Patrocolos

2008
Patrokolos
Plastic protectors from various sport uniforms, aluminum, LCD screen
& Combination with the media work Contest of epilogues
Programming based 3D animation, 9 min loop

Competitiveness is always bound up with death- in a sense it deals with what happens after death. In the Iliad- the first sporting contest to be described --we can find this element most prominently.
Within the unraveling tale the protagonist Achilles honors his brother in arms Patrokolos, that
had been killed in the battles of the Trojan War. Achilles organizes the games in memory of his friend and accordantly to this everything is measured in terms of the deceased. Achilles hands out prizes and gifts honoring Patrokoles and in fact organized the whole event in order to force everyone for a time to use Patrokoles itself as system for measurement of its own inconsolableness.

The sculpture Patroklos now sits silent and contemplating-staring at the video screen, and while the reason of his lifelong performance came to a screeching hold, his activity still continues behind reason. Deprived by life he can now start to play for real, with no further need of awards, he has no need of anything except for the dark defining lines that coordinate his epilogue.
In the projected 3D animation the dead players are animated to endlessly run on field without purpose. The characteristics of a game have vanished. There are no rules, no ball, not even a team, just a tireless activity of performance.

The programming based animation has been created in collaboration with the finish media artist Ilpo Jäskilainen.