Conceptual Axis

In Western discourse, the voice has largely been interpreted as a cue to interiority, essence, and individuality. But the polyphonic lament of the people of Epirus (moiroloi) might be said to constitute a fundamentally subversive act: a pluralising and collective device trying to imagine a counter-aesthetic to Eurocentric modes of living and being. 

The site-specific sound installation Passing, creates a chorus of many voices, from human and non-human laments, performing a month-long generative piece. Drawing on Epirotic laments from the area of Pogoni, and utilising current machine learning and voice synthesis technologies, as well as algorithmic sound synthesis techniques, the South gate of the Castle of Ioannina becomes a space where real, imaginary, and speculative past and future sorrows become vocalised.

A polyphonic strategy for producing and sharing alternative kinds of knowledge from the margins, voices that are commonly excluded both from the archive of humanist political economy and from the voice datasets and speech communication systems currently being built.

Two of the most fundamental characteristics of the lament that we wanted to emphasize on were: the role of the female voice, and that is why we worked specifically with polyphonic songs from Pogoni, as while the ensembles are composed of both women and men, the first voice is usually female, and the thematic of the songs of a place that has a particular history, as they speak of mourning, of loss, of uprooting, of loss, of exile, of marriage, of life processes that express some kind of transition. And the title of the work, The Passing, refers to such transitions, both metaphorical and literal.