COUNTER(-)

[2021]
VIDEO INSTALLATION
DOCUMENTARY

 
Counter (-) approaches the act of Electrical Power Theft using the "tools" of documentary. Through a series of videotaped interviews it discusses the political dimensions of individual and collective interventions in the electricity network as well as the motivations and the nature of their application, ranging from an inability to repay bills to a conscious ideological attitude and from opportunism to an act of solidarity.

The axes on which this attempt of recording, analysis and approach moves are constantly alternating through different presences. The technique itself, its transformation into knowledge and its way of dissemination, the selection and subjectivity in the colouring of the act, as well as the understanding of the respective context co-form a polyphonic ensemble.

The interviewees are asked to cover their faces in any way they wish in a process not only of concealing their identity but also of consciously representing their socio-political self in the context of the interview. Their disguises are being elaborated as techniques of self-representation and are discussed during the interviews along with topics concerning technical, ethical and political aspects of electricity theft.
 
Counter (-) does not seek a conventional depiction of the Electrical Power Theft phenomenon. Instead, beginning with the mapping of a network of actors, it deals with the various ways in which subjects choose to make sense of a delinquent act, to form a political and moral discourse around it, and to represent themselves in the context defined by the interview.

“Counter(-)” has been presented in Enterprise Projects.

Photographs by Stathis Mamalakis