Eavesdropping Greece
Wood, speakers, glass
2011
Artist Statement
eavesdrop |ˈēvzˌdräp|
verb ( -dropped , -dropping ) [ intrans. ]
secretly listen to a conversation : she opened the window just enough to eavesdrop on the conversation outside.
DERIVATIVES
eavesdropper noun
ORIGIN early 17th cent.: back-formation from eavesdropper ( late Middle English ) [a person who listens from under the eaves,] from the obsolete noun eavesdrop [the ground on to which water drips from the eaves,] probably from Old Norse upsardropi, from ups ‘eaves’ + dropi ‘a drop.’
Eavesdropping is unethical, improper; considered gossip and taboo. Eavesdropping though allows me to understand the events for what they are and not for what they were supposed to be. Since these audible details of everyday life were supposed to stay behind closed walls, I break the rules, I bypass ethics and bring my ear close to the wall, listen and so the walls have ears; my eavesdropper’s ears. I hear tension, I hear fights, conversations, love making, joy, despair and frustration. Through eavesdropping I understand this country and the people who inhabit it. My ear in the shape of a microphone discovers the secret life of a society struggling to conceal its own reality and now I bring it to you. Place your ear upon the glass, then the glass on the wall and listen to what life really sounds like.
Biography
Luc Messinezis was born in Athens, Greece in 1977. After relocating in the UK, he achieved a MA in Sound Arts at the University of the Arts, London and since, he has developed several projects researching the means throughout which sound can constitute the base for artistic expression.
Luc’s conceptual interests mainly focus in triggering feelings, aural awareness, and memory by challenging perception and stimulating the imagination of the audience, using the concrete audible world as a sound palette. He was recently awarded with an artist’s residency in the lower Austria region and his latest work has been presented in various venues and galleries around the world in countries such as England, Greece and Israel.
