Deborah Stratman: Xenoi Urban Video Project
Everson Museum of Art Plaza
401 Harrison St.,
Syracuse
In Deborah Stratman's short video Xenoi (2016), the Greek island of Syros is visited by a series of unexpected guests: immutable forms, outside of time, aloof observers of the human condition. These hovering guests are the Platonic Solids, named for the famed ancient Greek philosopher, Plato, who described them in the dialogue Timaeus as part of a higher level of reality. Shot on location and featuring a hypnotic score, Xenoi scans the horizon of modern day Greece, a landscape at once timeless and jarringly contemporary. "Xenoi" is the plural of "xenos," an enigmatic word usually translated as "stranger" — but whether the stranger is friend or foe depends on context and interpretation. What do these geometric specters portend in a contemporary climate of consumerism and economic crisis?
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