Բաժակ Նայող / One Who Looks at the Cup (Film)

Բաժակ Նայող (One Who Looks at the Cup)
Directed by Atlas Acopian
Score by Lara Sarkissian

On View in the 2024 Asian Art Biennial:
How to Hold Your Breath
National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts
Curated by Fang Yen Hsiang, Anne Davidian, Merv Espina, Haeju Kim, and Asli Seven

 

Բաժակ Նայող (One Who Looks at the Cup) is a collaboration that uses community dataset creation to train a model to perform coffee reading and to output predictions in both Armenian and English. Coffee reading divines a querent’s past, present, and future by decoding the visual patterns at the bottom of their cup. This method of divination originates in the SWANA region (Southwest Asia and North Africa), where it has circulated as a predictive technology since as early as the 16th century. Across SWANA diasporas, coffee reading has been matrilineally transmitted as a ritual of affirming futurity.

The project’s bilingual training corpus features transcripts and images from coffee readings conducted by the artist with SWANA diasporans in Los Angeles; oral histories gathered on the subject of liberatory futures; and text from turn-of-the- century Armenian feminist writer, Shushanik Kurghinian. Its bilingual, community-generated training data and outputs aim to counter what I call algolinguicism: processes that minoritize speakers of non-dominant languages and obstruct their access to the authorship of digital technologies. In these ways, One Who Looks at the Cup turns to intuitive, embodied, and ancestral forms of collective future-making to unsettle the technoscientific logics of algorithmic prediction.

The film presents the project’s process of community dataset creation through six vignettes. Each depicts an individual coffee reading, highlighting a specific prediction and following querents as they reflect on the outputs of their reading.

 

Film Credits:
Director: Atlas Acopian
Score and Sound Design: Lara Sarkissian
Writers: Mashinka Firunts Hakopian, Jeremiah Warren, Atlas Acopian Producers: Atlas Acopian, Mashinka Firunts Hakopian
Director of Photography: Cleon Arrey
Title Design: Pouya Ahmadi
Art Director: Em Monforte
Translation: Margo Gevorgyan, Hayk Makhmuryan
Cast: Erik Adamian, Mashinka Hakopian, Natalia Sookias, Atlas Acopian, Beck Yeghiazaryan, Eden Sarkisian, Carene Rose Mekertichyan, Lia Soorenian
First Assistant Camera: Amir Rose-Aminifu
Key Grip: Silver Hernandez Swing/Driver: Noah Lopez
Mix and Master: Armand Kambourian Editor: Atlas Acopian
Colorist: Jared Rosenthal

 

Dataset Contributors: Atlas Acopian, Erik Adamian, Gilda Davidian, Kareem Estefan, Aroussiak Gabrielian, Margo Gevorgyan, Ani Kalafian, Natalie Kamajian, Hayk Makhmuryan, Carene Rose Mekertichyan, Ara Oshagan, Nadia Sarkissian, Yasaman Sheri, Lia Soorenian, Marina Terteryan, Meldia Yesayan, Ryat Yezbick

Still, One Who Looks at the Cup, Mashinka Firunts Hakopian, dir. Atlas Acopian, score by Lara Sarkissian, 2024.
Still, One Who Looks at the Cup, Mashinka Firunts Hakopian, dir. Atlas Acopian, score by Lara Sarkissian, 2024.
Still, One Who Looks at the Cup, Mashinka Firunts Hakopian, dir. Atlas Acopian, score by Lara Sarkissian, 2024.
Still, One Who Looks at the Cup, Mashinka Firunts Hakopian, dir. Atlas Acopian, score by Lara Sarkissian, 2024.
Still, One Who Looks at the Cup, Mashinka Firunts Hakopian, dir. Atlas Acopian, score by Lara Sarkissian, 2024.
Still, One Who Looks at the Cup, Mashinka Firunts Hakopian, dir. Atlas Acopian, score by Lara Sarkissian, 2024.
Still, One Who Looks at the Cup, Mashinka Firunts Hakopian, dir. Atlas Acopian, score by Lara Sarkissian, 2024.