Elene’s Lines of Flight [Elenes Fluchtlinien] @KAMUNA

The performance “Elene’s Lines of Flight,” developed by Natia Chikvaidze, Davit Khorbaladze, and Karolina Sobel, is part of an artistic exchange between the two UNESCO Creative Cities of Media Arts, Karlsruhe and Tbilisi. Taking as its starting point the Georgian painter Elene Akhvlediani (1901–1975)—whose multifaceted life and work defy clear narrative categorization—the project explores questions of queer and feminist visibility, absence in archives, and the historical conditions of silencing—and in doing so, explores how stories fade, disintegrate, or remain untold.

The performance combines elements of dance, text, and live music, moving between two periods of Akhvlediani’s life: her early years in Paris, when her painting focused primarily on nudes, and the landscapes that shaped her life and identity during the Soviet era in Georgia. The performance is structured as a lecture that is disrupted and broken up by movement. It hints at what might lie behind the gaps in her biography, drawing more on rumors and gaps in the archives than on official accounts. The title “Elene’s Lines of Flight” refers to a concept developed by philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari that describes a movement away from fixed structures toward contradiction, diversity, and imagination.

The performance on August 1 as part ofKAMUNAmarks the premiere of “Elene’s Lines of Flight.” The documentation of the performance will become part of the video installation“Soft Signals”by Natia Chikvaidze, Davit Khorbaladze, and Karolina Sobel, which will be on view from August 13 through September 13 on the LED wall in the ZKM foyer as part of the exhibition “Media Art is here.”