros Gasparatos
Stavros Gasparatos is a Greek composer and sound artist. Apart from his solo projects, he composes music for dance, theatre and cinema, in collaboration with directors and artists across Europe and USA. His music has been performed in all major Greek theaters and concert venues, as well as in New York, London, Berlin, Munich, Düsseldorf, Toronto, Kassel, Sofia, Amsterdam, Paris, Naples, Macao, etc. One of the most important and most prolific composers of the new Greek generation, he has composed music scores for more than 150 productions.

Gasparatos composes minimalist, instrumental and experimental music as well as site-specific sound installations. Since 2017, he has been the artistic coordinator of the Greek National Opera's Transmedia Labworks, while in 2019 he was appointed a Board Member of the Athens & Epidaurus Festival.
Motivated by his passion to apply his research studies and technological skills, Gasparatos has particularly delved into site-specific projects, such as sound installations and collaborative in situ performances. Such instances may be observed throughout his long partnership with Maria Hassabi, with whom he has presented more than 5 projects in the US and around the world, as well as with Jonah Bokaer, Alexandra Waierstall and Manuela Hartel.

Among his most notable works are: the sound installation for the opening ceremony of the New Acropolis Museum (Athens, 2009); “Triple Echo” (2015), an audio installation commissioned by Onassis Cultural Center New York; “Metamorphosis” (2017), a large-scale sound installation presented at the Glass House (Connecticut, USA); “DXB2”, a public space light/audio installation at Burj Plaza, Dubai (United Arab Emirates, 2020); “Expanded Piano”, an audio/music installation and performance that redefines the use of the instrument itself, which premiered at EMPAC, Troy, New York, in 2014, and is deemed as his most innovative work to this day.

His music has been released in several albums, including: Rage Park (2019), Experimenta-lism (2018), Expanded Piano (2015), Seven (2013), and Rehearsals (2008).

Lars Jan
Lars Jan is a director, visual artist and writer, based in Los Angeles. He is the founder of Early Morning Opera, a research lab focusing on the intersection between different art forms, whose works explore emerging technologies, live audiences, and unclassifiable experience.

Jan’s original works — including Holoscenes, The White Album, The Institute of Memory (TIMe), and Abacus — have been presented by the Whitney Museum, Sundance Film Festival, BAM Next Wave Festival, Times Square Arts, Under the Radar Festival, REDCAT, Wexner Center, PICA TBA Festival, ICA Boston, CAP UCLA, EMPAC, Toronto Nuit Blanche Festival, London’s Burning, NYU Abu Dhabi, Istanbul Modern, Sydney Festival, and Festival TransAmeriques, among others.

He was the winner of the 3rd Audemars Piguet Art Commission and exhibited “Slow-Moving Luminaries,” an immersive kinetic pavilion, on an acre of waterfront during Art Basel Miami Beach, in 2017. He is a member of the faculty at CalArts, a member of United States Artists and Creative Capital, and a TED Senior Fellow.

Daily, July 25–August 14 | 18:00–22:00
Left Wing of Stavros Niarchos Hall, Greek National Opera (GNO)

Free admission 

Photograph: @Lars Jan

The event is made possible by a grant from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).