Albanian Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale
Published
I have left you the mountain presents ten new texts written by contemporary writers and thinkers on the architecture of displacement. These texts have been set to music and sung by some of the last remaining groups of Albanian iso-polyphonic singers, an art form now protected as “intangible cultural heritage” by UNESCO.
Pavilion sound design and programming by Peter Meanwell and Trond Lossius.
http://www.albanianpavilion.com/2016/
A living art form in step with generations of migration and transition, “singing migration” has been a core part of processing departure, longing, and return. The Albanian Pavilion is a space of collective listening, of “individuals in company.”
I Have Left You The Mountain initiates a conversation about the urbanism of displacement, projecting the Albanian case onto an international stage, with the express intention to transmit that dialogue and its speculations back into Albania.
Foto: Špela Volčič.
On the technical realisation
Performances have been captured as eight channel audio recordings with separate channels for each voice. Using eight speakers at the pavilion each of the voices is reproduced individually. Playback is controlled by a vinyl record player playing a special vinyl record containing timecode information. A Max patch interprets this information in order to control playback of the 8 channel tracks.
Commissioner
- The Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Albania
Curators
- Simon Battisti
- Leah Whitman-Salkin
- Åbäke
Sound design and technical consultation
- Peter Meanwell
- Trond Lossius
Furniture design
- Max Lamb
Pavilion construction
- Luigi D’Oro & Arguzia S.r.l.
Location
- Arsenale (Room 5), Venice
Sponsors
- Meyer Sound
- BEK
- Sigal Uniqa
- Spring
- AlbaRent
- Savatours