Without is an sound installation project. The installation elaborates on the experience of solitude and isolation with reference to the lack of physicality which has been accentuated during the Covid-19 era. The piece wishes to reflect on the question marks, levels of despair and hopelessness that arose in each of us. The audio is in fact fragmented, intimate and melancholic. ‘Without’ would like to point out and interrogate the embodiment of the current situation by enlarging the absence of physical presence. ‘Without’ materializes the silent lament that we hear inside ourselves.

Formally, the installation is articulated as a succession/ promenade through 3 different rooms/ spaces. Each room includes an object with an audio system incorporated in them. Rooms should be as bare as possible and pretty spacious. Good audio system (audio speakers) is required in order to reach the visitor from all corners of the room.

The audio system is fixed in such a way that is invisible by the visitor. Sound comprises three separate audio files that alternate each other in a loop: hence the experience of the visitor is carefully crafted as a walk through those three rooms in a succession. In a way, the audio acts as a call/ invitation for the visitor to move on.

Audio has been edited by the artist and includes ambient sounds mixed out with HIVE vocal improvisation performance on ‘Lessness’ by Samuel Beckett (1970). Hive is an experimental choir based in Belfast SARC (Queens University) in which I take part. I am fascinated by the way Beckett in this piece adopts a non- linear way of a narration of the inner life of the character. The attempt is to create a delicate and fragile atmosphere around the visitor of the gallery space.