This act is an online live dialogue. A bi-directional improv work during the quarantine days. Melodic lines from the Byzantine musical womb and Countertenor vocals meet with Shamanic voice drones, animal voices and rhythmic patterns; a liturgy about oneness. The generated image evolves and shifts between ambiguous shapes and the human form, in an elegant interplay between synthesis, metamorphosis and bursts of randomness.
Even though both artists live in NY, they worked and rehearsed remotely due to the COVID 19 quarantine. In a way the lockdown served as the catalyst for this work, as a few times in the past they tried to collaborate but it wasn’t possible due to other priorities and distractions. The rehearsals became their oasis and creative outlet that helped them stay focused and have something to look forward to during the months of isolation. Even though both came into the project with material and ideas from previous works, these fused and evolved organically into something new and beyond their initial expectations. The technical constraints and the distance between them shaped the work. The artists state “we are curious to see how ‘manna’ will evolve and grow once we start performing together in a physical space “.
The soundscapes are produced in real time purely with live vocals instead of sampled tracks or instruments. This is done in Ableton Live, using the Apollo Twin X interface and Altiverb7 reverbs. Similarly, the visuals are generated in real time using TouchDesigner and Glsl programming. The system takes the video feed of the performance as source material and tries to reconstruct it controlled with a midi controller.
To avoid latency and audio sync issues, Labros (ATBC) streams his audio and camera feed to a private youtube link. Georgios loads this in VLC and using NDI he brings it into touchDesigner. The final image goes back out via NDI to OBS which streams out to the public youtube channel.

BY  And They Built Churches, Georgios Cherouvim (GR)


Labros Filippou (ATBC) is a NYC based countertenor artist, director and performance coach, who grew up in a village in the heart of Greece, being inspired by raw tradition, folk culture and real people. Labros has been praised for his out-of-the-box philosophy with several projects and collaborations with musicians from the underground, pop, folk and electronic music scene. Labros has also starred in tv series and movies, as well as performed in and directed theatrical plays. Since moving to the US in 2015, Labros’ core focus has been the foundation of LFacting, his Drama & Performance Teaching program about freedom of expression and creativity with no borders. Labros' work is a no-genre music-theater performance act and a clear calling for a universal experience about oneness. His most recent creation, ‘And They Built Churches’, is an avant-garde, healing, melodic experience designed Live with voices only. Georgios Cherouvim is a digital artist, animation director and CG supervisor for Visual Effects. He was born and raised in Athens and he is currently based in New York. He graduated from the National Center for Computer animation of the United Kingdom with a first class degree. Over the years he has worked for feature films, commercials, as well as Virtual Reality experiences. His professional career started in 2005 at the Moving Pictures Company in London and he later relocated to Vancouver. In 2016 he moved to New York and worked at Framestore for four years, but recently went freelance and started his own studio, ch3. His work and animation shorts have been screened in dozens of festivals around the world including Ars Electronica, Siggraph, Art Futura and One Dot Zero. In 2014 he had his solo show Monomorphia in Athens and has also participated in several group exhibitions.
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