Asimis Alexiou

*( The photo depicts me and my mother )
Paramnesia or a false memory is a psychological phenomenon where a person recalls something that did not happen or happened differently from the way it actually happened. False memory is an important part of psychological research because of its links to many mental disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder.
A history of trauma is relevant to the issue of false memory. It has been proposed that people with a trauma history or trauma symptoms may be particularly vulnerable to memory deficits, including source-monitoring failures.
As I was recollecting my childhood, I realized that there was no picture of my mother and I (due to the fact that my parents divorced a little after my birth). The absence of my mother defined and contributed to the development of my character.
The oral stage (1st year): it is the source of great pleasure, nursing. This is the stage of the greatest dependence, the child is passive and receptive. Psychologists say that fixation at this stage makes a person develop narcissistic characteristics. The other people are identified only by what they can provide. There are excessive demands which are expressed sometimes with modesty and other times imploringly or aggressively.
Through this work, I attempt to represent a missing piece of infancy,
and maybe the most important: Nursing.
An image which includes hundreds of others, but never existed, emerges the conscious and defines the existence.
An attempt to restore a relationship between mother and child through photo imaging of an action which never actually occurred. And eventually, an attempt to compose a self, who seeks to break the narcissistic shackles, to love and to be loved, to be freed from an ego which rules and leads the person to loneliness.
The photo imaging validates a fact which has been constructed in my fantasy in order to be able to exist.

This work constitutes a research based on the concept and the qualities of the hero and on how modern societies mold this image while they reproduce its opposite.
It is based on the 12 labors of Hercules. The labors of Hercules are a series of episodes recorded on Greek mythology as twelve accomplishments made by the mythical hero in penance for the murder of his wife and children, which he carried out while driven mad by goddess Hera.

We are writing for the first time
With red flowers
WE NEED HEROES NOW*

In a world
where permanent turbulence
repeatedly develops into
horrendous violence
of huge proportions

It is also a world
that offers incessant opportunities
to our hero
Where's our hero?
I can smell him
Where's that beguiling form
who goes to battle with red flowers
Who knows about the violence of aesthetics
and the aesthetics of violence
Beauty spawns heroism

Are we desperate?
Do we long for some demagogue
with brilliant acting skills?
Do we yearn for an embodiment of courage
with theatrical bravery?
I'm saying it now!
For a second time
Where's our hero?
Where is he!
Yes, he's a man
But even if it was a woman
she would still wear a man's clothes
to enter the pantheon of heroes

Are we desperate?
Do we long for a defender
with never-ending militancy?
Do we yearn for a revolutionary
with a fearsome bravura?
I'm saying it now!
For a third time
Where's our hero?
Who gives his all for us
Even his life
To assert his uniqueness
To give his mortality
worth and meaning
and flee from oblivion

Are we desperate?
Do we long for a guardian
with an honest vehemence?
Do we yearn for a savior
with an intoxicating charm?
I'm saying it now!
For a fourth time
Where's our hero?
Who, little man as he is,
dares to stand against giants
Who, with his subversive and sarcastic humor
makes a mockery out of the extreme
dangerous authority

Are we desperate?
Do we long for a pillar
Of the archaic empire
With a rousing rhetorical talent?
Do we yearn for a rebellious partisan
with unshakable courage?
I'm saying it now!
For a fifth time
Where's our hero?
Who's ready to denounce
his human nature
to become a complete animal
Whose name is like a spell
with a magical effect
Who's always loyal
to himself
and to his principles

Are we desperate?
Do we long for a brilliant outsider
With an unbridled charm?
Do we yearn for a free wanderer
with a complete freedom of choice?
I'm saying it now!
For a sixth time!
Where's our hero?
I caught a glimpse of him... I think
Who knows the importance of haste
and can show up
where they least expect him
Who can make your blood run cold
like a supernatural figure
Who can discourage the opposition party
and fill us, my peers, with renewed courage

Are we desperate?
Do we long for an insightful warrior
with an unequivocal goal, a name
Do we yearn for a true knight
from a bygone era
with a wonderful and genuine urge?
I’m saying it now!
For the seventh time!
Where’s our hero?
This legend
that his improvised myth
is the invention of an impressive grandeur
A man who occupies a great place
in our imagination

Are we desperate?
Do we long for a glorious resistant
with visible greatness
Do we yearn for a pacifist who is fighting
with divine stupidity
I'm saying it now!
For the eighth time!
Where's our hero?
Whose form was shaped
by the past
And who will shape
the things to come for us
Whom we want to worship
and revere
I feel him
He bears the aura
of an almost human tragedy

Are we desperate?
Do we long for a founder of a new academy
with a natural talent for leadership?
Do we yearn for an energetic young dictator
with wisdom from antiquity?
If you want to lead the people,
you have to follow them2
I'm saying it now
For the ninth time
Where's our hero?
This aristocrat, made in the image of God
The history of the world
is his biography
Where is he?
Is it that he fled again
with that heartrending delusion
of a defeated idealist?

Are we desperate?
Do we long for some philosopher-poet
with a vulgar, yet outstanding character?
Do we yearn for a global benefactor
with his own rhetoric
with a desire to destroy
to change
to create something new?3
I'm saying it now!
For the tenth time
Where's our hero?
I see the traces
of his vital fluids
A clear aim for his enemies
Is he hurt?
For us, his followers
a fantasy
Is he wounded?

Are we desperate?
Do we long for a symbolic prophet
With a primeval reverence?
Do we yearn for an altruist
a dandy-poet
with a romantic soul?
I'm saying it now!
For an eleventh time
Where's our hero?
Our triumphant hero
is a holy martyr
He doesn't conquer
He arrives
He is the bearer of the color of freedom
Reincarnating the tragic beauty
of defeat
He will die
but he shall not fade away
Shall I care for his wounds?
I hear him

Hero: Never close the wound
from which beauty is flowing
Let my red flowers blossom
until I am totally empty

Are we desperate?
Do we long for a genuinely creative being
with sincere faith
to the falsehood of imagination?
Do we yearn for an artistic model
with unscrupulous power
to transform?
I'm saying it now! GOODNESS GRACIOUS!
For the twelfth time
Where's our hero?

Where's our fine golden vase?
To place our red roses
To marvel at our love
To adorn our house

We write for the last time
With our rose-blood
WE NEED HEROES NOW*

*On September 12, 2001, in front of New York's Ground Zero, a group of people was photographed
with a banner saying: "WE NEED HEROES NOW".

What do we have to demolish in order to build something new?
And will the one created in place of the old be better?
How should we cut ties with the “old” (which, in this case, takes the form of structures), from whatever is preventing us from developing individually and socially?
Maybe it has to be done in a violent manner, like a demolition, instead of waiting till it becomes old, turns into ruins and sinks into itself?
And how should this “demolition” be conducted, so that it doesn't also carry away whatever useful exists?
And what and who determines what and which ones should be demolished?