Commissioned by Beirut Art Center in the framework of Micro-commissions no. 4: The Bridge Cuts Ever So Close to My Balcony with the support of 21dB

Description: 

Standing still on a crossroads and passively absorbing the space around me. I have no control over my world. The movement will never stop, this recording is a testimony.

“Why did little thumb insist on tracing his way back home every time despite the repetitive abandonment?” This childhood haunting question is recurring lately.

Little thumb, whose parents abandoned him and his siblings by walking them to the forest, discretely threw pebbles behind him so that he can find his way back. He made record of his movement.

Surrender, resistance, physicality, politics, separation, reunion, proof of existence. 
Motion is change, for better or worse.

This piece was made by fixing a sound recorder at the intersection of the Beirut Art Center’s main walkway with the mezzanine bridge. The following elements were used to produce sound while moving around, delineating trajectories in the space:

- 100 pingpong balls 
- Metal chains 
- Rugged plastic hoses 
- Balloons 
- Hexagonal nuts 
- A computer and synthesizer sending sounds to a quadraphonic speaker system placed around the space.

All movement sounds are recorded and played from start to end with no editing. Binaural processing was used to spatialize the sound based on the space measurements when listening on headphones.

min 4:10 - release the ping-pong balls

Fractal (2021) is a composition which sounds entirely consist of recordings made with metallic, plastic, wooden tools and paper on the internal metal bridge of Beirut Art Center.

Commissioned by Beirut Art Center in the framework of Micro-commissions no. 4: The Bridge Cuts Ever So Close to My Balcony with the support of 21dB

Fractal

Original performance by Charbel Haber & Osman Arabai at Beirut Art Center 25. 5. 2011, denoised by Richard Eigner

Denoising Noise Music Live at Beirut Art Center

Notes on The World of Jalal Toufic by philosopher and art theorist Fares Chalabi consists of a written piece and four audio recordings presented in this playlist. They are based on the notes of a course Chalabi gave in AUB in the spring semester of 2020-2021. The semester was interrupted by Covid and hence the audio recordings. 

Compiled on the occasion of Jalal Toufic’s exhibition “Five Hitchcock Films as You’ve Never Seen Them Before” at Beirut Art Center, Chalabi’s notes consist mainly of insights into Toufic on a number of concepts, themes, etc. For Chalabi these notes are not a finished reconstruction of the Toufican thought system but a prelude to such a construction.

Chalabi was born in Beirut in 1977. He obtained his BA in philosophy in 2002 from the Lebanese University (UL), and a diploma in architecture from the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts (ALBA) in 2004. He continued his studies in philosophy at Paris 8 where he obtained a Master 2 in 2008, and his PhD in 2017. Chalabi taught philosophy and art theory at the American University of Beirut (AUB), Saint Joseph University (USJ), and the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts (ALBA) between 2012-2021. Today he lives and teaches in Paris. His main fields of interest are:  the study of ontological argumentation, ethics and aesthetics – in line with the Deleuzian approach.

210407 - War - Toufic - Genealogy

"An improvised sound art performance by Hasan Hujairi that modulates around the artist's hidden - and not so hidden - sonic reference points: Archival Bahraini folk music, personal field recordings, digitally synthesized sounds, algorithmic stratagems, the question of virtuosity within electronic music practice, and analog modular synthesis."

Performed at Beirut Art Center (Beirut, Lebanon) on July 6th, 2016.

somnambulant points (live performance at Beirut Art Center)

Concert @ Beirut Art Center Excerpt

MAWADa for Beirut Art Center - The Derivative (#1 Contagion)

Sandy Chamoun for Beirut Art Center- The Derivative (#2 lumpenness)

shwayshway for Beirut Art Center - The Derivative (#3 restraint)

The Illegibility of Victory and Hope

An invitation to meditate and reflect on victory and hope. 

Commissioned by the Beirut Art Center for The Derivative https://thederivative.org/

Made with Audacity [a free open-source software]

Tracks used in order of appearance (excluding sounds I added):

* Prayer of Fear(ِA poem by Mahmoud Ezzat, performed by Salma Said and produced by The Mosireen Collective) 
* Destruidnos Juntos - Exquirla (the Suena Guernica version)
* Agalma V (ft. Kali Malone) - Drew McDowall
* Dying for the Government to Fall (recording from protests in Beirut)
* Le Chant des Gauleurs d'Olives - Taos Amrouche
* Down with Hamad (recording from protests in Bahrain - voice of Zainab Al Khawaja)
* Not Muqtada Nor Hadi (recording from protests in Baghdad)
* Let My People Go - Diamanda Galas
* Snoopy - Sandy Chamoun
* Wahabt Omri Lel Amal - Maryam Saleh (Loustic Sessions)
* Harmonic Coaction Three - Chris Carter & Cosey Fanni Tutti (live recording from Avatarium Festival)
* Semelles de Vent - Ghédalia Tazartès, Bruno Letort, Cube Quartet, Etenesh Wassié (excerpt)
* Ben Ali Ran Away (recording from Tunisia)
* Hammermörder - FM Einheit
*  Dear Viyan (feat. Viyan Peyman & Dilar Dirik) -  Miranda De La Frontera 
* Armenia - Einstürzende Neubauten 
* Toun en Kilkhen Imastoun Yes - Glakho (Gorg) Zakaryan 
* The Goal - Leonard Cohen

the_derivative

Leil Zahra for the Beirut Art Center - The Derivative (#5 Illegibility)

A mix prepared for the Beirut Art Center part of The Derivative project with my take on the theme "Paranoia". A tribute to a very dear person to me who suffers from it and other types of mental health issues, that I have experienced with them throughout the years.

210407 - War - Toufic - Genealogy

Beirut Art Center (BAC)

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