Antonio Gallucci
Hope for Nothingness as Something

A two-chapter suite for modular & FM synth, wind & string instruments, electronics, sound objects and field recordings. The work is structured as a two-chapter descent from concrete score to analog & digital abstraction. It begins with the tangible written material and human presence of the performers, which are systematically subjected to a process of erosion. The initial components are reduced to "digital dust” — meaningless data fragments — then recombined algorithmically. This process entirely empties the material of its original structure and meaning. The work culminates in a final, unreal space, becoming a meditation on the transformation of human intention into pure, post-human data.

The notion of Hope for Nothingness as Something is a radical philosophical pivot, shifting the focus of human aspiration from tangible acquisition to ultimate negation. There's a profound psychological shift: the very concept we often fear or dismiss as empty can be re-framed as an object of desire, value, or ultimate meaning. This concept draws its discursive power from its inherent paradox: desiring an absence and treating that absence as the most valuable presence.

"Is nothingness the same as nothing? Everything evolves around that. Absolute discardment, because there is hope only where nothing is retained. The fullness of nothingness. That is the reason for the insistence on the zero point.”

– T. Adorno

All tracks composed, played, mixed and mastered by Antonio Gallucci @ Mercurial Studio in Pistoia (Italy) between May and October 2025.

Cover art by Aaron Owens