WITHIN is a collaborative project investigating how deafness can influence the way we understand sound performance, its space and instrumentation.

For the Bergen Assembly, WITHIN culminated in a new chapter for which Tarek Atoui has developed nine new instruments that expand notions of listening beyond the aural. The design of these instruments and their playability are the result of workshops and collaborations between the artist, instrument makers, deaf and non-deaf students and volunteers.

These instruments were made progressively, as the result of exhibitions and residencies that Tarek Atoui initiated in several institutions in the Unites States, France and Germany, where he met acoustic instrument makers, speaker designers, software engineers and musicians — all contributors to the making of this ensemble.

Between March 18th and march 25th the project will add a new stage to its development by presenting it at the Gallery Chantal Crousel and an IRCAM Live performance at Centre Pompidou. Tarek Atoui has invited Ictus to participate in this process and to further explore the possibilities of the instruments he has made so far.