Kyma artist Hasan Hujairi was invited to join an event at Christopher Joshua Benton’s installation for the inaugural Public Art Biennial in Abu Dhabi: Where Lies My Carpet Is Thy Home (2024). Participating artists included Safeya Alblooshi, Hasan Hujairi, Manic Mundane, and Espervene.
Installed on land gifted to the carpet sellers of Abu Dhabi by city founder, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, Benton’s gigantic astroturf kilim is so large that it is best viewed from the air. It doubles as a public park and is surrounded by the carpet sellers’ shops and upstairs residences.
Sound Unbound by Halo Halo Experiment on 11 January 2025 was described as four, 30-minute sonic explorations that transcend the boundaries of sound and redefine the concept of “home” at Christopher Joshua Benton’s installation.
Hujairi writes,
“I wanted to challenge myself by making this the first time I performed live with Kyma. I created a very simple Kyma Multigrid, and since I love the possibilities of the TimeIndex, I had one sound object cycling through a folder of about 150 short sound samples from analog electronic equipment controlled from the Wacom tablet. I loved how sometimes it would sound like granular synthesis, sometimes it would sound like short loops. I could change the playback rate, giving many options to play with sound on the fly and make decisions while performing. I was assigned 30 minutes to perform and by using the Multigrid, I was able to perform at different tempos and with different tools.”
To begin the performance, Hajairi used the macOS text-to-speech function to invite the audience to come closer and to listen closely.