The Nicosia International Festival 2025 shines a light on contemporary new media art, presenting internationally acclaimed artist and electronic music composer Pandelis Diamantides. His performance, titled Ground Studies for Pilots – Bluets, will be presented for the first time in Cyprus and Greece on Tuesday, December 23, 2025, at the Nicosia Municipal Theatre (20:30).
This is an audiovisual work featuring video projection, presented in two thematic parts. In Part I, Ground Studies for Pilots, Pandelis Diamantides offers a poetic meditation on human fragility, through the image of a pilot preparing for take-off. The concept was inspired by a pilot training manual he read during the Covid period - a time, he says, when we all lacked orientation.
“The body becomes the instrument: heartbeats, breath, biometric data are transformed into sound and light. The result is a generative audiovisual environment in constant flux, where materiality and hyperreal experience merge,” he explains.
The piece, previously performed once at the Eufonic Festival in Spain, raises questions about how we perceive reality in a world mediated by technology -and how we prepare, or fail to prepare, for leaps into the unknown. As a backdrop: Nicosia. A city in permanent transition, divided yet unifying. An ideal stage for this existential work.
Blue as memory, sound, and silence
In Part II, Bluets - a collaboration between Pandelis Diamantides and vocal performer Kristia Michael - the music adopts a calmer, more contemplative tone, exploring the emotional and symbolic dimensions of the color blue. The work delves into memory, displacement, and silence through voice, electronics, and visual abstraction. Shaped by Mediterranean atmospheres and poetic sensitivity, it opens a space for quiet reflection on identity and belonging. With a Mediterranean aura and lyrical fragility, the piece invites us into a gentle yet deeply emotional introspection.
Both works act as portals into another reality - beyond borders, beyond categories. The audience is invited to dwell in instability, to listen for their own narrative through the cracks of sound and image. “I’m drawn to unstable grounds - not to resolve them, but to inhabit them fully,” the artist notes. “My work is inherently political - not because it shouts, but because it listens,” he adds.
Who is Pandelis Diamantides
Pandelis Diamantides is a new media artist, electronic music composer, and researcher living and working between Amsterdam, Athens, and Nicosia. His work merges experimental electronic music, contemporary technology, and a meditative aesthetic to create deeply immersive experiences.
He has collaborated with artists from dance, theatre, and interactive arts, and his works have been presented at major festivals and art venues including MoMA PS1 (New York), Venice Biennale, Bozar (Brussels), Museo Reina Sofía (Madrid), MACRO (Rome), Benaki Museum, FOAM (Amsterdam), Athens Digital Arts Festival, TodaysArt (The Hague), and Amsterdam Dance Event.
He has taught and lectured at institutions such as the China Academy of Arts, Universidad de los Andes, and the School of Fine Arts of the University of Peloponnese and currently directs Studio Pandelis Diamantides in the Netherlands.
Credits
Composer/ performer: Pandelis Diamantides
Vocals: Kristia Michael
Duration: 100΄
Age group: Suitable for all ages
* This performance includes strobe lighting.
Tickets:
Available online via more.com:
http://bit.ly/4grNxB8 and the Nicosia Municipal Theatre box office (Monday - Friday 10:00-13:00).
Ticket prices:
VIP: €14/ €16
ZONE A: €12/ €14
ZONE B: €10/ €12
ZONE C: €10
ZONE D: €10
Reduced tickets are valid for: Children, students, soldiers, pensioners, large families, unemployed, actors, people with disabilities (free) with presentation of relevant ID.
Information: 22797979 (Monday - Friday 10:00-13:00)
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http://bit.ly/3VjZ0ZG
Festival identity
Organisers: Nicosia Municipality, Nicosia For Art
Festival sponsors: OPAP Cyprus, ALTIA, more.com, Cyprus Public Transport
Supportes: Travelhouse, UCLan Cyprus, WINECORE, Gate Twenty Two Boutique Hotel, Classic Hotel Nicosia
Media sponsors: DIAS Publishing & SIGMA TV, LOVE FM 100.7, and “KATHIMERINH” newspaper