Alana Kakoyiannis, “Untitled”

Layers and layers of plastic wrap slowly obscure a camera’s view out a window. Insulated by the plastic, the camera is frustrated in its attempts to automatically focus the multi-layered image that makes up the ‘outside’.

“In this recorded performance piece, the video camera is wrapped in plastic in an attempt to make the process of using technology tactile. By making a physical connection with the medium as well as using it as the subject itself, the artist aims to channel the experience of the video camera in the same way that it is used to channel human emotion. The result painstakingly reminds us that despite our desire to believe that video offers deeper introspection into the self as well as the world around us, it is merely a piece of hardware which cannot be equated with real experience.” – Alana Kakoyiannis

Alana Kakoyiannis is a video artist currently enrolled in the Master of Fine Arts program for Integrated Media Arts at Hunter College, CUNY. Her work ranges from interview-based documentary to abstract, image-dominated experimentalism. Recently, Kakoyiannis was selected to participate in a filmmaker exchange sponsored by the Tribeca Film Institute in Morocco, working under the guidance of directors Abbas Kiarostami and Martin Scorsese. Her work has also appeared in various film festivals and galleries throughout the world.

About this series:
The Interior—that which lies between, the domestic, the inner life, the indoors, the inland country, a closed circuit, the inner sanctum…

In Canada, the Interior refers to the hinterland, sparsely populated resource-rich lands stretching out to the north of distant southern cities, typically described by outsiders as a ‘frontier’. Despite a southern population huddling mostly along the Canada-U.S. border, the soul of Canada is often said to be its north. With this loosely in mind, I put out an open call for submissions for videos that responded to 'the Interior.' Despite the subtle reference to Canadian geography, I wasn’t looking for fist-pumping Canadian nationalism.

In this series, six artists explore the Interior as an idea, a vast terra incognita stretching out across the land, the body, and the mind, a swath of territory defined apart, but intrinsic to the whole. Touching on both the literal and the poetic, these videos take me inwards.
Mark Prier.