The Cyprus Vital Signs - A journey to enchantment project aims to raise awareness on the impact of human activities, including tourism, on the island of Cyprus. The artwork investigates the various aspects of tourism and the socio-environmental sustainability aspects related to it by inspecting, describing, transforming and narrating data generated by tourist activities.

The artwork unfolds as a polyptych voyage towards an enchanted reality, presented through five interpretive chapters: Data, Epistemologies, Reflections, Narration and Awakening.

Datasets – digital and physical - are at the core of this project; they are analyzed, presented and interpreted through a somewhat kaleidoscopic gaze. Scavenged by autonomous algorithms, the digital trail of discrete datasets left behind by tourists are read as socio-environmental indicators and compiled into the daily Cyprus Vital Signs report. In parallel, the open-source and continuously updated Cyprus Vital Signs website makes available all the resources – datasets, literature and reports – that continuously inform the project.

The road towards enchantment is paved with 10 video animations and a 360-video experience, interpreting the amassed hyperlocal and general datasets and histories of the current crises we are facing, as gloomy realities and futures.
Demarcating a catharsis, the final cluster of works act as a call for awakening. A synergistic hi-tech/low-tech printmaking process depicts the road towards enchantment, shifting the gaze from the deluging instrumentalization and the mega-views of our world, towards the landing on an enchanted earth, the restoring of distance between objects, and the awakening to a new future-preserving cosmology.

This project would not have been possible without the generous support from Myrto Aristidou, Marios Constantinides, Stella Taousiani, Stratis Pantelides, Kyriaki Yiakoupi, Marios Charalabous, Maria Loizou, Alex Charalambous, Giorgos Dimoglou, Angela Ionnidou, Kleanthis Neokleous, Stefanos Papadas, Maria Ioannou, Marina Neophytou and the insights and assistance from all the CYENS Thinker Maker Space team and facilities.

A sincere thank you to the Cyprus Regional STARTS Centre CYENS CoE and the Industry Partner PwC Cyprus for their major support and trust.

Music by Julius H., EvgenyBardyuzha, 24414830, AleXZavesa, Oleksandr Stepanov, Oleksii Kaplunskyi, Dream-Protocol and DivKid from Pixabay.

https://www.cyprusvitalsigns.com

Repairing the Present received funding from the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology under grant agreement LC01641664.

Joseph Hovadik is a visual artist born in France in 1979 with a background in geology, data science and art. He works in a wide range of styles and media which include figurative and abstract paintings, works on paper, prints, digital media and datasets. His artmaking can be playful and inconsequential, or a dark and humorous take on the multiple concurrent global crises. Joseph lives and works in Guatemala City.