Oud: a meditation, a prayer
Oud: a meditation, a prayer is a long-form audio installation featuring the starfield synthesizer system. It is a reaction to the genocide currently taking place in Gaza.
Oud (Arabic)
A Middle Eastern plucked, fretless lute
A thin piece of wood
A perfume derived from agarwood resin, sometimes used in prayer and meditation
The audience enters a room with subdued lighting. The starfield system hangs above their head; an array of sculptures made from wood, paper, and electronics are scattered across the ceiling. As many as 60 squares of wood veneer are sounding plucked notes, illuminating themselves with each pluck. The timing of the plucks is not synchronized and the timing of each note drifts over time creating waves of textured sound and phantom melodies and timbres that appear and disappear as you stroll or sit and meditate on the sound.
The installation sonifies information provided by the Gaza Media Office through the Palestinian Datasets from data.techforpalestine.org. Each morning the datasets are checked for casualties reported in the previous 24 hour period. One minute of silence is scheduled in the installation for each reported death. These moments of silence are evenly distributed throughout the duration of the installation each day.
The installation experience serves as a reflection of the numbing effect of media spectatorship of world atrocities and, hopefully, the silences will cause a shock of recognition to break that numbing effect.
The audience is asked to honor any silences that do occur for those who would like to reflect during this time.
The installation abstracts and mixes these multiple meanings of the word Oud. The starfield system makes its sound by vibrating various species of wood veneer. The pitch content of the installation is inspired by the Arabic maqam system of musical scales and phrases. The starfield satellites produce these pitches using a karplus-strong, plucked string synthesizer.
The premier presentation was displayed for 10 hours total over 2 consecutive days on January 10 and 11, 2026.
The development and presentation of the starfield system and Oud: a meditation, a prayer was made possible by an artist residency funded by Indexical and The Live Music Society Music in Action Grant.
binaural recording of the installation, headphones recommended.