Sary Moussa – min 4:10 – release the ping-pong balls

“Standing still on a crossroads and passively absorbing the space around me. I have no control over my world. The movement will never stop, this recording is a testimony.
‘Why did little thumb insist on tracing his way back home every time despite the repetitive abandonment?’ This childhood haunting question is recurring lately.

Little thumb, whose parents abandoned him and his siblings by walking them to the forest, discretely threw pebbles behind him so that he can find his way back. He made record of his movement.

Surrender, resistance, physicality, politics, separation, reunion, proof of existence. Motion is change, for better or worse.

This piece was made by fixing a sound recorder at the intersection of the Beirut Art Center’s main walkway with the mezzanine bridge. The following elements were used to produce sound while moving around, delineating trajectories in the space:
– 100 pingpong balls – Metal chains – Rugged plastic hoses – Balloons – Hexagonal nuts – A computer and synthesizer sending sounds to a quadraphonic speaker system placed around the space.

All movement sounds are recorded and played from start to end with no editing. Binaural processing was used to spatialize the sound based on the space measurements when listening on headphones.”