Angelo Plessas
Angelo Plessas presents Potato Earth Theory (P.E.T.): A Cosmology of Roots in Silence, a poetic text that bridges speculative cosmologies, both primordial and post-apocalyptic. He imagines an Earth not round but porous and tuberous: an underground organ of survival, storage, and resistance. This vision takes form in his quilt, a new-age cartography where words, colors, and shapes replace national borders, sketching alternative digital and ecological systems. Plessas’s pioneering work with the internet converges here with earthly concerns, reimagining networks as organic and rooted. Terms like loop, tube, and cloud reverberate across both domains, carrying double meanings that shift between the digital and the terrestrial, suggesting language itself as a ground of transformation. If our exhibition had a logo, it would be this: not the rigid square of flags, but a living emblem of revolution—earthy in tone, soft-edged, patient as soil—ready to grow root-systems rather than monuments to progress.
Angelo Plessas’ work explores the intersection of spirituality and technology, delving into a wide range of cosmologies. It activates modes of communal interconnectivity and social relations while also delving into the semiotics of ancient and cybernetic worlds. He questions the hyper-networking effects where identities are performed and mythologized, and where intense interconnectedness and isolation alternate. Plessas’ activities encompass technoshamanic performances, artist residencies, self-publishing, interactive websites, quilted sculptures, neon installations and educational projects. Recently his practice has expanded to teaching, writing, curating, and different forms of healing. Over the last few years, he organized the annual, weeklong gatherings of the Eternal Internet Brotherhood/Sisterhood and Experimental Education Protocol. These projects happened in different places in the world involving both international and local artists, curators, designers, and researchers. His work has been exhibited internationally, including at the 13th Gwangju Biennale in South Korea, documenta 14 in both Kassel and Athens, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Jeu de Paume in Paris, the DESTE Foundation, and the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens. Plessas is the founder of P.E.T. Projects in Athens, a Fulbright alumnus, and the recipient of the DESTE Prize in 2015. Plessas divides his time between Athens and Kymi in Greece and served as an instructor at the Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts in both 2022 and 2023.