inter/views - the[video]Flâneu®

Ich bin 4000 Jahre alt

Der Videoflaneur und die kleinen Wunder der Straße

Der Künstler Konstantinos-Antonios Goutos streift als [video]Flâneu® durch Europas Großstädte. Als artwertease® eröffnet er heute Abend um 19 Uhr seine Ausstellung in der Schaubühne Lindenfels. Unser Autor Philipp Piechura hat ihn auf einer kurzen Video-Tour durch Leipzig begleitet...

Schwarz gekleidet und mit einem Hut auf dem Kopf spaziert der Videokünstler über den Marktplatz, bleibt stehen, lehnt sich an einen Pfahl, hebt die Kamera. Für die Passanten scheint er nicht da zu sein, ruhig und fast unsichtbar fügt er sich in die Umgebung. Doch in ihm herrscht Anspannung, Konzentration, seine Hände umfassen die Kamera, falten sich wie beim Gebet. Aufnahme. Und plötzlich verändert sich scheinbar alles, weil wir uns die Zeit dafür nehmen. Alle fünf Minuten geschieht ein Wunder: ein Kind tanzt zu Flötenmusik, Seifenblasen fliegen über die Straße, ein Tablett brennt.

Der 37 jährige Grieche Konstantinos-Antonios Goutos ist auf der Suche nach genau diesen Bildern, die gegen die Gesetze der Kamera gewinnen. Nicht alles landet in seiner Kamera. Manchmal ist der Moment zu kurz, manchmal zu intim. Er nennt sich Videoflaneur, will nicht einfach nur „der Affe am Auslöser“ sein, der genau das filmt, was ihm der Blick durch das Objektiv nahe legt. Wenn sich sein eigener Schatten in die Aufnahme mogelt, eine unerwartete Spiegelung auftritt, wird die Illusion des natürlichen Bildes aufgelöst. Das hält er fest.

Realität ist immer nur inszeniert, immer: Durch das Objektiv einer Kamera, durch die Tasten einer Schreibmaschine, durch die Blickrichtung unserer Augen. Und Videoflanieren heißt für den Künstler, diese Inszenierungen (für) wahr nehmen, genießen, wiedergeben und interpretieren. Zeigen wird sie Konstantinos-Antonios Goutos heute Abend ab 19 Uhr in der Schaubühne Lindenfels, in Videos, Texten, eigenwilligen Botschaften.

Zum Beispiel durch einen Titel, der das Ballspiel eines Mädchens in eine Szene aus der „Odyssee“ verwandelt. Dafür muss man sich auskennen, anders sehen, anders denken. Vilém Flusser, Marshall McLuhan, André Bazin, Michel Foucault, Plato – sie alle tauchen auf und wieder unter. Ein Kontext, in dem der Satz „Ich bin 4000 Jahre alt“ plötzlich einen Sinn besitzt. Auch die Schrift gehorcht bei ihm ganz eigenen Gesetzen. Unser Rundgang endet, Goutos bleibt vor dem Glaseingang eines Parkhauses stehen. Aufnahme. Der Spiegeleffekt verändert die Bilder, Menschen werden zu Zwergen und Riesen, ein Werbeschild liefert die Beleuchtung zu dieser grotesken Szenerie.

Philipp Piechura,

[kreuzer-das leipzig magazin, october 5, 2010]

a transaltion in english:

I'm 4,000 years old
The videoflaneur and the small wonders of the sreet

The artist Konstantinos-Antonios Goutos stripped as [video]Flâneu® through Europe's big cities. As artwertease® he shows in the coming days, his work in the Schaubuehne Lindenfels. Our author Philip Piechura accompanied him on a short video strolling in Leipzig...

Dressed in black with a hat on, the video artist walks through the marketplace, stops, leans against a pole, lifting the camera. For the passer-by, he does not seem to be there, quiet and almost invisible, it blends into the surroundings. But inside him there is tension, concentration, his hands grasp the camera, folded as in prayer. Recording. And suddenly everything changed, apparently, because we take the time. Every five minutes, a miracle: a child dancing to pipe music, soap bubbles fly above the streets, a tray of burning.

The 37-year-old Greek Konstantinos-Antonios Goutos is on the search for these images, which are winning against the laws of the camera. Not everything ends up in his camera. Sometimes the moment is too short, sometimes too intimate. He calls himself videoFlaneur, he will not just be "the monkey on the trigger," which is filming exactly what it sets on the front of his lens . If his own shadow cheating in the recording, an unexpected reflection occurs, then, the illusion of the natural image is resolved. This is what he records.

Reality is always directed, always: Through the lens of a camera, through the keys of a typewriter, by the sight of our eyes. And Videoflanieren means for the artist, these productions perceive, reflect, enjoy and interpret. Now shows Konstantinos-Antonios Goutos his work - videos, texts, unconventional messages - in the schaubuehne lindenfels.

The interplay of these different artistic elements is important for him. A ball-playing girl transformed into a scene from the Odyssey. Therefore you have to know; to see differently, to think differently. Vilem Flusser, Marshall McLuhan, André Bazin, Michel Foucault, Plato - they are all present somewhere in the videos, and emerge again under. A context in which the phrase "I'm 4,000 years old" has suddenly made sense. Our tour ends, Goutos remains before the glass entrance of a parking garage without movement. Recording. The mirror effect changes the images, people become dwarfs and giants, an advertising sign lighting supplies to this grotesque scene.

Philipp Piechura,

[kreuzer-das leipzig magazin, october 5, 2010]

VIP - VideoChannel Interview Project

a per email interview between agricola-de-cologne
and konstantinos-antonios goutos / the[video]Flâneu®

1. Tell me something about your life and the educational background

Born on 11 February 1973 in Larissa, Greece.
Thessaloniki, Athens, Vienna, Prague, Weimar, Rome, Berlin, Leipzig, Krakow, Genoa, Lissabon were and are very important stations in my life…

Music studies (Larissa), film-directing studies (Athens), video and media art studies (Leipzig), conceptual and intermediate art studies (Prague) is my official educational background.

2. When, how and why started you filming?

After many intensive years of passive or theoretical activity with the most of the mediums (books, films, press, radio, television, etc.) and after a deep existential break,
I was started (1999) my journey…

Since 2002 I am [video]strolling through Europe, since 2005 I am calling me “the[video]Flâneu®”…

3. What kind of subjects have your films?

Exi[l]stence, Home, Flight, Time, Escape, Beauty, Game, Coincidence, Information -are the starting points, Flaneur, Genius Loci, Aura, Heterotopias, Unhappy Consciousness, Homo Ludens, Punktum -are the terms of the theoretical background.

4. How do you develop your films, do you follow certain principles, styles etc?

I stroll like a „Flâneur“ through the city. I do not have a turtle with me (as the original Parisian Flâneur of the 1830‘s used to); later, I do not write stories (as Edgar Allan Poe or Hans Christian Andersen used to), I do not write poems (as Baudelaire or Rilke used to).

I just have a video camera. I take shots of the city; I take shots of the “life” of the people of the city; sometimes, I also shoot “myself”…

(…without camera moves, without tripod, without a zoom lens, without special lighting, with original sound, without permission…);

Later, I put the shots together with no chronological sequence and every time under different contexts:
tales and history, reactions - relations, sounds - words, lights - colours, structures - architectures, incidents - accidents, order - disorder…

Not a description of a journey but „my lyrical reaction, with all my truth and simplicity“ as Federico Garcia Lorca once said about his collection A Poet in New York.

5. How do you approach such complicated matter like Shoah represents?

The work it was made without any purpose or plan on my first walk through Auschwitz…

6. Tell me something about the technical equipment you use.. What about digital technology?

My equipment and the way I create is extreme minimal.

I am [video]strollilng with an one CCD digital camera (Sony DCR PC 8E) and I am editing with Windows Movie Maker.

From the very beginning it happens to [video]stroll under some conditions:
without tripod - without camera moves - without the use of a zoom lens
without special lighting - without extra microphone - without permission…

Some similar condtions are to be used by cutting:
the sound and the length of the shootings should be the original without any cut or use of effects.
Comments, archive material or music were never used…

7. How do you finance your films?

My [video]strolling was and is in the most of the cases self-financed. Some of the travels was a matter of luck, some other travels a result of an invitation…

8. Do you work individually as a video artist/film maker or do you work in a team?

I am working individually…

9. Who or what has a lasting influence on your film/video making?

films of Vertov, Haneke, Benning, Penalva or Juergen Boettcher,
paintings of Bosch, Brueghel, Giorgione, Rembrandt or Strawalde,
photos of Atget, Stieglitz, Friedlander, Lartigue or Cartier-Bresson,
texts of Benjamin, Kracauer, Bazin, Mc Luhan or Vilém Flusser,

are important works for dialog and inspiration…

10. What are your future plans or dreams as a film/video maker?

To keep [video]strolling without any purpose or plan..;-)

Can works of yours viewed online besides on VideoChannel/SFC? Where?
List some links & resources

http://videoflaneur.googlepages.com

http://www.vimeo.com/user2082822/videos

[vip.newmediafest.org-march 2010]

konstantinos-antonios goutos / the[video]Flâneu®

am ortenbergsteg 1 / 35039 marburg, germany / +4915205133257 / videoflaneur@gmail.com