28 September 2009

Eames Demetrios

Kcymaerxthaere: It's kind of magic. Marg Hearn reports on Eames Demetrios' recent visit to Australia.

The career of Eames Demetrios, grandson of Charles and Ray Eames, has many spokes - art, design, photography, film, books, scale, consultancy and Kcymaerxthaere.

Visiting Australia in August to add to his large scale Kcymaerxthaere project, aka 3D alternative world, Demetrios, a self-confessed geographer-at-large, likens it to a novel with a different page in every place.

Seven years since inception, 63 bronze markers and historical sites in 10 countries honor events from a parallel world in the linear world in which we reside. Each has a unique story and on occasions, overlap. No plaque is related to every other one, but every plaque is related to a different one or two or sometimes 10-15 other plaques.

An interest in Western Australia’s dry lakes led Demetrios to Lake Grace Australia, 347km south east of Perth where an elaborate Swath of Stars historical plaque is now placed, capping off four other Australian installations including: Perth’s Morley Rollerdrome, Mundrabilla on the Nullarbor, Franklinford near Daylesford and Fortitude Valley in Brisbane.

The on-going growth and evolution of Kcymaerxthaere can be followed online, but it’s the physical viewing of at least one installation that’s tipped to re-orientate our perceptions.

“There’s something very powerful that happens when you read something in a place especially in a work of storytelling that tells you something that you didn’t know or didn’t think was the case about a place…the magic starts to happen when you take in the visual environment while you’re reading these words,” says Demetrios.

For example, an installation in Illinois is now used as part of an annual Kcy Spelling Bee at the Paris Honey Bee Festival where people spell words from the alternative world, “having their own fictional experience.”

Drawing inspiration from Charles and Ray Eames whose success he says, was not assured, “I felt that I might find an audience that I could connect with and even if I don’t I’ve had an amazing time doing it.”

kcymaerxthaere.com
eamesdemetrios.com

Join Demetrios on twitter at: eamesd or enjoy Kcymaerxthaere storytelling on twitter at: kcym'¨'¨Eames

Demetrios was visiting Australia courtesy of Living Edge, stockists of Charles and Ray Eames furniture nationally.'¨

livingedge.com.au