Demos is a space that references two ends of the spectrum in the construction of Athens. On the one end lay the ancient steps on the hill of Pnyka, a modular typology that initiated the construction of democracy. On the other end of the spectrum is the modernist concrete frame, a module used to democratize the way Athens was built. The steps on Pnyka, along with most of ancient Greek architecture, were borrowed by the world into a global typology of authority spaces, such as parliaments, libraries, courthouses. The concrete frame, which the Greeks borrowed from a modernized Europe, represents the anarchic, unauthorized construction that grew into the Athens we witness today. The documenta 14 Parliament of Bodies space at Parko Eleftherias, located in one of the 19th century military barracks, which was transformed into Municipal Art Gallery in the 1980s, is treated as a historical artifact, the site where democracy reached its lowest point in contemporary Greek history. During the dictatorship (1967-1974), the buildings were used by the military police (EAT/ESA), as a place of detention, investigation and torture of political dissidents. As the DEMO modules, inhabited by the Parliament of Bodies, negotiate the parameters of a public program, the building launches into an investigative renovation of its own history. The practical demands of the program, such as natural lighting and technical repairs become part of an archaeological process as the layers of exhibition architecture are peeled away to uncover past identities of the space. Demos creates a space as a programmable device with which to negotiate the relation between stage and audience, between performer and participant, between democracy and freedom. Each variation will be a demo for a Parliament of Bodies. Each demo will be “demolished” to make way for the next Demos. As the Public Program of d14 unfolds over time, the modules gradually form a language, each variation of the space a new definition of Demos (Δήμος). (at To Parko Eleftherias)
