Despina Zacharopoulou

Despina Zacharopoulou is a performance artist born in Arcadia, Greece, currently working between London and Athens. Her practice investigates performance as surface and event of parrhēsia, aiming at reconstituting philosophy as embodied practice and method towards a life which is radically other. Her live works borrow their artistic vocabulary from the 1970's performance tradition (e.g. long duration, pain practices, nudity, visceral character, performance-audience encounters etc), to raise contemporary issues on live art research methods.

Coming from an intra-disciplinary academic and professional background, Despina holds: a MSc & a Diploma (Hons) in Architecture (National Technical University of Athens / ERASMUS: École nationale supérieure d'architecture de Paris-Val de Seine), a Master in Fine Arts (Athens Superior School of Fine Arts), and a Master in Visual Arts: Theatre Costume (Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, Greek State Scholarships Foundation scholar). As a postgraduate student at the Royal College of Art in London (Onassis Foundation scholar), Despina completed a practice-led MPhil in Sculpture (Performance) and a practice-led Ph.D. in Philosophy & Fine Art (Performance), supervised by Prof. Johnny Golding (Primary) and Prof. Nigel Rolfe (Second, 2015-2019). 

Dr. Zacharopoulou’s artistic practice and research have been globally recognised in the area of performance-philosophy, and have been presented at events of global impact, such as: AS ONE by NEON Οrganization for Culture and Development and the Marina Abramović Institute (Benaki Museum, Athens, 2016); London Frieze (2016, 2017); A Possible Island? by the Marina Abramović Institute & the 1st Bangkok Art Biennale (Bacc, Bangkok, 2018-19); DataLoam (Angewandte Innovation Lab, University of Applied Arts, Vienna, 2019), ME/YOU YOU/ME (Gallery Sensei, London, 2016); Belgium is Happening (Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp & Royal Academy of Fine Art Antwerp, Belgium, 2013), etc. 

Publications include articles in: Performance Philosophy Journal, The NY Times, The Nation (Thailand), CNN Greece, Liberal newspaper (Greece), Frankfurter Rundschau, etc. Despina has received numerous prizes and grants for her artistic and academic achievements, including: the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS (2021), the Onassis Foundation Scholarship (2015), the Lon Landau Prize (2013), the Greek State Foundation Scholarship (2012), the Erasmus scholarship (2004), etc.

Despina has been working as a Visiting Lecturer at the Royal College of Art since 2016, leading MA Crits, Tutorials and School Groups. She is also the Course Leader of the RCA Contemporary Art Summer School (2018 onwards), and of the RCA Rethinking Contemporary Performance Art Masterclass.

https://www.despinazacharopoulou.com/

SPATIUM MONSTRORUM: Performance-as-Surface

My artistic practice and research revolve around a radical rethinking and re-making of performance art, moving away from traditional approaches which limit live art discourse within binaries, essentialism and fixed identities. What I suggest instead, is a re-situating of contemporary performance art as surface occupied only by intensities.

Dismissing the practice v.s. theory binary, my research approach acquires the form of a zētēsis or flânerie, and involves performance making as its research method, subject and output, fed by a constant dialogue with non-dialectical philosophers (e.g. Spinoza, Foucault, Bataille, Deleuze & Guattari, Sade, Lyotard, Nietzsche, Klossowski, Barad, Golding). My goal is to re-situate philosophy as an embodied practice and method, and to raise the question of whether contemporary performance art might operate as a mode de vie for a life which is radically other, experienced in its full intensity, and in pure joy.

In my Ph.D. Thesis SPATIUM MONSTRORUM: Performance-as-Surface (supported by the Onassis Foundation), supervised by Prof. J. Golding (Primary) and Prof. N. Rolfe (Second, 2015-2019), the importance of protocols of governmentality in the production and distribution of intensities within live art, is emphasized. As an example, I bring forward the use of (a) protocols of violence and (b) protocols of written contracts in my performance practice. Protocols of governmentality initiate morphogenetic processes governing the thickness and the porosity of boundaries within the performer-audience encounter, as manifested through the repetitive use of the performer’s body and its transmutation into flesh.

Thus argued, Master and slave contracts as used in BDSM, are brought forward both as examples of governmentality (Foucault) and as potential programs for the fabrication of a Body without Organs (Artaud, Deleuze & Guattari). In the suggested paradigm, repetition in performance art is rethought of as repetition of difference (Deleuze) and Eternal Return (Nietzsche) to trauma; with trauma now looked at as corporeal trace (Spinoza) and residue circulating within feedback loops (Mandelbrot). The risk required on behalf of the performer in this case, allows performance art to become a locus for truth to be exposed, with truth here being rethought of as parrhēsia (Foucault); as an event of courageous truth-telling where the performer exposes both themselves and a life which is radically other. In so doing, a discussion on a new hermeneutics of the subject opens, with identity now grasped as pulsating difference (Deleuze) and fortuitous case (Klossowski) submitted to Eternal Return (Nietzsche). Therefore, the potential of new ways of being with, via ideas of vulnerability and affectability, is enabled, after raising the urgency for a politics of intimacy and an ethics of care.