21. Exit Athena
Exit Athena (Audience 1) is a video installation based on Selma Köran’s version of the missing and final chapter of Hesiod’s Theogony, in which Zeus is destroyed by the goddess Athena at a game of ping-pong in front of an audience of Olympian gods. Functioning as a feminist satyricon and a baroque musical full of pink clouds, perfume, and genitals, it aims to dismantle the patriarchal hierarchy by filling in a missing piece of ancient literary history.
Credits: Direction, Script, Set Design and Costume Design: Selma Laura Köran, Camera: Leslie Lawrence, Editing: Marica de Michele, Sound: Max Weber, Assistance: Sara Daniel, Cast: Amazon: Tomasz Skibicki, Argus: Quentin Dupuy, Charon: Giovanni Bozzoli, Helen: Lotte Hardemann, Hydra: Pierre Bujeau, Hercules: David Haack Monberg, Icarus: Raphael Pia / Alessandro Veneruso, Medusa: Rachele Monti, Muse: Yioanna Fortuna, Minotaur: Jason Harvey / Leonardo Ruvolo, Nymph 1: Andrea Lopez Bernal, Nymph 2: Jeroen Kortekaas, Nymph 3: Leo Ravy, Pandora: Eleni Tsoga, Satyr: Daniel Ordonez Munoz, Siren 1: Francesca Maciocia, Siren 2: Chang Sun, Sisyphus: Jean-François Peschot, Sphinx: Anna Leaderach, Cyclops: Walter Götsch
Selma Laura Köran (DE, born 1989) is a multimedia artist who lives and works in Berlin. Her work includes animation, video, painting, and sculpture where she restages and reinterprets mythological narratives in order to satirise and deconstruct gender roles. An idiosyncratic, surrealist, fever-dream-like aesthetic, resembling a livestream from the brain of a five-year-old, underpin her political and socio-critical positions.