In Stone – The Wholenote

Eve Egoyan
Self Portrait in Stone

March 12 at 12:10pm at Walter Hall

Jackman Humanities Institute:

Artist in Residence, Eve Egoyan performs the world
premiere of In Stone, a New Composition for Augmented Acoustic
Piano, reflecting on the Armenian Genocide in response to the
Institute’s overarching theme during her residency: Dystopia
and Trust,
As she explains it in her notes for the performance: “the
augmented acoustic piano uses an optical sensor that tracks the
movement of piano keys, [so] I am able to reveal sounds I have
recorded as well as manipulate a flexible software simulation of an
acoustic piano. In this way, I can augment and extend the sound
range of the piano while maintaining the physical relationship that
exists between piano and pianist.”
And in this case that physical relationship is vital. “I consider the
instrument I perform on a self-portrait. It holds my ancestral past
(recordings of Armenian folkloric instruments), present (a recent
field recording and voices of close friends) and an unknown future
(explorative use of AI to ‘speak’ the unspeakable by inverting my
voice into piano).”
That the Armenian Genocide is still interpreted differently
by its perpetrators and successor states is an agonizing reality.
“Armenians around the world hold within themselves resonances
from this violent past [and] living with a distorted past raises the
haunting question, who then is entrusted with the truth? It is
excruciatingly painful for Armenians to have to defend the truth
of the Armenian genocide and, in our own lifetime, of ethnic
cleansing of Armenians in Arstakh, the Nagorno-Karabakh region
now occupied by Azerbaijan.”
The key question for her: “How as an artist do I express this
un-speakable past in this equally distressing present moment?”
In Stone is one answer. “On Armenian ancestral lands there
remain hand-carved stones including Khachkar, our crosses, and
remnants of our stone churches amongst other stone remains …”
she explains. “My ancestors live deeply in my soul. In Stone is an
attempt to sing their song amidst the plethora of human songs that
need to be heard in our time … attempting to situate nature as a
witness to human atrocity… stones on ancient land holding reson-
ances of the past, the past both human and non-human.”
And in the same way it engages fully with the question inherent
in the annual theme of her Jackman artist residency: who and how
to trust in dystopian times.
“I trust in nature as witness and guardian of the truth”
she writes.

https://kiosk.thewholenote.com/volume-31-issue-4-march-amp-april-2026/71040634/23