Unstable Cities

“Unstable Cities” is an animation movie created from 29 hand-drawn gouache, pastel, ink and pencil paintings as well as photographs of graffiti and buildings from different cities in Europe and in the US.
The movie is a big fresco of an imaginary empty city populated by colorful spectral silhouettes on its walls. It has its roots in urban collective traumas such as Paris terrorist attacks and Athens crisis but also in street culture and graffiti art. It reflects the Metropolis instability (social, financial, territorial, environmental) linked to poorly conceived systems or even strategies resulting into accidents, errors, disorder or chaos.
The music has been based on generated or recorded sound material from prepared piano, computer voices, hip-hop samples and urban field recordings (emergency signals, city sounds, street voices).
Both image and sound have been worked in order to create ambiguous visual/sonic identities, fragmentations, micro-collages, accumulations, rhythmic patterns, primitive “accidents” and analog/digital errors.
“Unstable Cities” is articulated in 9 episodes of 1’45” to 3’30” each.
The movie is partly based on Georgia Spiropoulos’ “EROR - The Pianist” (2019), a multimedia instrumental opera commissioned & produced by Onassis Stegi, coproduced with IRCAM-Centre Pompidou.

  • Georgia Spiropoulos
    Director
  • Andreas Karaoulanis
    Co-Director
  • Andreas Karaoulanis
    Animation
  • Georgia Spiropoulos
    Story & Storyboard
  • Georgia Spiropoulos
    Music
  • Vangelis Hoursoglou
    Hand-drawn Paintings
  • Georgia Spiropoulos
    Photos
  • Andreas Karaoulanis
    Additional Photos
  • Michaïl Spiropoulos
    Additional Photos
  • Evi Karahli
    Additional Photos
  • Georgia Spiropoulos
    Art Direction
  • Sylvie Martin-Hyszka
    Assistant Director
  • Georgia Spiropoulos
    Ambiance Sounds
  • Georgia Spiropoulos
    Production Management
  • Project Type:
    Animation, Experimental, Music Video, Short
  • Runtime:
    20 minutes 42 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    September 30, 2021
  • Production Budget:
    1,000 EUR
  • Country of Origin:
    France
  • Aspect Ratio:
    1.85
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Distribution Information
  • Georgia Spiropoulos
    Distributor
    Country: Worldwide
    Rights: All Rights, Internet, Video on Demand
Director Biography - Georgia Spiropoulos

Georgia Spiropoulos is a composer, director and multimedia artist. Her work includes acoustic, electronic and mixed compositions, multimedia spectacles and audio-visual works. It is characterized by its dramatic intensity and contrast between a powerful physicality and a meditative use of sound and image
In her multimedia works the different arts co-exist: music, video, performance, physical movement, scenography and lighting. She constructs these music-led interdisciplinary projects at multiple artistic levels, separately and in parallel, as a composer-director-video artist.

Georgia Spiropoulos taught music composition and electroacoustic music at McGill University in Montreal, Canada (2017–18) where she held the Schulich Distinguished Visiting Chair in Music.
She has been a Civitella Ranieri Fellow, the winner of the Villa Médicis Hors-les-Murs Award for New York City, and was named Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres de la République Française. She has also worked as a research composer at IRCAM on the project “Mask: The voice transformations and computer tools for live performance” (2008).

She has received many commissions (French Ministry of Culture, Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Culture, IRCAM-Centre Pompidou, Radio France, SACEM, Haus der Kulturen der Welt - Berlin, Marseille-Provence 2013 European Capital of Culture, Onassis Stegi) and her work has been played by numerous ensembles (Ensemble Intercontemporain, L'Itinéraire, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, McGill Contemporary Music Ensemble, 2E2M, Ars Nova, Sillages, Zafraan, Aventure, Curious Chamber Players, Smashensemble, dissonArt, Sixtrum, Bl!ndman, Accentus, Les Cris de Paris, Prism) in international venues: Centre Pompidou, Cité de la Musique, IRCAM and Auditorium du Louvre (Paris), Symphony Space (New York), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco), Radial System V (Berlin), Gasteig München (Munich), AOI Concert Hall (Shizuoka), Pollack Hall and Le Gesù (Montreal), Felicja Blumenthal Music Center and Hateiva Hall (Tel Aviv), Concert Hall of the Academy of Music (Krakow), Onassis Stegi (Athens).

Georgia Spiropoulos studied classical and jazz piano and all disciplines surrounding music composition in Athens. At the same time, she also practiced traditional Greek music as an instrumentalist. Since 1996 she has lived in Paris where she studied composition and electroacoustic music with Philippe Leroux, form analysis with Michael Lévinas, computer music at IRCAM with Jonathan Harvey, Tristan Murail, Brian Ferneyhough, Philippe Hurel, Marco Stroppa and Ivan Fedele, and Arts and Languages at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS).

She gives regularly lectures on her work as invited speaker at academic institution around the world (Columbia University NYC, McGill University of Montreal, University of California Santa Barbara, University of Paris 7 and Paris 8, University of Crete, IRCAM, ICMC and SMC International Conferences, Ars Musica Colloquium, Hochschule für Musik und Theater München, Paris Conservatory CRR, Tel Aviv Conservatory, Alte Schmiede-Vienna, French Institut of Athens). She has been a jury member for the ICMC and SMC International Conferences, the ilSuono Summer Academy and the IRCAM (composition cursus, artistic research residences, Phd).

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