Lawrence Abu Hamdan: Live Audio Essays

by Lawrence Abu Hamdan (Artist)

An anthology of Abu Hamdan’s disquieting audio-essay monologues on the soundscape of political life This volume compiles transcripts from performances and films by Beirut-based Lawrence Abu Hamdan (born 1985), an artist known for his political and cultural reflections on sound and listening. Taken from seven works dating from 2014 to 2022, Abu Hamdan’s intricately crafted monologues are at times intimate, humorous and entertaining, yet politically disquieting in their revelations. Utilizing personal narratives, anecdotes, popular media and transcripts rooted in historic and contemporary moments, the artist leads the reader through his investigations into crimes that are heard but not seen. His live audio essays are an exercise in listening to acoustic memories, echoes of reincarnated lives, voices that leak through walls and borders, the drone of warfare, cinematic sound effects, atmospheric noise, the resonant frequencies of buildings and the sound of hunger.
Collected here for the first time, all the texts were transcribed from performance documentation and edited with the artist.

144 pages, Paperback

Published June 13, 2023

Reviews

[KJ Shepherd]

The two-star review below is embarrassing beyond words. This is brilliant--an interruption and interrogation of fact and textural qualities. The author compels you to understand the relationship between sound, the body, and state power, while also using Druze religion to upend certain western and technocratic ideas about truth, witnessing, and torture. Clear as day, and utterly fantastic. Ignore the dimwits: get a copy.

[Ben]

Abu Hamdan’s focus on sound, mystical embrace, and analysis of language hooked me, loved these essays/monologues and can’t wait to see and hear his stuff!

[Nicholas DeMasi]

In this collection of essays and monologues, contemporary artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan makes a strong case for the benefits of adopting an aural-first perspective across a variety of fraught activities, most often the investigation and documentation of war crimes. Hamdan's narratives unfold in a playful but serious manner, he pivots quickly and sensibly, zigzagging a path through a minefield of topics that is ultimately more rewarding than any one destination. I appreciated his deployment of humor, fact and poetry and found his writing consistently enjoyable. But more important than style are the myriad of ideas he brings forth: from the way television and movies have trained us to believe in certain sound effects, to the potential human rights issues of advances in wave detection technology. My favorite essay was the first which discusses the political implications of his relative's remembrance of his past life as a victim of war crimes, a stunning analysis that deftly displays the limits that shared spiritual beliefs can help surmount. I recommend this book to pretty much anyone, but especially those interested in taking an alternative look at sound.

[Hsu Jui-Ting]

An incredible document on the decoupling of sound - from the intimate glossolalia of the body, to the decoupage of visual atrocity and its precedent arrival from sonic intimation, and further still to an extremity of context and comprehension, from which the neume of intent is inferred from the elongation of vowel.

There is the inevitable air of politic, and it is excruciatingly laid bare for perfect witness.

[Bhumikorn Kongtaveelert]

Great examination of politics and poetics of sound, surveillance and architecture (kinda)

[KKDDBB]

Audio forensics combined with performance. A great introduction to Abu Hamdan's work.

[Daniel Kam]

Some of the best non fiction prose I've ever encountered. Compelling, modern (albeit potentially embellished?) introduction to the Druze. Highly highly recommend