Any flash of joy registers as cognitive dissonance as our communities face cascading imperial violence, but we were grateful to gather with collaborators and kin to mark many moons of collective work on Բաժակ Նայող (One Who Looks at the Cup: Querent), for the show “Technologies of Relation”
@massmoca . Curated by the incredible Susan Cross and
@meghan___clare .
The installation takes its title from the Armenian term for tasseography, training an AI model to perform coffee reading by identifying visual patterns in visitors’ cups and outputting bilingual predictions in Armenian and English. These pre-scripted predictions were authored from a community dataset collected through coffee readings and conversations conducted with SWANA diasporans in and beyond Los Angeles. Those conversations are the basis of the work's predictive outputs, proposing forms of divination that counter the necropolitics of algorithmic prediction.
It’s believed that coffee reading became especially widespread in Armenian diasporic communities after the Armenian Genocide of 1915–23 as a tactic of collective survival that affirms futurity in the face of a catastrophic present.
Translation by Margo Gevorgyan &
@doodleswithoutborders ; Technology and Software Production by Ben Kudler; and Sound by
@lara_sarkissian .
Dataset Contributors: Atlas Acopian, Erik Adamian, Gilda Davidian, Kareem Estefan,
Aroussiak Gabrielian, Margo Gevorgyan, Ani Kalafian, Natalie Kamajian, Hayk Makhmuryan, Carene Rose Mekertichyan, Ara Oshagan, Nadia Sarkissian, Yasaman Sheri, Lia Soorenian, Marina Terteryan, Meldia Yesayan, Ryat Yezbick
The development of this project has been supported by the
@musiccenterla Digital Innovation Initiative,
@calartsredcat with
@pstinla , and the
@veralistcenter at the New School. With special thanks to
@kamalsinclair @futureofnonfiction @dunadarina @t_____alia Carin Kuoni
@eriolasgram @fullpointgraphics @morganlehmangallery and
@r_christian__ .
And with much gratitude to the remarkable team at MASS MoCA: Susan Cross,
@lydsterr_ Spencer Byrne-Seres
@rorycoyneart @laurenlevatocoyne @artepoveda @zaweberg among many others.
