As the space functions without me is a piece for chamber choir, two alto and two tenor soloists, and electronic voices composed by Ed Cooper and performed by singers curated by Niki Zohdi.

The near half-hour work sets extracts of poet Lyn Hejinian’s My Life and My Life in the Nineties (2002) alongside Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space (1957). This pair entangle real and imaginary spaces, those that are external and internal, in ways that are not clear opposition to each other: to crudely paraphrase, each demonstrate how individuals inhabit spaces only as much as spaces inhabit individuals. Accordingly, a performance of As the space functions without me spatialises singers and loudspeakers, allowing audience members to move and listen freely as if at a dreamlike, sonic sculpture park. Plaintive and hushed melodies fall in and out of synchronicity amongst the singers against manipulated, uncanny recordings of imagined voices that drift across speakers, moving between perceptual backgrounds and foregrounds. The tunings of these materials shimmer through the natural resonance and reverb of space alongside the autotuned and stretched electronics. As such, as enclosures form, their boundaries oscillate between the real and imaginary, and the music persistently decentres itself. Listeners are invited to feel that they are, at once, immersed in and eavesdropping on half-forgotten or half-remembered lamentations. 

I recorded As the space functions without me at Clothworkers Centenary Concert Hall, Leeds, on 13 April 2024 using a combination of Ambisonic and spot microphones which have been mixed to emulate the spatial dimensions of a performance of the piece. As such, I have created both surround and stereo mixes, either or both of which could be used for release. The project is not yet mastered, but Miles Whittaker would possibly be approached for this following his previous work on my music. As the space functions without me was premiered in the evening of 13 April 2024 at Leeds’ Left Bank, a Grade-II listed church now refurbished as an arts centre. A short film of the event was created by Daniel Johnson Gray.

The development, performance, and documentation of the project was supported by the University of Leeds, the White Rose College of Arts and Humanities, and the Royal Musical Association.