Gustavo Matamoros
Glasshouse—Yerevan (2023)
Four-channel site-specific sound installation
Approximately 10 minutes, repeating continuously
Yerevan Botanical Garden, Armenia
CYFEST 15: Vulnerability
Gustavo Matamoros: Glasshouse Yerevan | short video
THE WORK
Glasshouse was created for the tall inner atrium of the Yerevan Botanical Garden’s circular steel-and-glass greenhouse complex. The space contains dense tropical and subtropical vegetation, small ponds with fish, a central tower and spiral staircase, and areas where the plants have overtaken the paths. Visitors had to negotiate their way through an environment that felt more wild than cultivated.
Four loudspeakers on stands were hidden behind vegetation near the glass perimeter. Positioned at the four cardinal points and directed inward toward the central spiral staircase, they activated the atrium from its outer edges. The ten-minute composition repeated continuously without pause throughout the exhibition, which remained open for approximately three weeks.
The work was presented by CYLAND Foundation as part of CYFEST 15: Vulnerability in September 2023. It was curated by Anna Frants, Lidiia Griaznova, and Sergei Komarov.
Yerevan Botanical Garden’s circular steel-and-glass greenhouse complex, aerial view.
MAPPING THE ATRIUM
I mapped the space using the same controlled-feedback process I have used in other site-specific works. During the mapping itself, I cannot usually tell how one site differs acoustically from another. That understanding begins later, when I study the recording and measure the frequencies—not so much technically as intuitively—and gradually recognize how the space behaves.
To trace the atrium vertically, I attached a small microphone to a helium-filled balloon and raised it through the vegetation and architecture while controlled feedback was projected from the four loudspeakers. The resulting recordings revealed resonant frequencies that became the sustained tones of the installation.
FROGS IN THE GLASSHOUSE
The ecosystem inside the atrium reminded me of the subtropical environment of the Everglades. To establish a familiar sense of scale against the sustained resonant tones, I introduced recordings of Cuban treefrogs that I had made in Everglades National Park.
Spatialized through speakers concealed by vegetation, the frogs could sound as if they were actually living inside the glasshouse. Garden caretakers later told me that similar frog sounds could be heard there during another season. I do not know whether they meant the same species or a local frog with a similar voice. What mattered within the work was the uncertainty: a sound brought from the Everglades had become plausible within this distant environment.
The resonant tones and frog calls did not attempt to overpower the atrium. The installation remained delicate, entering into the existing environment while allowing its vegetation, glass, architecture, ponds, visitors, and ambient sounds to remain perceptible.
THE OPENING PERFORMANCE
On September 6, 2023, I gave a separate live four-channel performance inside the installation. It was constructed from Audibles and other materials from my performance collection, which I manipulated spatially in real time.
The installation continued quietly in the background throughout the performance. Toward the end, the live work segued into it, allowing Glasshouse—which had been present all along—to emerge and become audible on its own.
CAA—61
In 2026, CYLAND commissioned a six-minute stereo excerpt made from the original Glasshouse—Yerevan installation files for the CYLAND Audio Archive. Released as CAA—61, it was mastered and cut to vinyl by Sergei Dmitriev and curated by Sergei Komarov and Lidiia Griaznova.
The release was presented in May 2026 in connection with CYFEST 17 in Venice, Italy. CAA—61 is not the source of Glasshouse; it is a later stereo work derived from the installation.
REVIEW
Above: Aliq Media article by Artur Samoylov covering Cyfest 15’s event at Yerevan Botanical Garden
click the article image above to read in full
