In order to commemorate the victims of the Covid-19 pandemic and to increase pandemic-related solidarity, the Municipality of Budapest errected a temporary memorial in the form of works of contemporary art in the scope of the Budapest Spring Festival, between 29 April and 1 May 2022. Three prominent monuments of Pest, Buda and Óbuda form the pivots of the event, with three plague columns marking the places of contemporary remembrance. On display for three days in the spring, the memorial is a series of events: its material is woven by movements and sounds, and it is moulded into a memorial by those who remember.
Every Day is the first collaborative work by Ábris Gryllus and Dávid Somló, which transposes the Hungarian daily data of the coronavirus epidemic into musical parameters to create a musical and community experience that surrounds the listener. Emanating from three-metre-high columns, the sound installation adapts two years of epidemiological data per county – March 4, 2020 - March 4, 2022 – into a 45-minute composition of electronic music, rendering the dry daily statistics both physically and emotionally tangible.
The musical texture and intensity of the piece followed the waves of the epidemic - the numerical changes of the daily infections changed the pitch, volume, rhythm etc, creating musical 'movements'. The musical material was played from 20 speakers placed on 20 poles representing the 19 counties and the capital creating a map of Hungary. The data of each county was played from a separate speaker and placed in an approximate position in the country.
⊹ Concept &Compoistion: Gryllus Ábris, Somló Dávid
⊹ Data source: Átló
⊹ Data transformation: Luspay Tamás
Premiered at Budapest Autumn Festival, 2022.
Supported by: Budapesti Közlekedési Zrt., Placcc Fesztivál, Átlátszó, Minirig Speakers
