But there is another way of interpreting this picture because the person standing there looks a lot of one the Little People in “Night at the Museum”. They are not just little but also very silly and a bit immature, although at the same time extremely dedicated and even heroic in their efforts.

Εικόνα πρώτη
Μία γυναίκα σηκώνεται πολύ πρωί
και πάει στα ρετσίνια.
Κατά το μεσημεράκι συμβαίνει το εξής:
σκύβει
σηκώνει μία πέτρα
και καρφώνει ένα καρφί σε μία ελιά

Εικόνα δεύτερη
Μία γυναίκα σηκώνεται πολύ πρωί
κάπου στην Αγγλία
μπροστά της έχει έναν υπολογιστή και καφέ
Κατά το μεσημεράκι συμβαίνει το εξής
βλέπει στην οθόνη μία ελιά και μονολογεί:
ξύλο ζωντανό ξύλο νεκρό ξύλο σύνδεση με μια μορφή ζωής νεκρής ζωής παρούσας ζωής και μετά πάλι νεκρής και ζωντανής ένα ρολόι ρολόι χρόνου σιωπηλό στ’αυτιά μας τουλάχιστον αλλά εκεί παρόν και να μας βλέπει. Τι σκέφτεται; σκέφτεται; αναρωτιέται τι σκεφτόμαστε; αν σκεφτόμαστε; το λέμε δέντρο το λέμε δέντρο δέντρο το λέμε το δέντρο Το δέντρο αυτό που
κάποιες στιγμές
θα θέλαμε να είμαστε.

A n a m o r p h o s i s – But Koimomeni acquires its form and beauty only from a specific vantage point. Only when seen from the quay of Poros do those different mountains take the shape of a sleeping woman. So the Poriotes feel, and are, privileged, in that way. ‘You want to know what is Poros’s most important landmark? It is Koimomeni!’ told me Eleni, the president of the municipal cultural association. The reason is that this unbelievable coincidence of elements which shape a recognisable form is only visible from the Poriote vantage point. Then an inverse occurrence happens: if the vantage point is so privileged by a contingency, it starts to act as an attractor. It is not the form that matters any more, but the vantage point. It is Poros which is blessed, and not the Koimomeni. Much like the facetious question often asked: is it better to live on Poros and look at Galatas -the village on the opposite coast, comprising fine specimens of 80s concrete architecture-, or live at Galatas and admire Poros? Or much like this photo of Fotis that comprises the successive shots of the same position taken over one day. This made me think whether the juxtaposition of many disparate actions, persons, machinery, techniques, discourses, narratives, etc at the same place and at the same time is what makes us recognise this process as ‘archaeology’, and not vice-versa. Is this glorious conglomeration of desire and action a visual effect? And if so, what is the vantage point from which this jumble of material looks like a recognisable method? And what does this vantage point tell us about who stands there?

D e c o n s t r u c t i o n – As I was driving out of Galatas on the last official day of fieldwork, the shape of Koimomeni gradually disintegrated. Getting shorter and stockier, she gradually turned into the garland of mountains and hills that comprise her. From this point of view, I could scarcely believe that this is the natural phenomenon that attracted my gaze along with the Poriotes and their visitors. Suddenly she became indistinguishable, unremarkable, unrecognizable. At the same time, I felt a relief, a release from her spell, her attraction. It was nothing after all. Just a pareidolia, just a play of the imagination. I was free from the demanding mistress. Looking closely at things and their social expressions, analysing them and deconstructing them promises, I guess, the same feeling of relief from their attraction, the same sense of open possibilities and nomadic thought, of intellectual freedom. Much like Fotis’s photo, the mirror is smashed and the vision is broken into shards, which are much easier to study but somehow less attractive in themselves. Right now, sitting in front of a laptop writing all this, I cannot keep but ponder at the uneasy balance that intellectuals try to keep between their effort to reduce desire into discourse and their more or less secretly held will to unite disparate elements into wholes. The one makes for a cool, measured exhibition of facts, and paves the way for communication and dialogue (and pedantry, of which I am here guilty). The other, is an erotic work that simultaneously constitutes subjects for thought and subjects who think.