Kayib
Performances
About the event
The performance Kayīb (2023) is a multilayered exploration of the hidden connections and forgotten stories that shape our world. Built on songs that have been banned and the sounds of secret societies, Arutiunian merges the sonic entanglements of oil extraction with histories of charlatanism to explore musical and political peripheries. Running a series of hypnotic and repetitive sonic movements through the bodies of self-made brass instruments, the performance unfolds as a complex interplay of multiple illicit voices and fictitious encounters between a cast of speculatively interrelated characters and musical figures. The work integrates protagonists such as George Ivanovich Gurdjieff (1867–1949), the Armenian-Greek mystic active in Paris in the early twentieth century and renowned practitioner-teacher of techniques aimed to produce higher states of consciousness, and Haile Selassie (1892–1975), the emperor of Ethiopia fascinated by Armenian musicians. Arutiunian creates a hypnotic, immersive experience that challenges listeners to think critically about history, power, and the nature of reality.
Presented By
Andrius Arutiunian
Andrius Arutiunian works with hybrid forms of music and media to probe the politics of sound and how it shapes our experience of the world. Trained in composition and sonology at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague, he represented Armenia at the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022 and is currently a DAAD fellow in Berlin. His practice is grounded in the principle of sound as a system of order, which he inverts, reorders, and disrupts. These interventions, as acts of sonic dissent and reattune- ment, take the form of sound installations, film, ritualistic gatherings, performances, and vinyl records. By combining sounds that range from hypnotic structures and vernaculars to modified historic incantations, non-Western tunings, and synthetic sources, his work has examined the politics of algorithms and AI, while offering meditations on strangeness, resonance, and the dynamics of political engagement. His reordering of political histories and musical forms encourages a new way of listening and offers entry to other worlds.
In 2024 Arutiunian was shortlisted for the Future Generation Art Prize.