Alexandra Niaka | The river where you set your foot just now is gone

“The river where you set your foot just now is gone” is an immersive, real-time generated installation with its core lying in the history of water, not only as a force of creation but also as a vessel of collective memory and catastrophe. Rooted in a Thessalian folklore myth, in which the dead once a year emerge around areas of water to share stories from the past, present, and future, the artwork reveals how rivers, floods, and the cyclical presence of water have shaped both the cultural imagination and the lived realities of Thessaly.

Through 3D scanning, AI-generated imagery, and volumetric performance capture, the artwork reimagines elements of the region: villages, fields, textiles, and architectural traces. This evolving landscape forms a fragmental space between reality and imagination, between the natural and the artificial, where myth and memory are refracted through digital processes and algorithmic creation. Within this shifting environment, performers are transformed into digital avatars, animating the landscape and embodying the myth’s narrators.

Echoing the aforementioned fragments, a sculptural element, The Well, exists within the immersive environment. The collected testimonies—the voices of flood survivors and local inhabitants—emerge through the Well, intertwining lived experience with reconstructed environments. The soundscape flows through the voices of women from the region’s oldest generation, whose memories bridge the past and present.

“The river where you set your foot just now is gone” aims to become a space of reflection and remembrance, inviting viewers to experience how landscapes, stories, and technologies together shape the collective consciousness, carrying forward the voices of those who set their foot in the river before us to the uncertain terrain of the future.