Performance, cab ride, cassette, 42′, 2023. Edition of 7.

Armen is a performance based on a personal collection of diasporic Armenian cassettes, vinyls, and VHS tapes of pop and disco records from the 1970s to the 1990s. Echoes of these tracks, sampled from the spots where the physical medium showed marks of wear and indentations (scratches, cuts, etc.) are woven throughout the 42-minute long recomposition. The performance version of the piece takes place in a taxi ride which taps into Arutiunian’s childhood memories of Armenia and of the music blasted out from aged Mercedes-Benz taxi speakers that greeted arrivals at Zvartnots Airport in Yerevan. In the performance version of “Armen”, the work is played through a taxi’s sound system and a cassette player, with the passengers being driven along a predetermined route. This act of listening to the record in a moving vehicle evokes a passage of a psychogeographic journey, a hypnotic speculation into diasporic memories, historic omissions, and sonic cuts.