Walking along Glenoaks Boulevard, around Lara Sarkissian’s home, I documented everyday scenes of Armenian life in Glendale, California. A neighborhood, full of cultural textures, habits, gestures and visual language of a community deeply rooted in the diasporic landscape.

Since we started speaking Armenian recently, I find it hard to speak English with you now. It feels like we’ve entered another level of intimacy. But yeah, anyway. You live off one of the streets that crosses Glenoaks Blvd, which connects Glendale and Burbank, two of the most Armenian-populated towns in LA. I find Glenoaks Blvd phenomenal. From the perspective of a fresh-off-the-boat Armenian immigrant and a cultural worker, it’s striking. It feels entirely Armenian: Armenian businesses and houses lining the street, elderly men and women lingering in front of small shops, kids making noise in the yards, old men playing Backgammon aka Nardi, women strolling, eating sunflower seeds aka semechka, young guys taking night rides in their fancy BMWs and G-Wagons. And my classic favorite part is when someone non-Armenian walks by, people stare, just like back in Armenia, where everyone knew each other in their area, and any outsider always drew attention. How does it feel to live here?

I moved here almost four years ago, right after spending a lot of time in Armenia, months at a time. But moving to Glendale brought its own kind of unfamiliarity.  I was already familiar with Yerevan and smaller regions of diaspora in the US, but Glendale felt like a hybrid, its own version. So, even for me, as an Armenian-American, Glendale was completely unpredictable. Growing up in San Francisco, I went to Armenian school for 10 years, but the Armenian community there is scattered in the city, the East Bay, South Bay, all over. There wasn’t really a centralized Armenian neighborhood. So moving to a place where “Armenianness”  is visible was new, and something I  was seeking.  LA was the best alternative.

Does Glendale contribute to your creative work? How do you relate to this environment creatively?

In San Francisco. I wasn’t surrounded by a densely populated Armenian community or access to musicians using the instruments I work with,  however, I was collaborating with musicians from afar,  Miqael Voskanyan in Yerevan,  Khatch Khachaturian, and others. My mother also programmed Armenian music, film and cultural events with an org, bringing artists to San Francisco, which exposed me to everything I know about, (and people behind) Armenian music. I had a clearer vision of what I wanted to do with this sound in electronic music when I had a bit more distance physically. That practice took shape while I was living in the Bay Area. Then, while I was in the middle of working on my album Remnants, I moved to Glendale, and for nearly a year, I couldn’t write music.  Even while living in THE closest place you can get to Yerevan in the US, it just didn’t come together. I’d sit down to work, and then I’d walk away.. I think it was because I was so immersed in the community here, you're sort of enamored by it all and soaking it all in. The same thing happened when I stayed in Yerevan for a few months. I was supposed to write music, but I felt so overstimulated by being surrounded by the culture, the language, and the people that I didn’t know what to do with it creatively. If that makes sense. You’re sort of there just living it all instead.

That certainly does. It's like you were in a direct and intense experience of it. Can you elaborate on this? And how do you feel about it now, after living here for several years?

My creative flow has returned, and it feels like it used to. But I think that’s less about Glendale or my culture specifically, and more about what it’s like to move as an artist. When you leave your home base and your usual environment, and you don’t have a clear timeline or structure, it can totally throw off your rhythm. You have to rebuild your process from scratch. But, on the contrary, when I’ve done focused residencies in places like France or Germany, there’s more structure, and the new location is temporary. You’re in the studio every day, you’re limited in time, so you push through and  learn to quickly accept creative decisions. You treat it with discipline, and you just accept what you’ve made and have to move on. You have to be able to embrace the imperfect, and that is so freeing. ​

I wonder how you define your cultural identity, being American-Iranian-Armenian. Is there a way you describe or understand it for yourself?

There are so many layers and branches to the story, and Armenianness is already vibrant and incredibly diverse. My family is ethnically Armenian, but they’re from Iran. I grew up in San Francisco in an Iranian-Armenian household. At home, we spoke Armenian, and I went to Armenian school, but alongside that, our food, the aesthetics of the house, the rugs, the artwork, even the TV shows and movies my grandma and mother watched were shaped by that specific Iranian-Armenian lens.  And the music! My mother has always been a huge inspiration for me in that way. She collected CDs, cassettes, and records, both Armenian and Iranian music, pop, dance, movie soundtracks, etc. She really curated the sonic atmosphere I grew up in. 
I think every diasporan Armenian household ends up being shaped by where the family came from. The cultural references, whether visual, sonic, or otherwise, are different for each of us, depending on which part of the diaspora raised us. So even though we’re all Armenian, we come from different contexts, and that diversity lives within us.

Yes, and for me, as an Armenian from Armenia, that is the most fascinating part to explore when living at the heart of the diaspora.

How was your integration into Los Angeles, into its music and art scene? How do you see yourself now as a creative and artist in LA? When I first met you, I didn’t know you were from San Francisco, you felt so local to me. Even now, when I go out with you, you carry yourself like someone who really knows the place.

Before I moved here, I had already spent quite a bit of time in LA. I had some artist friends here I connected with over the years, creatives from the Armenian community, people I had met through work, and a lot of family. But even with that, it actually took me about two and a half years to feel settled. There didn’t seem to be many communal spaces where artists and people could casually hang out and connect. In the Bay Area, everything is closer together, scenes exist on a smaller scale, and so the infrastructure supports these hybrid or multipurpose shared spaces like a cafe during the day that turns into a screening room or performance space in the evening. You’d have DIY spaces that were flexible and accessible. Because of running CLUB CHAI from 2016 - 2021 with 8ULENTINA,  I had a bit of familiarity here, but not too in-depth. Being an NTS Radio host and DJ, (and since NTS had a station my first few years in LA),  it definitely gave the chance to meet people at the studio and peers I’d been a fan of from afar.  I hadn’t actually met many of them in person until I moved here.  LA can totally feel like an “out of sight, out of mind” place; you really have to be here to work with people here. When I was in San Francisco,  we only ever did one Club Chai party in LA in seven years. That says a lot. Back then, there was more of a gap or disconnect between the Norcal and Socal scenes, which has definitely shifted post-pandemic. There is more crossover and dialogue in the different regional scenes now than before, largely also due to the expansion of how visual-based social media and communication is used.

How do you feel here now as a creative person? And how does the music you create resonate with Los Angeles?

When I released Remnants, part of the album release show was about creating a specific environment for deep listening, for a more experimental, multi-genre sound that didn’t necessarily always center dance. We had chairs, rugs, everything set up to slow people down and really focus on the sonic experience. Almost as if sound is taking up the same amount of space and priority as visuals. And interestingly, the audience was mostly people who were familiar with me as a DJ  or who went to dance parties. You have to really build the environment for this specific kind of sound here. You have to guide people into it, frame it in a way they can receive. And again, that kind of framing can be lacking in LA. It takes time. There are people and labels who create those kinds of spaces, but they’re harder to find, harder to organize and market, and they’re not nearly enough.
Dance music, however, will never leave my practice or me as an artist and person. Funny enough, my introduction to dance music wasn’t through electronic but from Armenian and Iranian dance music and our celebratory cultures – from all the music and dancing from community parahantes (dances), weddings, familial gatherings, performances. It’s inevitable, and so deeply a part of the lifestyle and identity. It’s practically in our DNA, haha.

Something I noticed about music shows in LA is that people don’t really listen to the music. That really surprised me, especially in a city where so much of the world’s music is produced. You’d expect people to be more engaged, but instead, they’re often just talking. I remember the first time I went to a concert here, so many people were having loud, genuinely loud conversations over the performance. It got annoying. But over time, I started to understand. People in LA are starved for real, on-site human interaction and physical connection. There are so few public spaces here where you can just share physical space, without the pressure of a one-on-one dynamic. So shows become this rare opportunity to share space with other people. It’s like socializing has become embedded into the concert experience, and that’s a whole other thing about how people socialize in LA haha.

I think going to a show to hear something new or to be part of something unfamiliar should be more at the forefront. We are in a city built around entertainment,  however, people want to be entertained in a very specific, sometimes overstimulated (and repetitive) kind of way.

How has Los Angeles shaped you?

The Bay Area is where I formed my artistic practice, my work ethic, and how I engage with the community. The music and art scene there, especially the community I am part of, really shaped who I am as an artist. Los Angeles has definitely branched me out and supported me in expanding across disciplines of visual media, installation, and education. It’s opened up new kinds of collaborations. For example, Mashinka Firunts-Hakopian brought me into several projects: composing music for her book reading, a short film, and an AI-focused exhibition at the Music Center. Or I worked with filmmaker Gelare Khoshgozaran on the music for one of her short films. And Dr. Melissa Bilal in ethnomusicology at UCLA who brings me in to teach guest lectures. I’ve connected with a lot of filmmakers here. There’s a really rich, beautiful film community in LA, and I’ve found myself drifting more towards that world. I used to work in film in the Bay Area, but now being based in the city that established so much of that industry feels a bit magical. That shift has influenced even how I program my NTS radio shows. I don’t only do purely electronic or dance mixes anymore. I play a mix of genres, music that reflects what I listen to in my car during my long drives across the city. And that’s such an LA thing, spending so much time in your car. The music you drive to says a lot about your emotional state: whether you’re going through heartbreak, feeling rage, joy, or nostalgia. So now my shows are more about that emotional atmosphere, like a sonic diary of being in LA traffic. Being in LA, being in Hollywood has made me curious about what this place uniquely offers. And in a way, I’ve embraced it in a gimmicky way, with a mix of seriousness and irony. Like, “Okay, I’m in Hollywood now, what can I understand of that? Hahah” It’s been less about reshaping who I am and more about expanding into new directions.

And that thing gets so dominant. I feel that too.

Yeah, same. I totally lean into it. I love it. I’m like, I’m gonna go to all the theaters. I go to New Beverly Cinema, where they only show 35mm film, Los Feliz 3, Vista, Braindead, Egyptian Cinema.... That whole culture has a direct influence on my sound choices. Born of the Sea and Remnants were both directly inspired by the visual media and film scores I was absorbing in those theaters. Watching those films, being surrounded by that cinematic atmosphere, really fed into how I approached sound on those projects. About a year ago, I challenged myself to watch a movie every single night, just immersing myself in narrative, image, and score; it’s totally shaping how I think about sound and composition now.

What did you watch yesterday?

Two days ago, I watched The Code at Lumiere Cinema. I’ve mostly been going out to local theaters or local screening series like Mezzanine, Cathode Cinema, and recently Hollywood Entertainment. I used to make experimental shorts, then worked as a researcher and producer on documentary films, and then a locations team. So there’s always been that connection. But it took me a while to get back into it. And finally met people who have made me fall in love with film again.

How did you embrace the intensity of LA diversity? It’s hard to process when you first get here, right?

LA has all these scattered scenes, and I wanted to experience everything, try to immerse myself in it all. For a long time, I was in this very observant mode, just soaking it all in.

I think that feeling hits you when you first arrive here. I’m still quite new myself, and I’m sure the longer I stay, the more I’ll be exposed to creative work. But just now I’m starting to feel that I want to actually do something with everything I’ve absorbed. When you first get here, it’s so intense. I think that happens anywhere new, but especially in LA, because it’s so diverse and scattered, you’re exposed to so many different scenes and creative pockets. You want to be part of all of them, but it’s hard to know where you belong. You feel pulled in different directions: one part of you wants to go down one path, another part wants to go somewhere completely different. And everything feels so promising. It’s all so shiny, so seductive, like Hollywood itself.

Totally. I think what a lot of people don’t understand is that LA is huge. You can be in Glendale or the Valley and feel like you're missing out on something in West LA. Then you go to West LA, and suddenly you have FOMO for something happening in East LA. But most of the time, it’s not even about what you’re actually missing; it’s about the idea of being somewhere else. It’s this constant tension between presence and possibility.

I guess I’m in a place right now where I’m really starting to realize that you’re never going to make it to everything. And if you try, you’ll just burn yourself out. We live in this metamodern world where everything’s happening all the time, and you’re told you can be anything, do anything, all at once. And while that freedom is exciting, it also makes selectivity really important. You have to know yourself, your limits, your needs and make choices that actually contribute to your well-being. In a city like LA, or any big city really, that kind of clarity is crucial. There’s just so much going on all the time, and everything is so shiny, so seductive. That cliché “be true to yourself” as overused as it is, it’s actually real here. You really have to ground yourself and not get pulled in by every attractive, flashy thing around you. Because the distractions are constant, and they’re aggressively tempting.

That’s such a good point. And it hits especially hard for me as a multidisciplinary artist, because it’s both a blessing and a curse. I work in sound art and electronic composition, I DJ for dance floors, and I also come from a visual background. In the Bay Area, being multidisciplinary is completely understood. Everyone’s doing a bit of everything, crossing mediums, collaborating, layering practices. It’s kind of the norm. But when I moved to LA, I immediately noticed the compartmentalization.

It’s very easy here to be put into a label. Everything feels so separated. You’re not really encouraged to be multiple things, you’re expected to be one thing and to be the best at that one thing. Because when everyone is doing their one specialized thing, it’s easier to package and sell. You become a product. Your work becomes a product. It’s not just about being an artist anymore, it’s about producing something that can be packaged, sold, branded, and consumed. I used to think the art here was not exciting, to be honest. When I first arrived, I kept asking, Where is the art? I mostly saw paintings to hang in someone’s living room. Everything felt so commercial, so curated for purchase. And the same goes for music, it has to be consumable. But over time, I started discovering artists and spaces that really moved me, that challenged me, and many of those artists are also commercially successful. That surprised me. Because they weren’t making work just for money, but they weren’t rejecting it either. Their intentions were maybe 50% artistic, 50% commercial. That completely broke my old stereotype about commercial art. I used to think that art made with commercial intentions couldn’t be great. But LA showed me that’s not always true. You can make something brilliant and still be playing within the system. You can’t really be anti-everything here. You can’t be punk. That was hard for me at first. Because I always used to be anti-this and that. But now, I’m just more curious. I still don’t see myself forming that kind of relationship with my work, but I’m trying to understand how people navigate it. And how sometimes, good art still comes out of this hyper-commercialized environment.

Yeah, totally. And part of that ties back to how people are pushed to stick to just one thing in general. You’re not encouraged to draw from different influences or interweave mediums. It’s more like pick your lane and stay there. And that limits people and possibilities. For me, success doesn’t mean mass consumption. It means connection, knowing that my work can move across mediums and resonate with different people in different spaces. I get to bring it into academic spaces, exhibitions, club culture, film… It can morph and shift. But that doesn’t always translate into what this city defines as success, what’s the most marketable, what's funded.  So, yeah. It’s rewarding in its own way, but it doesn’t always fit into a particular system.

How do you establish a relationship with your audience? How do you tap into their energy and make them follow you? And how do you stay focused without getting distracted by the chaos?

For me, the most important thing is how the lineup is curated. The way a night is put together, who else is playing, what kind of sonic arc is being built, that really matters. It gives a sense of theme or atmosphere before the night even begins, and that helps me anticipate what kind of crowd will be there. That context is what guides me the most when preparing my set. Once I’m actually playing, of course, I pay attention to how the dance floor is reacting. I try different sounds, and once I see what people are responding to, I shift in that direction and build from there. But I still always come in with a sense of direction based on the lineup and overall curation. When we were doing Club Chai, we were really intentional about how we built each night, from the lineup to the set times to the flow of energy. That structure is so important for creating a meaningful relationship with the audience. It’s not just about what you play, it’s about how the whole night is designed.

Okay, last question. Where do you see sound and music today? What’s the direction of its development? There’s pop culture and mainstream genres, which is one thing, but what about sound as a form? Where is it going?

The underground is directly shaped by what we’re experiencing as a society, politically, emotionally, culturally. It’s the most sensitive and immediate response to the moment we’re living in. I’ll never forget the shift in 2016. There was so much intensity, frustration, and rage. Arts funding was getting slashed, spaces were being shut down. That kind of pressure created this wave energy,  renegades started happening under freeway overpasses in Oakland, people dragging out sound systems just to have a space. So when there’s that kind of existential tension, there’s also a creative explosion. People make more. The music becomes louder, faster, more urgent. And then there’s always a sonic shift that follows. During COVID, when lockdowns ended, everyone went straight to playing super intense, fast music, like 160 BPM. People just wanted to feel something again. But a year or so later, there was a kind of emotional burnout. And that’s when ambient music and soundscapes started coming back in. I think of that Floating Points x Pharoah Sanders record, it came out right around then. And it was like, Whoa. We didn’t even realize how much we needed something gentle, something spacious. And then, there was this reemergence of appreciation and demand for multi-genre music, music that’s influenced by a mix of styles. You see this with artists like Babyxsosa or within microgenres like plug, which has that vaporwave, cloud rap aesthetic blended into hip hop. We’re seeing a lot of crossover. Rosalia’s last album, or Charli XCX, Beyoncé moving into electronic sounds. There’s a shift towards hybridity. It’s happening in live events too. People are starting to crave lineups where you might have a noise band, a hip hop artist, and a DJ on the same bill. That desire for contrast and fusion feels natural, especially for Gen Z. They’re growing up on platforms like TikTok, consuming all kinds of sounds and visual aesthetics simultaneously. So it makes total sense that they’d want that same variety and crossover of social references or scenes in real life.

Yes, and also artists seem to be more self-reliant too.

Absolutely. There’s a huge shift toward self-releasing. Artists want to own their masters, control their visual language, and do it on their own terms. And it actually works. Most of us are surrounded by creative friends, we don’t need major labels to shape how we present ourselves anymore.

That DIY energy is so present now. I love that. For so long, we’ve been conditioned to expect polished, glossy aesthetics, but now, especially in the underground, there’s a push for rawness. A trend of just being, without needing to show the refined version of us.

Totally. That’s also tied to voyeurism and the way social media and new tech has allowed us to watch other people’s lives. We’re obsessed with worlds: personal, emotional, aesthetic worlds. Worlds that reference niche subcultures. Think of someone like Jon Rafman. His practice has built a whole world, and characters,  and people want to be inside that world.
Raw photos, casual moments. Audiences aren’t as interested in polished personas. That kind of intimacy is what people connect to.  We’re shifting towards sincerity.  Something audiences can feel and experience along with the artist, not just consume.

Absolutely, that’s the part that’s both fascinating and salty. The shift toward authenticity and sincerity gets co-opted so fast. Capitalism is incredibly good at absorbing resistance and turning it into a trend. So now we have “rawness” and “realness” being carefully curated, monetized, and sold back to us. The DIY look becomes part of a brand. The diary-like Instagram becomes marketing. Even sincerity becomes aestheticized. But yeah, that’s a whole other Diana & Lara conversation, haha.