Design: Tom Joyes.
Audio investigator Lawrence Abu Hamdan weaves together urgent political narratives that pivot around acoustic experience and sonic memory. ‘Live Audio Essays’ presents three key live performance works by Abu Hamdan in which sound and politics intersect. Two of the three performances have never previously been performed in the UK.
‘Air Pressure’ (2021), ‘A Thousand White Plastic Chairs’ (2020), and ‘After SFX’ (2018), will each be performed for one night only, each in a different music venue. These performances, delivered by the artist in the form of a monologue or “live audio essay”, present Abu Hamdan’s practice of research and investigative analysis, which is centred around “forensic listening”, auditory evidence and the “ear-witness” as political and legal testimony. Performances feature live percussion and guitar, filmed footage and sound design, with audio conditions enhanced to support careful listening: a conceptual and political tool for the artist.
Performances present narratives and testimonies that detail violence, oppression and aggression, offering strategies for political critique and action. ‘Air Pressure’ draws on research, conducted between May 2020–21, into the aerial soundscape of Lebanon, documenting 22,111 instances of Israeli fighter jets and drones in Lebanese airspace. ‘A Thousand White Plastic Chairs’ draws its scenography from translation techniques deployed during the Nuremberg trials (1945–46) with Abu Hamdan re-performing the asymmetry between technological prowess and the limits of cognitive processing. ‘After SFX’ is prompted by Abu Hamdan’s investigations into crimes that are heard but not seen.
‘Air Pressure’ (2021/2024)
‘Air Pressure’ (2021), the first of the performances, is a diaristic analysis written between May 2020 and May 2021 into the aerial soundscape of Lebanon where, from 2006–2021, there had been over 22,111 instances of Israeli fighter jet and drone violations in Lebanese airspace. Deploying publicly accessible information uploaded to the UN Digital Library, Abu Hamdan’s research and analysis brings this data together for the first time, making clear the scale and intensity of these incursions, and the consistent atmosphere of violence brought to bear across the territory.
Residents of Lebanon live in a state of precarity with the constant background noise of hostile jets and drones overhead. The potential of full-scale aerial bombardment is a daily possibility. Whether they are actively ignoring the noise from above or determined to document the violent aerial machines conspicuously hovering in the near distance, residents have developed modes of resistance.
Abu Hamdan’s account unfolds with live audio processing and countless videos of the rumbling sky, both pulled from open source content and captured by the artist and his team. Abu Hamdan employs the 'atmospheric' both aesthetically and conceptually to explore the ways in which violence is made manifest, reading Lebanon's air as a high pressure nexus in a global weather system.
'Air Pressure' is performed by Lawrence Abu Hamdan with live sound design by Moe Choucair. It has never previously been performed in the UK. With thanks to SWG3.
‘A Thousand White Plastic Chairs’ (2020/2024)
‘A Thousand White Plastic Chairs’ (2020) is performed by Abu Hamdan with electric guitar accompaniments by Fabio Cervi. The scenography for this work – flashing red and yellow lights – is inspired by the system of simultaneous translation deployed during the Nuremberg trials in the aftermath of World War II in 1945–6. This newly developed electronic audio technology enabled simultaneous translation of the trial proceedings from their spoken languages into Russian, French, German, and English.
During the performance Abu Hamdan is illuminated by these lights alone, which command and direct the artist’s speech. The performance departs from this apparatus to examine the inextricable relation between testimony and the technologies by which it is disseminated and distorted. Here, Abu Hamdan re-performs the asymmetry between the speed of the technology – which allowed words to travel through copper cables at 4,600 metres per second – and the speed of the human mind to process what it sees and stores of a given event. ‘A Thousand White Plastic Chairs’ serves as a proposition that the true capacity to bear witness is measured not through acts of coherent testimony and seamless speech but rather through its interruptions and breaking points.
'A Thousand White Plastic Chairs' has never previously been performed in the UK.
‘After SFX’ (2020/2024)
‘After SFX’ (2018) is prompted by sonic evidence, acoustic memories, and Abu Hamdan’s investigations into crimes that had been heard but not seen. The performance explores a series of sounds deriving variously from legal cases and trial transcripts, transhistorical testimonies, and interviews conducted by the artist with earwitnesses. The artist’s earwitnesses include prisoners held in Saydnaya, a brutal prison operated by the Syrian government.
In order to facilitate their testimonies and determine what they heard, Abu Hamdan experimented with pre-existing cinematic sound effects libraries, before developing his ‘Earwitness Inventory’ (2018–ongoing) a self-constructed sound effects library specific to the witnesses’ acoustic memories. The inventory includes everyday objects like a car door, popcorn maker, coins and loaves of bread. These objects operate as sonic analogies, conjuring sounds but also referencing psychological states of mind. A number of objects from the Earwitness Inventory will be activated during the performance.
‘After SFX’ explores sonic recall, and the question of a shared experience of sound. The performance points towards the difficulty of translation and the limits of language, offering a new acoustic vocabulary to articulate witness experience.
‘After SFX’ is performed by Lawrence Abu Hamdan with live sound design by Adam Laschinger and percussion by Iain Stewart. It is presented for the first time in Scotland in a new iteration developed in 2023.
About the artist /
Lawrence Abu Hamdan is an award winning artist, audio investigator and the founder of Earshot, the world’s first not-for-profit organisation producing audio investigations for human rights and environmental advocacy.
Abu Hamdan's work on sound and listening has been presented in the form of forensic reports, lectures and live performances, films, publications, and exhibitions all over the world. He received his PhD in 2017 and has held fellowships and professorships at the University of Chicago, the New School, New York and the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, where he developed his research AirPressure.info.
Project Details
Part of Glasgow International 2024 Open Programme.
‘Air Pressure’ was performed at SWG3 on the opening night of Glasgow International, ‘A Thousand White Plastic Chairs’ was performed at Audio, and ‘After SFX’ was performed at Barrowlands at the closing night of GI.
Watch an excerpt of ‘A Thousand White Plastic Chairs’ here –
Read the Commentary by Neil Clements —
Listen to Neil Clements read the Commentary here –
Thanks
With thanks to Fabio Cervi, Moe Choucair, Adam Laschinger, Ambroise Leclerc, Jonny Lyons, Iain Stewart, Duncan Young.
Thanks to Audio, the Barrowlands, SWG3 and Inhouse.
Live captions were provided during performances with thanks to Marta Tycinska.