[Fournos Lab] Fournos Multivalent Communication Network

Fournos Lab is a laboratory focusing on artistic, scientific, and technological research for the creation of texts, artistic works, technological applications, and artistic events of small or large scale.

Through interdisciplinary approaches, the laboratory seeks to combine theory with practice, creating innovative projects that respond to the contemporary challenges and needs of the post-digital society. It is a flexible core that is shaped each time according to the objectives and needs of each project.

Founder and director is Dr. Manthos Santorineos, artist - researcher of new media and Professor at Athens School of Fine Arts from 2000 to 2021, founder of the Multimedia-Hypermedia laboratory, and the Greek-French Master “Art, virtual reality and multiuser systems of artistic expression”, Athens School of Fine Arts, University Paris-8 and currently Professor Emeritus.       

Fournos Lab is part of the Fournos Multi-Functional Communication Network (AMKE), which was founded in 1993 with the aim of operating as a flexible core for research and creation, investigating the relationship between Art and digital technology from its infancy in different kinds of arts. In recent years, this sector has been part of Digital Culture.

The founders of Fournos are Dodo Santorinaiou (Studies at the Athens School of Fine Arts and École des Hautes études en sciences Sociales) and Manthos Santorineos.

The headquarters of Fournos is the space where the 1935 bakery of the Santorineos family was housed, hence the name (fournos means bakery).

Towards the end of the 60s, the Flora cinema was built on the terrace of Fournos, which towards the end of the 80s was rented by the Stergiakis family and renamed Alphaville. Alphaville played an important role at that time in promoting art cinema in Athens.

Today, the space hosts Fournos administration office, the Fournos Lab, the theater hall that hosts the main theatrical stage and children's ones, and the Fournos Bar. In the same building, the Alphaville cinema space is located, which is not in operation but is used for special art events.  

The Fournos space has preserved the appearance of the old bakery with the stone chimney on the stage and the 1935 wall, while the Alphaville cinema has maintained the style it had when it operated as an Art cinema.

From its main stage, great directors and actors, well-known today, and theatre groups that were taking their first steps at the time and musicians who had no home to support their works have presented their works. It thus provided a fertile environment for the emergence of worthy creators, who are now important names in the field of art. Its main stage hosts selected theatre, dance and music performances, screenings, artist presentations, discussions and seminars on art and technology. Each year it hosts a rich program of theatre, dance and children's performances.

Fournos places particular emphasis on events that concern children, believing that children should be exposed to culture, creation and the richness that a cultural event offers from a young age. With this criterion, the children's stage has hosted a large number of spectators and, pioneering, has created theatrical performances for children from 2.5 years old, believing that from this very young age the child should be familiarized with cultural activities

Fournos has been a pioneer in Art and New Technologies events, initiating the first presentations of Greek and foreign artists in its space and producing art and technology projects of Greek artists. Its most important event was the Mediaterra International Art and Technology Festival, from 1998 to 2006.

Mediaterra aimed to establish a platform for the exchange of ideas in the field of digital art and digital culture in general, by networking artists, scientists and art centers from all over the world, while at the same time paying special attention to the area of Southeast Europe and the Mediterranean.
Mediaterra was a project in continuous development, aiming at creative criticism and at developing social proposals of cultural content. It presented contemporary international trends and research around Art and Technology, developed collaborations and promoted the production of works by young artists.

With the development of the internet and the possibilities of information and collaboration from a distance, Fournos focuses its interest on a research and creation laboratory (Fournos Lab) and on specific events and actions