THE GARMENT

The Garment is an interactive installation representing the process of being an adult
from a psychoanalytic point of view.

In the centre of a dark room, which brings in mind a theatre stage, there is a garment that looks like a statue or a headless female body. There are bright spots of light on the fabric and the visitor is invited to touch them. Every touch brings up a different image to the scenery. The garment is transformed into a sea, or into a demolishing wall, or into a trap that imprisons a body, or into a passage through cornfields. Sometimes only sounds are triggered, such as, a music puppet, or the sound of broken glasses sweeping.

The projection, the garment, and the spectator are connected with the three parts of the psychic apparatus correspondingly: the id, ego and super-ego, as defined by Sigmund Freud.

The projection is the symbol of "id", the instinctual nature of a person, the non-material in heritage since one's birth. It is the counter-argument to the viewer's super-ego. The projected images are a total of various independent topics that make up one's personality and they are originally hidden. They are flashes of personal memories, aspects of life, experiences, life details that are activated when the viewer gets in contact with them.

The garment is the "ego", the conscious part, the only one that is in direct connection with the world outside. According to Marshall McLuhan, the clothing is the extension of the skin. In this case the six points are like buttons or keypoints or even better like gaps in our protection, or those moments we want to confess.

The spectator has the role of "super-ego", that is, a critical and moralizing role. The person acts without knowing or having a conscience, but influences the direction and the progress of the project by activating unconscious images towards the conscience. By touching the garment, the spectator becomes a part of this installation for the other incoming visitors. Thus, the Garment, is an interactive installation about getting into adulthood, not in the social sense, but in the sense that a person stops getting influenced by external forces and explores one's self. It is about the turning point of a person's life when he takes up responsibilities and reinforces his defense.

The garment is made of wire, wood and fabric. It has a height of 1,8 m. and it is 1 m. wide.
With the contribution of: Manthos Santorineos, Stavroula Zoi and Anna Santorineou, 2010