Min gher isem (nameless) من غير إسم

Absent Presentees - الحاضر الغائب

Earlier a mass rally in  - سابقا مسيرة جماهرية في

In Arabic it means... - بالعربي يعني...

Kafr Bir'im by night - كفر برعم في الليل

Ruanne Abou-Rahme and Basel Abbas 
Title/Year: Contingency (2010) Format: 8 minute four channel sound installation + 3 LED tickers 

A field of noise. We must keep the order. Low-frequency machine rumble. A body stuck in a turnstile. Distortion. Metal clanks against metal. Speakers vibrate, a disembodied voice, an order to MOVE BACK. The machine begins the rhythm again. To listen.

Contingency explores the sonic fabric of colonial structures as embodied in the experience of the Ramallah-Jerusalem checkpoint Qalandia. Reflecting on sound as a spatial practice that produces its own field of potentialities the piece probes both the use of sound as an instrument of disciplinary power and as a site for its possible subversion. Critically examining how colonial practices of disciplining populations not only result in acts of resistance but paradoxically also elicit corresponding modes of self-disciplining by colonial subjects. This can be seen in a kind of self-policing witnessed in the calls to ‘maintain the order’ at the checkpoint.
Using only sounds recorded on location with hidden handheld devices the sonic language of the space is decoded and de-normalised. An intervention that denaturalises the soundscape to expose an unsettling surrealism and a kind of ‘science-fiction’ that lurks at the heart of contemporary coloniality.

*Produced with the support of Ashkal Alwan Beirut 2010

Contingency Sample

http://vimeo.com/ruanneandbasel
http://tashweesh.com

Basel.Abbas

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