Written by Anna Papaeti & Nektarios Pappas-

The installation The Dark Side of the Tune was created by Anna Papaeti and Nektarios Pappas in the context of the Hypnos Exhibition (18 April-19 June 2016) organized by Onassis Stegi and curated by Theophilos Tramboulis and Yorgos Tzirtzilakis.  Zafos Xagoraris was an interlocutor during the making of the work.

The work explored the dark use of music and sound in detention sites, a topic that has not been adequately registered historically and in current debates. It consisted of three parts. The central part was the vault of Onassis Stegi, which happened to be placed inside a small room at the exhibition space. Terrifyingly evocative, it indirectly alluded to an isolation and torture cell through sound (a sound file that played on a loop and was informed by survivor testimony), vibrations, lighting but also absence itself. This sensorial experience aimed at indirectly evoking the nightmarish conditions of interrogation and torture at the Athens-based detention sites of the military dictatorship in Greece (1967–1974). It was complemented by archival and qualitative research material. Visitors could hear survivor testimony through headphones found at the dark tiny room in which the vault is placed. Additionally, on the outside exhibition space a vitrine featured archival material related to the topic. This included a CIA interrogation manual (1963), the proceedings of the so-called torturers’ trials in Greece after the fall of the regime, and photographs from the Special Interrogation Unit of Greek Military Policy (EAT/ESA), where this kind of torture took place during the dictatorship. The work is based on archival research and interviews with torture survivors of the dictatorship period.

Anna Papaeti & Nektarios Pappas, The Dark Side of the Tune, ‘Hypnos Exhibition’ (Onassis Stegi, 2016) © Panos Kokkinias