ART-PRESENTATION: Lawrence Abu Hamdan-Earwitness Theatre
Lawrence Abu Hamdan is an artist and audio investigator based in Beirut, Lebanon. His background as a touring musician led him to develop a deep interest in sound and its intersection with politics, which has come to share his practice. His audio investigations have been used as evidence at the UK Asylum and Immigration Tribunal and as advocacy for organisations such as Amnesty International and Defence for Children International. The artist is affiliated with the Forensic Architecture department at Goldsmiths College London where he received his PhD in 2017.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Chisenhale Gallery
Lawrence Abu Hamdan’s “Earwitness Theatre” develops enquiry into the political effects of listening, presenting a new commission that explores the world of the earwitness. Abu Hamdan’s work questions the ways in which rights are being heard and the way voices can become politically audible. In 2016 Abu Hamdan was asked to create dedicated earwitness interviews for Amnesty International and Forensic Architecture investigation into the Syrian regime prison of Saydnaya. It is estimated that as many as 13,000 people have been executed in Saydnaya since 2011. Inaccessible to independent observers and monitors, the violations taking place at the prison are only recorded through the memory of those few who are released. The capacity for detainees to see anything in Saydnaya is highly restricted as they are mostly kept in darkness, blindfolded or made to cover their eyes. As a result, prisoners develop an acute sensitivity to sound. During the interviews with Saydnaya survivors Abu Hamdan used BBC and Warner Brothers Sound Effects Libraries, as well as encouraging the mouthing-out of sounds and the use of test-tones, to gain insight into the actions taking place inside the prison. Unsatisfied by the imprecision of the sound effects used for feature film and television, Abu Hamdan has since amassed his own sound effects library, specific to the investigation of earwitness testimony. For “Earwitness Theatre” Abu Hamdan presents this expanded library of objects for the first time. “Earwitness Inventory” (2018) is comprised of 95 custom designed and sourced objects all derived from legal cases in which sonic evidence is contested and acoustic memories need to be retrieved. Tuning into earwitnesses descriptions, such as a building collapsing sounding “like popcorn” or a gunshot sounding “like somebody dropping a rack of trays,” Abu Hamdan’s new installation reflects on how the experience and memory of acoustic violence is connected to the production of sound effects. Alongside this installation, which includes pinecones, cannelloni pasta, unwound video tape, a selection of shoes and a series of customised door instruments, is a new animated text work that further reveals Abu Hamdan’s acoustic investigation into Saydnaya, as well as earwitness testimonies from legal cases across the world. Central to the exhibition, and surrounded by this collection of objects is a contained listening room hosting the audio work “Saydnaya (the missing 19db)” (2017). In this work Abu Hamdan oscillates between listening to the testimony of former detainees and listening to their reenacted whispers as a form of sonic evidence in itself. As part of this new body of work, Abu Hamdan will also present his expanded video installation “Walled Unwalled” (2018) and new performance “After SFX” (2018), at Tate Modern, London from [1-7 /10/18] (performance on 4/10/18). The sounds, voices and texts that comprise the performance are derived from objects included in Earwitness Inventory, giving audiences the opportunity to see and hear the project in its entirety across the two galleries.
Info: Chisenhale Gallery, 64 Chisenhale Road, London, Duration: 21/9-9/12/18, Days & Hours: Wed-Sun 12:00-18:00, https://chisenhale.org.uk
