UMA

The core architectural and sonic concept centers on the de-institutionalization of classical music. Rather than presenting performance art within traditional, highly structured concert halls, this project attempts the physical and auditory decomposition of a string quartet. By isolating and disintegrating the four main musical components from one another, the performance sheds its formal shell and directly confronts raw urban space.

To channel this spatial fragmentation, the project utilizes String Quartet No. 8 by Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich. Known for its drastic expressions of melancholy, aggression, and swift pacing, Shostakovich’s music mirrors the contemporary weight of societal crises, wartime despair, and modern urban panic.

The site selection targets the neutral, often forgotten open pockets of the Athenian urban fabric. These areas are presented conceptually as "non-spaces." Specifically, the project activates the "akaliptos" (the internal, uncovered lightwells and backyards of standard Greek building blocks). These interior voids represent thresholds within the city where neither character nor form is predetermined. They function as accidental urban boundaries, carrying a deep randomness in their morphological and structural compositions.

Within these contrasting urban cavities, each individual instrument executes its specific fragment of Quartet No. 8 completely isolated from the others. The entire spatialized performance is recorded via synchronized video and audio, restructuring the acoustic experience through the dimensions of distance and time:

* Symphonic Isolation: The absolute physical separation of the musicians transforms the collective harmony into a series of solo, localized echoes.

* Two-Dimensional Layering: The recorded segments are projected fragmentally as individual compositions, assigning a completely new, fleeting architectural character to each unique "non-space."

* The Interval of Space-Time: The ultimate cohesion of the piece is no longer found on a single stage, but is instead stitched back together through the temporal and spatial intervals separating the concrete voids.