Eirini Sourgiadaki

Teleportation & Transformation: approaching the “impossible” through storytelling and technology

Beginn des PhD-Programms / Start of the PhD-Program​: SS 2018 Betreuung / Supervision:
Florian Dombois
Marcel Bleuler (ZHdK) This artistic research project-based PhD has its base on an already realized work called “Metaphorai Teleportation and Transformation Services: Possibilities of the Impossible” (Zürich, 2017 / metaphorai.net). My intention, using that past project as a starting point, is to develop and to test the potential of the creation of one or of several teleportation/transformation device(s), by combining storytelling and technology. Both, teleportation and transformation can be understood as three-step processes compiled by: State 1 (before), the in-between moment (the shift) and State 2 (after). Although State 1 and State 2 are being respectively studied, the special focus of my research is given to the middle part of the process, the in-between moment, including the device, the aspects of time, space as well as cultural aspects, possibilities, plausibilities, probabilities. Guiding research questions are: Whether what happens during the teleportation/transformation process, happens literally and/or metaphorically. Whether and how, during the in-between moment inside the device, the presence of the body can be argued. What are the measurable or non-measurable data and values produced by introducing this ‘impossibility’ to an audience? How does the technology used for the creation of a device affect the preparation, process and result of the teleportation/transformation? Which kind of vocabulary (verbal or physical) is used and/or produced through the teleportation/transformation narratives and in which ways can this vocabulary contribute to the present or to future research projects? The goal of the PhD is to develop a setting that allows people to experience a process of making the impossible, possible. Kurz-Biographie / Short Bio
Eirini Sourgiadaki was born in Crete, Greece and grew up in Athens, where she studied Sociology, Cultural Management, Greek and English/American Poetry and Contemporary Dance. In 2017 she graduated from MA Transdisciplinarity in the Arts, awarded with the Hirschmann Stipendium, ZHdK Fonds Design & Kunst and the ZHdK Avina Fonds with her project “Metaphorai”. Since 2010 she has published five books (fiction, poetry) in Greek and in English language in Athens, Zürich and Berlin. Email-Adresse / Email-Address:
eirinisourgiadaki.mail@gmail.com Weblink:
eirinisourgiadaki.tumblr.com