Chronotopia at Athens & Epidaurus Festival Day 1

Sofia Eleni Xezonaki

21:00

Gaspar Cohen

23:00

Giulia Vismara

23:50

Max Eilbacher

00:30

Sofia Zafeiriou

01:20

Khyam Allami

01:40

Andys Skordis

02:15

Thanos Hana

02:50

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In »Post Kollisionen« Sofialena Xezonaki takes Anestis Logothetis's score for »Kollisionen« (1970) as a starting point in order to create a sculptural installation. Using diverse materials (foam, wood, cotton and everyday objects) Xezonaki invites visitors to move within the space and confront a series of unexpected spatial possibilities.

»Iterative Cast« by Gaspar Cohen scrutinises the very tensions among different epistemological standpoints and is an affirmation of uncertainty as a potentiality of the present. It does so by live-processing audio fragments collected from the KSYME archive: translating the archive into an auditory space that is constantly in flux, it echoes cyclical and spiral ideas of history, narrative folds, the reconfiguration of cultural circuits and onto-technological disruptions.

Giulia Vismara will present »Clangor Lucis,« a 3D composition that investigates the relationship between sound and light, drawing on the compositional theories of Iannis Xenakis. Inspired by a photograph of Xenakis's »Mycenae Polytope« (1978) found in the KSYME archive, her work involves different luminous shapes, volumes, and dots that emerge from a black and white surface, filling and reclaiming space.

Drawing inspiration from Sieve Theory and its use by Iannis Xenakis as a method to generate sequences of pitches and rhythms, Max Eilbacher's work acts as a bridge between early experiments in algorithmic composition and contemporary computer music. Using a custom implementation of the mathematical process, his work »Partial Patterns #1« is a playful study of the construction of audible forms.

The second part of the evening features works created with Apotome, a browser-based transcultural generative music system focused on using microtonal tuning systems and their subsets (scales/modes). Resulting from artist and scholar Khyam Allami's current PhD research and his in-depth collaboration with Counterpoint, the creative studio run by Tero Parviainen and Samuel Diggins, the application is an effort to highlight the cultural asymmetries and biases inherent in modern music-making tools, alongside their interconnected web of musical, educational, cultural, social, and political ramifications.

For Chronotopia, Allami has exchanged in depth with artists Andys Skordis and Sofia Zafeiriou about the software and tuning systems in Greece and the Balkan region. All three artists have created new works, which will be premiered this evening. Andys Skordis focuses on the sonic atmospheres of Ptolemy’s Whole Tone diatonic (Phrygian) to oscillate within the liminal zone between deep nighttime and the beginnings of something new. Using laptop, guitar, and the Balafon1 xylophone, he installs different midi clocks on his two softwares – Apotome and Ableton Live – to create music to create irregular polyrhythms informed by his training in Balinese gamelan and Karnatic music. Sofia Zafeiriou explores the sound world of augmented violin performance, transcending non-Western rhythms and modalities using electronic and stochastic interfaces, noise, and free improvisation. She will explore tunings derived from old recordings across the Balkans, the turkish maqam, and a custom pentatonic tuning. Utilising Apotome's generative processes running through various software synthesisers, Khyam Allami will explore the tetrachords of the ancient Greek pythagorean tuning system known as the Greater Perfect System, including it's three variations, the Chromatic, Diatonic and Enharmonic.

The concert is rounded out with a live performance by Thanos Hana.