The Collection
Conclusive Oedipus encompasses 297 unique digital collectibles (NFTs). Each collectible is a distinctive excerpt of up to 5 seconds, inspired by the original Conclusive Oedipus video installation created by Costas Tsoclis. Additionally, a distinct series of collectibles features 13 long movies, each a few minutes long, that narrate the entire Oedipus artwork, and they are issued in a limited number of copies (up to 6).The Living Painting
Costas Tsoclis is a world pioneer in Living Painting which is how he has defined the integration of the static quality of painting with the dynamic nature of illuminated projection. Click here for more details about the Living Painting of Costas Tsoclis.
Conclusive Oedipus (2006) belongs to the fourth phase of the Living Painting. Compared to the third phase, things are reversed, so that instead of the still image coming to life, it is gradually immobilized until the living painting ends up a painting pure and simple.
Oedipus has been exhibited in the Benaki Museum (2006), the Ancient Theatre of Philippi (2007), in the context of the Philippi Festival, and in the Scholeion (2009), Athens, as part of the exhibition "The Living Painting of Costas Tsoclis, 1985-2009". It is referenced on pp. 162-165, 176, “C. TSOCLIS Catalogue raisonné 1953-2022”, Melissa Publishing House, editor: Chrysanthi Koutsouraki. You can see an excerpt of the original Conclusive Oedipus video below.
The Myth
Oedipus, a prominent figure in Greek mythology, was the son of Laius and Jocasta, the king and queen of Thebes. A prophecy foretold that he would kill his father and marry his mother, causing his parents to order a servant to leave him on a mountainside to die. However, the servant took pity on the infant and gave him to a shepherd from Corinth, who then presented the child to the childless king and queen of Corinth. Oedipus was raised as their son, oblivious to his true origins. As a young man, he encountered the same prophecy and, believing his adoptive parents were his biological parents, he decided to leave Corinth to prevent the prophecy from coming true.Tsoclis in His Own Words
When, in 1990, I completed my piece "Medea" I dreamt of finding a permanent space to present by turns seven or eight of my pieces made on the pretext of ancient tragedies.These were conceived as homage to those hypothetical ansestors of ours whom I admired so much in my youth, but whom I later rejected. I wanted to free myself and walk without crutches, inspired by other - more ordinary but equally eternal - tragedies or miracles.
So "Oedipus" is the second, and possibly final, piece, born of that now impossible dream.
But why Oedipus? At the moment I began working on it, almost three years ago, I would certainly have had an answer. Now I am full of doubt. So I search for reasons, invent them if necessary. I try to find justifications, as though one could justify his destiny. As though obliged to explain it to myself, to explain it to others.
I have lived the adventure of art since 1957, and have consumed my talent and ambition within its realm, limitless but at the same time suffocating. It was this free but perfidiously guided and oppressive realm of art that I had first to submit to, and only later, if I had the strength, to subvert.
I learnt the language of contemporary art. And now that I have satisfied my hunger, there is nothing left for me but to decide. Either I, also, continuously exhibit variations of my recognized and accepted face, or I continue my dialogue with the world around me, allowing myself to be carried along with the vortex of events, hoping to understand, perhaps possibly to predict, the ever-changing face of society and thereby of art, so that I may have a reason to exist.
Seferis says:
So if I speak to you in fables and parables, it's because they sound sweeter to you,
and actual horror can't be discussed directly because it's alive, because it proceeds wordlessly dripping by day, oozing in sleep:
the agony of reminding, of remembering.
Well then, yes. I also was thrown defenseless into the wilderness, and yetI survived. And I lived for years in blissful ignorance, yet I learned the horrible truth, unfortunately without fully understanding it. I also left my country, believing that I would thus avoid evil, and came to stand undecided at the crossroads of the world. And without any real reason I came into conflict with passersby and perhaps I even murdered with my words my father or my teachers when they wanted to block my way. I also solved a few simple riddles, and received as reward the embrace of my motherland without perceiving my mistake in time. Like Oedipus, I maimed myself. I got angry and denied the truth of others.
I was drawn into uncertain roads and arrived, like Oedipus, at my own Colonus, with its birds, its brook, its trees and sanctuaries. I saw signs of God. I sought unattainable purification. I made promises. I struggled to create secure conditions for those who had sheltered me.
I hope I can still manage to scatter a few crumbs to mark my path, even if the road fills with crows.To lose yourself in anonymity, in the dust of time, your name utterly forgotten, isn't that an answer to your vanity? Isn't it poetic salvation in the form of defeat? I mean to say, victory.
Costas Tsoclis
From the catalogue of the exhibition: “C. TSOCLIS -Conclusive Oedipus”, Benaki Museum, Athens, 10/4 – 28/5/2006
