The Passing

The polyphonic lament of the people of Epirus (‘moiroloi’) constitutes a subversive act: a pluralizing and collective device trying to imagine a counter-aesthetic to Eurocentric modes of living, where voice amounts most of the times to an indicator of interiority and individuality. This site-specific sound installation creates a chorus of many voices, from human and non-human laments, performing a generative AI work. Drawing on Epirotic laments from the area of Pogoni and utilizing current machine learning and voice synthesis technologies, the southern gate of the Ioannina Castle becomes a space where past and future, sorrows and joys become vocalized.
Maenads, a polyphonic strategy for producing and sharing alternative kinds of knowledge from the margins, empowers voices that are commonly excluded both from the archive of humanist political economy and the voice datasets and speech communication systems.

The work is commissioned by Onassis Stegi for the “Plásmata ΙΙ: Ioannina” exhibition.