Notations is an annual platform for interdisciplinary artistic production.
Artists, researchers, and practitioners work in one shared process. They exchange methods, test ideas in real time, and build new works through collaboration.
The lab combines curatorial guidance, multimedia jams, workshops, technical infrastructure, and peer practice. Disciplines intersect and projects evolve through active exchange.
This is a space where artistic risk becomes collective method.
Artists, researchers, and practitioners work in one shared process. They exchange methods, test ideas in real time, and build new works through collaboration.
The lab combines curatorial guidance, multimedia jams, workshops, technical infrastructure, and peer practice. Disciplines intersect and projects evolve through active exchange.
This is a space where artistic risk becomes collective method.
Notations #1 used Avet Terterian’s Symphony No. 3 as a shared source material and turned it into a live interdisciplinary process. The lab generated 37 works across sound, performance, installation, and media, and expanded into a documentary trajectory, a vinyl release, and digital outputs. The strongest result was methodological: artists consistently described the environment as a high-trust space for real experimentation and cross-disciplinary collaboration.
Check out the page
Check out the page
- 9 countriesMany accents, one frequency.
- 22 curatorsEnough guidance to get lost productively.
- 37 projectsBig volume, tight timeline, real outcomes.
- 1,000+ visitorsA bold program with a serious crowd.
Participant feedback highlighted one core outcome.
The lab created a high-trust environment where experimentation expanded and unfinished ideas became strong public works.
The lab created a high-trust environment where experimentation expanded and unfinished ideas became strong public works.
this year theme
Rituals
We live in an unstable world, where absolutes do not exist. Global acceleration of life tends to override cultural memory. However, even in this accelerating pace of civilization, there's a place for rituals.
Rituals have served many purposes since the dawn of culture. They helped transcend reality. They structured the life of a human being from its birth. They worked as a social glue, maintaining connections between individuals. They served as roots for all arts.
Rituals are repeated, framed actions that change how we experience time, space, and relation.
Rituals are not treated as an esoteric belief, but rather as a means to connect and unite. Rituals as roots and rituals as an inspiration to grow. Rituals as a language to synchronize. Rituals as an advanced path to Communitas.
“Communitas is not the pleasurable and effortless comradeship that can arise between friends, co-workers or professional colleagues any day. [It is a] transformative experience that goes to the root of each person’s being and finds in that root something profoundly communal and shared.”
— Victor Turner (The Ritual Process Structure and Anti- Structure)
If rituals were there at the birth of culture, creating new rituals means envisioning the future culture. The laboratory continues the “Future of Traditions” inquiry: preserving and exploring how they can be transformed.
The main question: Can we create new forms of connection, whether rooted in cultural memory, personal experience, or entirely new forms of collective imagination?
Armenian intangible cultural heritage serves as one possible point of departure for the laboratory, but not its boundary. Notations #2 welcomes both those who wish to transform cultural memory and those for tribes that do not yet exist.
Rituals have served many purposes since the dawn of culture. They helped transcend reality. They structured the life of a human being from its birth. They worked as a social glue, maintaining connections between individuals. They served as roots for all arts.
Rituals are repeated, framed actions that change how we experience time, space, and relation.
Rituals are not treated as an esoteric belief, but rather as a means to connect and unite. Rituals as roots and rituals as an inspiration to grow. Rituals as a language to synchronize. Rituals as an advanced path to Communitas.
“Communitas is not the pleasurable and effortless comradeship that can arise between friends, co-workers or professional colleagues any day. [It is a] transformative experience that goes to the root of each person’s being and finds in that root something profoundly communal and shared.”
— Victor Turner (The Ritual Process Structure and Anti- Structure)
If rituals were there at the birth of culture, creating new rituals means envisioning the future culture. The laboratory continues the “Future of Traditions” inquiry: preserving and exploring how they can be transformed.
The main question: Can we create new forms of connection, whether rooted in cultural memory, personal experience, or entirely new forms of collective imagination?
Armenian intangible cultural heritage serves as one possible point of departure for the laboratory, but not its boundary. Notations #2 welcomes both those who wish to transform cultural memory and those for tribes that do not yet exist.
framework
hypothesis
- A state of openness and willingness to transcend the ordinary can become productive artistic conditions.
- Collective ritual practices can support and deepen individual artistic development by providing shared structure, temporal depth, and trust.
- Non-goal-oriented repetition can generate new forms. When outcome pressure is removed, material transforms.
- Rituals can become new forms of creative expression.
- Through interdisciplinary collaborations to reach the state of Communitas.
manifest
- We reject alienation as the condition of our time.
- We seek what connects across bodies, disciplines, and generations.
- We treat ritual as a method.
- We treat ritual as social glue.
- We create through experiment, repetition, and awareness.
- Transcending the borders creates new forms.
- We do not preserve the past. We study methods of interaction through the cultural legacy and place it in the present.
- We research existing rituals.
- We create our own rituals.
- We dissolve between the individual and the collective. Between local and international. Between human and beyond.
- We insist on interaction.
- We simulate the culture of the future through the rituals of today.
structure
- 3 days
arrival & researchArriving, observing, tuning in, entering the theme. - 8 days
lab & productionWorking side by side: testing, building, failing, reshaping. - 1 day
installation & setupCollective technical and spatial preparation for public presentation. - 2 days
Notations FestivalPublic presentation of all works developed during the lab.
projects & curators
Participants apply through one primary project while also having the possibility to propose, develop, and bring their own independent project ideas, collaborating across disciplines throughout the laboratory.
- Music ProductionArman Peshtmaljyan
Shahen Khandkaryan (Shhau)
Inviting producers, composers, musicians, DJs, live performers, sound artists, songwriters, experimental musicians, and artists working with digital audio tools, sampling, synthesis, or hybrid music practices. - Ambisonic InstallationKai Khachatryan
Inviting sound artists, spatial audio composers, installation artists, acoustic researchers, media artists, field recordists, experimental technologists, and practitioners interested in multichannel sound and immersive environments. - InstallationNadya Xyxu
Misak Samokatian
Inviting multimedia artists, new media practitioners, installation artists, audiovisual performers, interaction designers, creative coders, light artists, experimental technologists, and artists working with sound, projection, electronics, or hybrid spatial practices. - Video ArtGevorg Grigoryan (Diii Studio)
Inviting video artists, filmmakers, animators, motion designers, visual storytellers, VJs, experimental filmmakers, media artists, and practitioners working with moving image, montage, archives, CGI, or audiovisual narratives. - Somatic PracticesLead to be announced
Inviting performers, dancers, choreographers, movement researchers, body practitioners, theater makers, interdisciplinary performers, sound-and-body practitioners, and artists interested in embodiment, ritual, presence, and collective practices. - Art To WearVenera Kazarova
Inviting designers, costume artists, textile artists, wearable art practitioners, jewelry designers, performance designers, stylists, craft-based artists, and interdisciplinary makers exploring the body as an artistic medium. - The RefrainAram Hovhannisyan
Sergey Umroyan
Inviting classical musicians, composers, conductors, instrumentalists, electro-acoustic composers, experimental performers, contemporary music practitioners, and artists exploring intersections between acoustic instruments and electronics to explore the idea of rituals through classical instruments and other forms of expression that we will discover along the way. - Neo-TribesTigran Suchyan
Mesrop Sarkisyan
Inviting jazz musicians, improvisers, composers, instrumentalists, electronic performers, live-looping artists, and practitioners working between improvisation, groove, sound experimentation, and electronic music to explore the idea of rituals through jazz language and other forms of expression that we will discover along the way. - CommunitasHayk Karoyi
Ben Wheeler
Inviting traditional musicians, folk singers, ethnomusicologists, sound artists, producers, instrumentalists, experimental composers, and artists interested in transforming traditional music practices through contemporary technologies and electronic approaches to explore the idea of rituals through traditional instruments and other forms of expression that we will discover along the way. - Contemporary ArtAndronik Khachiian
Inviting contemporary artists, curators, installation artists, sculptors, visual artists, interdisciplinary practitioners, spatial designers, and artists developing research-based or site-specific works for exhibition contexts. - Science & ResearchLead to be announced
Inviting researchers, scientists, theorists, anthropologists, philosophers, technologists, cultural researchers, writers, archivists, and interdisciplinary practitioners interested in the intersection of art, science, technology, society, and experimental research practices. - Curatorial facilitationDima Ustinov
"At Notations, projects are entry points, not boundaries: artists start from their primary language and can build their new work through interdisciplinary collaboration."
— Dima Ustinov, Curator Facilitator
— Dima Ustinov, Curator Facilitator
Arman Peshtmaljyan
Armenian composer, arranger, pianist, songwriter, and music producer working across jazz, folk, pop, and contemporary electronic genres. A graduate of the Yerevan State Conservatory and the Basel Academy of Music, he is known for blending Armenian folk traditions with jazz, dream pop, lo-fi, funk, and psychedelic soul.
Shahen Khandkaryan (Shhau)
Shhau is an artist working across music production, sound design, and education, active in Yerevan’s contemporary music scene since 2012. His practice merges experimental electronic music, philosophy, and narrative-driven composition, while maintaining strong ties to the jazz community through ongoing collaborations. Over the past decade, he has produced and co-produced three full-length albums and worked with prominent rock and hip-hop artists as a producer, drum programmer, and mixing engineer. Alongside his artistic work, he teaches music production and sound design, and is a co-founder of Mansard, a multidisciplinary creative studio uniting music, visual art, and photography.
Kai Khachatryan
A Yerevan-based sound artist and experimental musician working between underground culture and electro-acoustic research. Active in punk bands since 2002 and producing experimental music since 2010, his practice centers on field recordings and electromagnetic sounds captured with self-built devices. Focused on timbral transformation rather than structural change, he preserves the raw authenticity of street and acoustic environments. His work often draws on psychological themes, translating complex mental states into immersive sonic forms.
Nadya Xyxu
Multimedia artist working across generative sound, light, projection, and DIY electronics. Through immersive installations and live performances, she combines field recordings, multichannel sound, sculptural objects, and micromapping to create meditative environments where technology becomes a tool for reflection and exploring the relationship between humanity and nature.
Misak Samokatian
Misak Samokatian is an artist, musician, and art director. He has been involved in the field of interactive, kinetic, and audio-visual installations since 2011. As an artist, he works with light, sound, video, space, and time.
Gevorg Grigoryan / dob_
Gevorg is a multimedia artist and creative technologist working with music, audiovisual performance, digital installations, and theater production. Since 2012, he has developed and presented multimedia projects in Armenia and internationally, combining tools such as TouchDesigner, Blender, and Adobe Suite with strong project management and art direction. He is the founder of “di.” studio, focusing on immersive digital environments and technology-driven artistic experiences.
Venera Kazarova
A performance artist working at the intersection of visual and performing arts. Her practice approaches costume as a conceptual medium — somewhere between body, object, and image. Her works have been presented at Les Jardins d'Étretat (FR), Acker Stadt Palast (Berlin), Museum K1 (Düsseldorf), and Produktionshaus NAXOS (Frankfurt). She has also collaborated with brands such as Loewe, Cartier, Breitling, and Low Classic. Currently based in Germany.
Aram Hovhannisyan
Aram is a composer of contemporary music active on both local and international stages, collaborating with leading festivals, ensembles, and soloists. Since 2017, he has directed the Crossroads Festival and founded Ensemble Assonance in Yerevan, contributing to the development of Armenia’s contemporary music scene. Since 2018, he has been affiliated with the Yerevan Komitas State Conservatory, where he serves as Vice-Rector for Academic and International Affairs and teaches composition.
Sergey Umroyan
Also known as URMIA, is an Armenian composer and sound artist focused on electro-acoustic composition and contemporary music. He is the co-founder of Ensemble Assonance, as well as Armenian National Music and Amara Publishing. His work explores the relationship between sound, texture, and movement, blending acoustic and electronic environments. In 2025, his ballet Ikona was staged at the Bolshoi Theatre and other major theatres in Russia.
Tigran Suchyan
Flugelhorn player, Director of Artsakh State Jazz Orchestra, arranger and composer. Studied at the Komitas State Conservatory and has performed with groups such as the Armenian State Jazz Orchestra, Armenian Navy Band, and KATUNER. He is the founder of the Dialog Music Project and currently leads the Artsakh State Jazz Orchestra, actively promoting jazz through performances, collaborations, and festivals both in Armenia and internationally.
Mesrop Sarkisyan
Mesrop is a versatile pianist, producer, and educator with 25 years of experience across classical, jazz, and electronic music. He has collaborated with artists like Tigran Hamasyan, Koda, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Gary Novak, Tim Lefebvre, and many others. With two full-length albums, an EP, and numerous singles, Mesrop blends tradition with innovation in his dynamic musical approach.
Hayk Karoyi
Hayk Karoyi is a musician and sound artist working between traditional instrumentation and experimental electronics. A graduate of the Yerevan State Conservatory, he co-founded the bands Room 118 and Goght, performing internationally across Asia and Europe. Since 2017, he has developed an electronic music practice presented at festivals including Terraforma, Signal, and Stihia. He also composes for film and interdisciplinary projects, and in 2024 co-founded the sound-based app Tanuma.
Ben Wheeler
Musician, musicologist, and educator based in Tbilisi whose work combines Caucasian folk traditions with modular synthesis, drone, dark ambient, and experimental sound practices. Through his solo project Bneleti, he explores the intersection of folk music and contemporary electronic forms. He is the co-founder of Mountains of Tongues, teaches synthesis at Creative Education Studio, and has worked as a sound designer for Arturia, Sample Logic, and UVI. Ben is also a resident of Mutant Radio, where he hosts interviews, workshops, and concert programs.
Andronik Khachiian
Artist and curator across bio art, performance, and sound. He has led interdisciplinary laboratories and curated exhibitions in Europe, Mexico, and Armenia.
Dima Ustinov
Over the past 20 years, Dima has been active across multiple areas of the music field, including live performance with his own band, DJing, organizing parties and music festivals, music education and mentoring, as well as producing original tracks and remixes. Today, his practice centers around two main directions: performing live electroacoustic music for piano and synthesizers, and creating interactive, immersive musical experiences for audiences. He also serves as Music Dean of the online education platform Journey, contributing to the development of new approaches in contemporary music learning.
hosq team
Andriesh Gandrabur
Visionary and Lead Curator
Lusine MLKE-Galstyan
Architect of the laboratory
Shoghakat MLKE-Galstyan
Co-curator
Sonya Ovchinnikova
Co-curator
Arthur Atayan
Co-curator
Uliana Pyadushkina
Co-curator
key objectives
Build strong interdisciplinary collaboration across practices.
Develop ritual as a method for artistic research and production.
Create productive collisions between artistic languages.
Generate contemporary ritual forms rooted in living cultural memory.
Support project continuation through performances, releases, and exhibitions.
Present process and results to local and international audiences.
festival
The two-week laboratory culminates in a two-day public showcase of all works created during the process.
main venues:
- State Philharmonia of Armenia
- National Gallery of Armenia
- Additional venues across Yerevan
Alongside the works, the festival includes a curated public program of talks, workshops, and lectures.
before you apply
The process is collective, the responsibility is personal, the outcome is public.
who should apply
We are looking for artists and practitioners across music, sound, performance, media, installation, engineering, and research.
you are ready to:
- work intensively in a shared environment;
- collaborate beyond their usual discipline;
- stay open and rigorous in experimentation;
- contribute actively to collective process;
- develop work beyond the lab period
participant profile:
- around 5+ years of practice in their field (strong emerging profiles are welcome);
- art or research as a primary professional focus;
- collaborative mindset and interdisciplinary interest;
- readiness for full-time immersion
what to expect:
- interdisciplinary collaborative projects;
- field work outside Yerevan;
- daily shared rhythm: meals, informal exchange, spontaneous sessions;
- ongoing curator and peer mentorship (technical and conceptual);
- equipped production environment;
- public presentation at Notations Festival;
- post-lab continuation through performances, releases, exhibitions, and future collaborations
don't miss
practical information
- Application: free of charge
- Accommodation and food: provided for all selected participants
- Materials and equipment: provided
- Travel stipends: not available
- Support letters: available for funding and visa applications
- Working language: English (functional professional level required)
- Commitment: full-time immersive participation throughout the lab
selection process
Applications are evaluated based on:
Shortlisted candidates may be invited to an online interview. Final decisions are announced by June 15, 2026.
- creative potential
- interdisciplinary approach
- collaborative capacity
- readiness for intensive cross-disciplinary work
Shortlisted candidates may be invited to an online interview. Final decisions are announced by June 15, 2026.
apply
Deadline: June 1, 2026
Early applications are prioritized.
Notations #2 invites artists with a distinct voice, collaborative discipline, and readiness for ambitious experimentation.
Join the lab. Build new work. Present it publicly. Continue it beyond the festival.
Early applications are prioritized.
Notations #2 invites artists with a distinct voice, collaborative discipline, and readiness for ambitious experimentation.
Join the lab. Build new work. Present it publicly. Continue it beyond the festival.
community
This hosq Community Mapping is a living, interactive tool — a dynamic map of artists, curators, and collaborators engaged in the hosq ecosystem. You can explore practitioners across diverse disciplines, skill sets, and instruments, and discover unexpected connections between them.
weekly news
institution
foundation
network
