FOTINI KOKKALI & DIMITRIS BARNIAS

ichorous (2023) ichorous consists of two site-specific sound installations developed in 2023 at two historic sites in Chania, Crete: the Turkish Underground Fountain in Splantzia Square and the traditional Spring of Pervolitsa. The work explores water as a vessel for memory, using sound to reactivate places whose original function has disappeared. Human histories become entangled with architecture, acoustics and material traces, allowing the sites to emerge not as passive settings but as active participants. The installations reference one another through shared sonic material. Sounds recorded at one site reappear in the other, creating an invisible network that echoes the circulation of ichor—the life-giving fluid of the gods in Greek mythology—through a body. Through manipulated sounds and new sonic layers within the existing soundscape, the work allows new relationships between resonance, movement, history and place to emerge. For its presentation in Vienna, the network expands to the Alte Schieberkammer, which becomes a new node in the evolving work, bridging the original sites with another spatial, acoustic and cultural context shaped by its own relationship to water. All audio materials were organized across sixteen tracks to create a 52-minute reference composition structured into thirteen four-minute patterns. The composition was then deconstructed and diffused through eight loudspeakers, with sounds played randomly so that the work never unfolds in the same way twice. Environmental recordings, violin, piano and voice form shifting relationships with the surrounding acoustics. Some sounds were produced by actively “playing” objects found on site, including a rusted metal door whose tonal qualities informed the instrumental recordings. Drawing on soundwalking and active listening, composed sounds and intentional silences shift attention between the composition and its acoustic surroundings, while visitors’ movement becomes part of the listening and compositional process. 

Artists Names
Fotini Kokkali
Dimitris Barnias

E-mail
fkokkali@gmail.com
dbarnias@gmail.com

IG and FB
https://www.instagram.com/fotinikokkali/
https://web.facebook.com/F0tiniko?locale=en_GB
https://www.instagram.com/tokenomusic/
https://web.facebook.com/dbarnias?locale=en_GB
Websites
https://www.fotinikokkali.com/
https://tokeno.net/core.html

Short bio

Fotini Kokkali is an environmental educator, researcher, and free improvising violinist based in Vienna, Austria. Working at the intersection of environmental science, sound art, and education, her practice develops new modes of communicating ecological thinking through listening. Bringing together research and artistic practice, she uses sound as a medium for exploring the relationships between human and non-human worlds and opening new modes of relating to place. Central to her work is the concept of transformability in educational spaces—the capacity of sound objects, fragmented sonic materials, and participatory listening practices to reshape perception and transform relationships to place. Through interactive sound installations, playful learning environments, workshops, and educational materials, she constructs spaces of tension, ambiguity, and unfamiliarity that invite audiences to explore our relationships with the more-than-human world through curiosity, play, sensory experience, and collective listening.

Dimitris Barnias is a sound artist, composer, music programmer, and producer, moving between Athens and Crete. He holds an MSc in Music Information Technology from City, University of London and is currently a PhD candidate at the Hellenic Mediterranean University (HMU), where his research focuses on environmental music composition. Working under the alias tOkeno, his practice spans exploratory electronics, electroacoustic composition, soundscape creation, autonomous algorithmic systems, and sound diffusion. Through performances, installations, and interdisciplinary collaborations, he composes environments for transformative listening, navigating the space between code and improvisation, studio isolation and live emergence. Since 2000, he has collaborated with dancers, theatre makers, and visual artists, presenting his work across Greece and internationally. He is a member of the Hellenic Electroacoustic Music Composers Association (HELMCA), and his artistic practice continues to evolve through performances, compositions, research, and the development of creative sonic tools.