A tribute-interview to Aphrodisiac Intelligence
Presenting here the fantastic project of Irini Karayannopoulou we want to support the opening of a dialogue about the interdisciplinary power of Feminist narrative of Desire Machines, using Deleuzean language.
The “JANUS FEMZINE” is per definition an exemplary case about that. We would like to thank again our lead editor, Spyridon St. Kogkas for the introduction of Irini Karayannopoulou and her “JANUS”. We recommend you to read this interview, Irini’s answers are a real opening of creativity horizons and anti-taboo approach on Art. We want to thank her for this opportunity to reflect again on our Aphrodisiac Intelligence.
Thrausma Journal & Publications
*Irini Karayannopoulou is an artist whose work comprises painting, collage, drawings, editions and moving image. She is the editor of JANUS Femzine, the co-founder of artist duo Extra-Conjugale and the co-pilot of Twin Automat films. She lives in Athens, Greece.
1.To blend surrealism, fashion, science fiction, pornography and visual art is for sure a mind-blowing project. Is Janus an experiment, freestyle creative expression or a broader intention of you to boost a certain artistic aesthetics in postmodern art market?
Janus femzine is experimental by nature. It combines art and sex and it’s feminist, empowering and badass. It addresses people who appreciate art, books and unconventional tales of libido. The Janus reader is curious to explore sexuality from different angles, either physically or in theory. Janus reclaims the female body, de-objectifies it and turns sex slaves into powerful goddessess.
Finally, the Janus girls are in full control of their bodies. And to answer your question, despite its immediate success, Janus still comes in 150 copies only and it’s accessible to all, on a first come first served basis.
2. Bring us closer to your mind laboratory about Janus, how do you choose the issues concepts, what happens inside you during the whole preparation of each issue?
Janus is a chameleon, not only because the colors of its covers are everchanging but also because it explores new possibilities and themes each time. Every issue spins around a different concept, from artificial intelligence to ’70’s erotica and from Japanese s&m to feminist manifestos. I don’t choose my subject matters, I think that they choose me. It’s an instictive kind of interaction between me and the things that obsess me.
I take a lot of pleasure working on Janus and at the same time I take Janus very seriously.I give it my full attention, I care about every little detail, It’s an esthetic journey. Publishing an independent magazine is a liberating process.I am free to invite and welcome on board the writers, artists and curious minds of my choice.
This is a real luxury, a priceless privilege. It’s also my favourite part.Blending and bonding with others.
3. Share with us few words about its reception. How do you explain the whole interest about it? Is a kind of art sexual education for our subconscious worlds?
Although I’m honoured about the warm welcome, I wasn’t expecting it. I feel gratitude that so many of you love and collect Janus. My magazine has a punk desire to turn things upside down, reclaim pleasure, fight abuse and rejoice.It violates taboos. It’s wild and free.
I am surprised and happy that it found a loving audience. This tsunami of positive feedback has left me thinking; why are we supposed to be so silent about this stuff in the first place? Why is female sexuality an uncomfortable topic? So yes, Janus could be an educationaltool.
4. Can you imagine JANUS to be a project that could be transformed from a magazine to something more visual, live and interactive?
This is precisely the spirit of Janus. It’s not just a magazine, it’s a celebration. For issue no2, Janus invaded Hyper Hypo bookstore, with an installation that featured beauty encyclopediae, candles, berries, stickers, disco lights…..it was a delicious evening, with tailor made playing lists and sensual,hand drawn animations.
For the ai issue of Janus we travelled to Hydra island with Polana Institute, my Warsaw gallery. We celebrated the birth of Janus #3 in a beautiful garden, surrounded by botanical scents and orange butterflies. We tasted sparkling elixirs under the lemon trees while discussing the invasion of the machines.Janus is a vehicle for adventure.
5. Which is a concept,idea, fantasy that you want desperately to host to a next issue?
I am obsessed about a number of things, so maybe I should go for an issue about not being obsessed. How to stay as cool as a chair while you are burning deep inside.How to fake it to the utmost.That sort of thing. I cannot think of anything more useful at the moment.
6. What could philosophy learn from pornography( and the opposite)?
First of all, let me clarify that Janus is not porn, on the contrary. It takes us on a ride that feels high without the side effects. It’s a pure form of poetic and esthetic pleasure, one that is conducted by a woman.
This is something that pornography has still not reached as it is almost always made by men and addresses a male audience. Society still pretends that women don’t care about the representation of sex. Perhaps philosophy could push a little towards the opposite direction.
7. Janus..the Roman God of Beginnings, of Entrances, of double identities, of coexistence between contradictory powers. Does your “Janus” love mysticism too?
Being in touch with the subconscious mind is essential. After all we are not machines, we are made of flesh, bone and spirit.There are hints of spirituality in every page of Janus femzine.
8. Can you imagine a special issue edition of Janus with Thrausma?
Although I like to be the captain of my boat I am open to ideas.
9. What’s up with your latest issue, what is all about and what’s next about “Janus”.
The new Janus femzine is slightly more intense than the previous ones.The fourth issue reflects onbdsm and the act of seeking sexual pleasure in receiving or inflicting pain. Images are dark and contrasted and almost exclusively black and white. Janus #4 features interventions by Josh Hickey, Eva Vaslamatzi, Lia Rochas Paris and Mieke McConnor.
I am grateful to all four of them for trusting me with their work. It took almost a year to give birth to Janus #4, and I’m thrilled it’s finally here. I am still under the influence of the new issue-it only just got printed- so what I intend to do is take my time to fully enjoy it before I start reflecting on the next one.
With Janus, I am learning how to defy time. Perhaps it’s because the roman God of change and transitions is also connected with the passing of time. Who knows?
*Janus was the god of transitions and new beginnings in Roman mythology. He was depicted as having two faces looking at opposite directions, one towards the past and one towards the future. Janus was responsible for motion, changes and time. He was present in the beginning of the world and presided over the creation of life and the birth of gods and religion.
In the 1970’s there were two magazines named Janus. The first and longest running one was edited in London and contained s&m and spanking erotica. The second Janus was a feminist science fiction fanzine edited in Madison, Wisconsin. It was highly associated with WisCon, the city’s science fiction convention. Irini was inspired by both editions in order to create her own Janus femzine, edited and exhibited on the occasion of #Lipiu exhibition at A-Dash, Athens.
Janus #1 Images & texts:Irini Karayannopoulou Design:SEBR Print:MACART
For the first issue of Janus femzine, Irini Karayannopoulou revisits a series of soft porn images made in Denmark and Sweden during the 1970’s. She paints on the bodies and the faces of stunning naked girls, transforming them from sex objects to quasi religious figures.
They look powerful and glorious as they appear covered in flora, fauna and intense brush strokes. In this interpretation of outdated erotica the artist is inspired both by feminist poetry and by the post-apocalyptic sci-fi reads of the 1970’s. This is reflected on the text that she wrote for Janus #1
“A colonised planet full of personal, psychological and historical misunderstandings. Spacemen, moonscapes, unicorns, armored characters. Are there any new plots under the sun? With female science fiction heroes so scarce, it’s always gratifying to come across them. Our world on the brink of self-destruction.
Everything is either permanent and unchanging or broken and irreplaceable. The accidental martyrdom of an innocent professor of pornography. Intergalactic buses broadcast erotic thoughts to passengers at night.
The process is endlessly replicated in factories across the nation. Almost as if we existed in corners of the same pale planet far removed from one another, will our paths eventually cross?
I must be born into a human body in order to contact and help you. Is mortal life only a preparation for another, more spiritually gratifying one? Science fiction is like that, awful things happen, millions of people come to a sticky end, but the main characters just carry on, cool and collected.
Are fantasies of world catastrophe more a wish not to die alone rather than a prophetic vision? (I detect little to zero feminism in fairy tales) -Is it utterly coincidential? An alternate universe might exist only if we work to create it.”
JANUS #2 Images:Irini Karayannopoulou Text curated by Christina Petkopoulou Design:SEBR Print:MACART
For the second edition of JANUS, Irini Karayannopoulou works with her collection of photographic material derived from porn and nudist magazines of the 1960s, discovered in Warsaw, Poland. Isolating the images and intervening with her characteristically striking painting gesture, she diverts their original narrative through a form of painting collage referring abstractly to punk aesthetics.
Female bodies escape the male gaze and return to pleasure, they wander in natural landscapes, communing with plants, animals and flamboyant objects. Curator Christina Petkopoulou, having observed Karayannopoulou’s practice inside the artist’s studio, edits the accompanying texts creating a collage herself, which consists of excerpts from “Secrets of Loveliness” (1964), a best-seller guide book for young women, and lyrics from songs that were on the billboard charts of the same year. JANUS returns to femininities as an unapologetic and accessible, carnivalesque, visual illusion.
The second issue of Janus femzine is the most up-to-date practical guide to bad behavior and etiquette for contemporary femininities. Yes, you! JANUS women are hot, exactly in the way the male audience has not and will never imagine them. They are determined to steal all the fun for themselves and eventually become incredibly unpleasant.
They will ruin your party, stealing the spotlight with their very presence. They will not miss the chance to create drama and make everyone in the room uncomfortable. As the huge disappointment they are for their families, they never apologize for their brassy laugh, while they insist on smiling only when they feel like it. Their style of dress shall scandalize passers-by and corrupt young minds, while they turn into every hostess’s nightmare.
The third issue of Janus femzine consists of images created by Irini Karayannopoulou, with the contribution of AI and texts by journalist Efie Falida (Ta Nea newspaper). In the Aphrodisiac Intelligence issue, the artist creates her raw material from scratch, using algorithm and data.On the occasion of these images, journalist Efie Falida invents a scenario around the new reality of digital presence.
The combination of image and speech results in an art edition dedicated to the invasion of machines and to the excitement but also the concern it causes us. This charming game between words, imagination, but also machine training, is only one of two sides of the same coin.
As Efie Falida writes, “You have to create the conditions for the surprise and then accept the consequences.
The 4th issue of Janus femzine is dedicated to s&m practices of all kinds. This time, Irini Karayannopoulou draws inspiration from 1950’s Japanese erotic magazines. She revisits scenes of bondage, sadomasochism and submission, using watercolours and ink.
Her images are dark, intense and highly contrasted. Additionally, she invites artist Lia Rochas Paris to create four new artworks, using the same materia prima. For this issue Irini equally invites writers Josh Hickey, Eva Vaslamatzi and Mieke McConnor to reflect on bdsm and the idea of sexual pleasure derived from giving or receiving pain. The result is a taboo-free issue of Janus femzine, dressed in high heels and black shiny vinyl.
https://www.instagram.com/janus_femzine?igsh=MWQxNDN0dzlqbDM5ZA==
