Black Box Hub

MULTIDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH PROJECT
GYUMRI TECHNOLOGY CENTER (ARMENIA, 2024)

📍The "Black Box Hub" is where the fields of art, science, technology, engineering, and craftsmanship come together to promote the creation of interdisciplinary projects. This initiative aims to bring together the fields of art, science, technology, engineering, and craftsmanship to create new outcomes through interdisciplinary collaboration. Black Box Hub creates an environment where creators and innovators can think and create together.

As part of this project an interdisciplinary group traveled across Armenia's northern Shirak marz - once, a traditional grain, flower and bread producing region. Now only a few families here still bake bread the traditional way - with sourdough and in tonyr, a traditional oven.

We observed and learned what these families do to keep this tradition from dying as part of a larger process of vanishing of rural life and traditional practices.

Apart from gaining knowledge, we aimed at collecting photo, sound and video materials to potentially use them in interdisciplinary solutions.

On my part, I collected sourdough starter samples from all villages with a view to conducting lab analyses:

1. to study the nourishing characteristics of each of the samples and compare differences between them;
2. to identify the 'working' bacteria in each sample, to analyze and preserve the diversity of these bacteria;
3. to put these data on an interactive map of the Shirak region and potentially, the whole of Armenia.

I participated in this project as an in-house artist, specializing in sound art, digital technology and interactivity programming - with an aim to re-thing our research results in a form of new technology-driven solutions.

Other members of the team are: documentary filmmaker Sona Simonyan artisanal baking expert and bakery owner Ani Haroutunian curator Bella Harutunyan photographer Gurgen Ginosyan

Unfortunately, the program was paused for several reasons. However, lessons were still learned and some prototypes were made.

Here are some samples of my work:

1. a prototype of an installation and technology allowing the production of electricity from sourdough and sourdough discard. The full concept includes measurement and comparison of electricity output in each of the collected sourdough samples from Shirak villages
2. a prototype of an interactive map and interactive scenes for it based on materials collected during the trips
3. soundscape based on field recordings made during the trips (yet to be released)

I also collected some 3D scenes in the places that we visited and used some of them in the video work below.

DECAY

“Decay” is a video work that is part of a series dedicated to the fading of traditional culture, with a particular focus on bread-baking practices. It draws on 3D scenes collected during field trips to several settlements in Armenia, undertaken with a group of creatives.

In these communities, traditional baking centers around sourdough, which is carefully preserved and nourished throughout the year, and baked in an underground oven known as the tonir. The video features piles of lavash and cut bread, along with handmade tools for sifting flour and placing dough into the tonir. Captured from real-life environments and transformed through a generative algorithm, these 3D scenes undergo a process of subtle dissolution. As the viewer watches, they are gradually altered, tweaked, and distorted through glitch-like visual interventions.

EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM

Apart from the field research and preparations, the program included media art workshops and documentary and filmmaking workshops.

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