Strings and Rails Anyway

Strings and Rails Anyway is a performance installation piece by Natalia Afentoulidou and Ioana Comsa.

“During my search for a performer that could speak to my compulsion for a ‘concert installation,’ I had the pleasure of witnessing a harp concert by Ioana Comsa. I discussed my vision with her and we immediately agreed on a collaborative piece that is something between a commentary, a tribute and an autobiography.

We agreed that we wanted to express our journey by deconstructing what we deliberately build and practice. We also wanted to pay tribute to our time in Boston and at Boston University by showcasing our commitment to evolve and change while witnessing the consumption and destruction we find in the world.

Our concert-installation is an effort to simplify the complexity of thought; it intends to comment on the realism of the here and now, detached from information and focused on revelation. Its purpose is also to question the realism of our time which operates under the stress of waste, ignorance and illusionistic aspirations. The concert-installation was designed and built to be more concerned with the performance of the content than the content itself.

In reference to this element of performance, Ioana chose to improvise and record her spontaneous compositions, conveying her reality and perception of life as a foreign artist coming from Romania and as someone returning to the EU upon graduation from BU.

For the installation I decided to use all my work on paper made since my graduate years at Boston University. Committed to the idea of decomposition, ritual and the attentiveness to the present and immediate surroundings, I cut my entire presentation of work on paper into pieces. Both parts of installations and individual drawings are now fragmented and spontaneously formed into a new synthesis.

Both Ioana and myself deconstruct our craft literally and metaphorically to mark the fundamental need for redefining reality. We actively view art as an instigator of change and of new possibilities, even under limited potential or ephemeral circumstances.”

Natalia Afentoulidou Boston, MA, 2015