Rubber Coated Steel

2016 - Film & Video (Film & Video)

21 min 49

Lawrence Abu Hamdan


In May 2014, Israeli soldiers shot and killed two teenagers, Nadeem Nawara and Mohamad Abu Daher in occupied Palestine (West Bank). Through the Forensic Architecture program, the human rights organization Defence for Children International worked with Abu Hamdan to investigate the incident. The case hinged upon an audio-ballistic analysis of the recorded gunshots to determine whether the soldiers had used rubber bullets, as they asserted, or broken the law by firing live ammunition at the two unarmed teenagers. A detailed acoustic analysis, for which Abu Hamdan used special techniques designed to visualize the sound frequencies, established that they had fired live rounds, and moreover had tried to disguise these fatal shots to make them sound as if they were rubber bullets. These visualizations later became the crucial piece of evidence that was picked up by the news channel CNN and other international news agencies, forcing Israel to renounce its original denial. The video Rubber Coated Steel is the main part of the installation Earshot commissioned by Portikus. Shot in an indoor shooting range, the piece is a staged enactment of a tribunal heard. The images presented are spectrograms: visualizations of the frequency spectrum of a given signal—in this instance, of the sounds of various projectiles. The spectrograms depict the timing, pitch, and loudness of projectiles ranging from a sound grenade across a rubber bullet to live ammunition fired from an M-16 rifle. The voice over reenacts the dialogues that have happened or could have happened at the tribunal. The video does not preside over the voices of the victims but rather seeks to amplify their silence, fundamentally questioning the relationship between truth and sound and the ways in which rights are being heard today.


What are the political implication of our sounds and voices? How is it heard and used for or against us? These are questions posed by Lawrence Abu Hamdan (b. 1985, Amman, Jordan) an artist and “private ear” currently based in Berlin. His work deals with the politics of listening through audiovisual installations, performances, graphic works, photography, Islamic sermons, cassette tape compositions, essays, and lectures. The artist’s research is also used in legal and human rights contexts. The artist’s forensic audio investigations Freedom of speech itself (2012) have been submitted as evidence in the UK immigration and asylum tribunal and most recently his research leading to Rubber Coated Steel (2016), which was part of the campaign for Defense for Children International.


Colors:



Related works sharing similar palette  
» see more

Manufactured Landscape
© » KADIST

Shi Guowei

Through a hand-painting process, Shi Guowei created Manufactured Landscape ...

Related 3a
© » KADIST

Anthony Goicolea

2008

Goicolea has made drawings based on a family album of relations that he did not know but who in one way or another contributed to his history and to the predicament in which he now finds himself as a Cuban in America...

ACAW 2017 | Press Coverage - Asia Contemporary Art Week
© » ACAW

ACAW 2017 | Press Coverage - Asia Contemporary Art Week Asia Contemporary Art Week ABOUT Consortium Partners PRESENTED ARTISTS FIELD MEETING ABOUT FIELD MEETING TAKE 6: THINKING COLLECTIONS (2018) TAKE 5: THINKING PROJECTS (2017) TAKE 4: THINKING PRACTICE (2016) TAKE 3: THINKING PERFORMANCE (2015) TAKE 2: AN AFTERTHOUGHT (2015) TAKE 1: CRITICAL OF THE FUTURE (2014) FIELD REVIEW ABOUT FIELD REVIEW ISSUE 1: SOUTH ASIA ISSUE 2: MIDDLE EAST PAST EDITIONS ACAW 2002 – 2018 PRESENTED ARTISTS PRESS PRESS RELEASES PRESS COVERAGE Announcements ACAW 2017 | Press Coverage ACAW 2017 FIELD MEETING forum & ACAW THINKING PROJECTS Pop-up Exhibitions Coverage OCULA,”ACAW FIELD MEETING Take 5: Thinking Projects” Tianyuan Deng, Novmber 10, 2017 “While bringing Asian practitioners from the ‘periphery’ to the ‘centre’ remains a consistent feature of ACAW’s signature forum, this year’s iteration built upon its previous rejections of Euro-American-centric triumphalism.” > View as a PDF ArtAsiaPacific,”A Bite of Everywhere: Song Dong’s Eating The City” Mimi Wong, Novmber 8, 2017 “For Song, eating signifies life itself.” > View as a PDF Hyperallergic,”Mining Mineral Structures with Watercolor and Sediment” Barbara Pollack, Novmber 6, 2017 “Mineral geometries and natural forms inspire delicate artworks with fractal patterns and meticulous details.” > View as a PDF ArtAsiaPacific,”Yu Fan” Mimi Wong, 2017 “The ceramics on show were drawn from a set of 80 hand-sized sculptures, collectively known as Gifts, made during the artist’s month-long residency this year at the School of Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts in Boston.” > View as a PDF ArtAsiaPacific,”ASIA CONTEMPORARY ART WEEK FIELD MEETING: THINKING PROJECTS” Tausif Noor, November 3, 2017 “…Asia Contemporary Art Week’s Field Meeting convened to address the bounds and possibilities of the “project,” a concept that has become increasingly popular in artistic practice.” > View as a PDF China Daily USA,”Festival fosters youth cultural exchanges- food meets art” Zhang Ruian, October 24, 2017 “‘Eating is a very important part of Chinese culture,’ said Song.” > View as a PDF Arte Fuse, “Re-Thinking Home: ACAW’s THINKING PROJECTS Pop Up at C24 Gallery” Audra Lambert, October 23, 2017 “ Thinking Projects Pop Up at C24 gallery can seem at first glance to be an expedition: before you, wonders of the world are arrayed in complex congurations.” > View as a PDF Art Radar,”Highlights from Asia Contemporary Art Week 2017 in New York” Junni Chen, October 18, 2017 “Asia Contemporary Art Week pulls together some of New York’s biggest museums, galleries, and institutions to shine the spotlight on visual arts from Asia.” > View as a PDF BLOUIN ARTINFO, “Guo Hongwei & Judy Blum-Reddy at Chambers Fine Art, New York” BLOUIN ARTINFO, October 13, 2017 “It is basically a pop-up exhibition series presenting research-based, ongoing artistic endeavors by nine noted artists from China, Indonesia, Turkey, India, and the Us.” > View as a PDF Ocula, “An Introduction to FIELD MEETING Take 5: THINKING PROJECTS, New York” October 6, 2017 “…FIELD MEETING presentations traverse between disciplines of visual arts, art history, science, social history […] to relect on a variety of significant and timely topics.” >View as a PDF State of the Arts NYC, “Radio Interview with Leeza Ahmady” With host Savona Bailey-McClain, September 22, 2017 > View as a PDF Taipei Cultural Center, “Two Taiwan Artists to Present New Projects at ACAW FIELD MEETING Oct...

The Sable Eye
© » KADIST

The Sable Eye with Ryanaustin Dennis, in partnership with Canyon Cinema Wednesday, June 6, Bar 6pm, Event 7pm, with works on view through June 9 Screening of Robert Nelson, Oh Dem Watermelons , 1965, 11 minutes, 16mm and Cauleen Smith, Chronicles of a Lying Spirit (by Kelly Gabron), 1992, 6 minutes, 16mm...

Related artist(s) to: Lawrence Abu Hamdan » Marwa Arsanios, » Iman Issa, » Maryam Jafri, » Jumana Manna, » Tom Nicholson, » Maha Maamoun, » Rajkamal Kahlon, » Runo Lagomarsino, » Young Arab Theatre, » Abu Hamdan  
» see more

I heard stories
© » KADIST

Marwa Arsanios

2008

I’ve heard stories (2008) is one of Marwa Arsanios early works...

Comparative Monument (Palestine)
© » KADIST

Tom Nicholson

2012

Tom Nicholson’s Comparative Monument (Palestine) engages a peculiar Australian monumental tradition: war monuments that bear the name “Palestine”...

Blue Elbow (Coude Bleu)
© » KADIST

Jumana Manna

2015

Blue Elbow (Coude bleu) is made from plaster, burlap, lacquer, pigments and plastics...

Carlton Hotel project
© » KADIST

Marwa Arsanios

2008

Carlton Hotel project is the second part of a research on the Carlton, an iconic building of modernist architecture from the 1960s in Beirut...

Related works found in the same semantic group  
» see more

Grabador Fantasma (Phantom Recorder)
© » KADIST

Adrían Balseca

2018

The project Grabador Fantasma (Phantom Recorder) consists of a communally constructed technological device in Sarayaku ancestral territory...

Press Release: Art21 to Release First Film of 2024: “Lawrence Abu Hamdan: Politics of Listening”
© » ART21

Press Release: Art21 to Release First Film of 2024: “Lawrence Abu Hamdan: Politics of Listening” | Art21 Our Series Art in the Twenty-First Century Extended Play New York Close Up Artist to Artist William Kentridge: Anything Is Possible Specials Art21.live An always-on video channel featuring programming hand selected by Art21 Playlists Curated by Art21 staff, with guest contributions from artists, educators, and more Art21 Library Explore over 700 videos from Art21's television and digital series Latest Video 15:03 Add to watchlist Politics of Listening Lawrence Abu Hamdan Extended Play February 7, 2024 Search Searching Art21… Welcome to your watchlist Look for the plus icon next to videos throughout the site to add them here...

Fordlândia Fieldwork
© » KADIST

Clarissa Tossin

2012

In Fordlândia Fieldwork (2012), Tossin documents the remains of Henry Ford’s rubber enterprise Fordlândia, built in 1928 in the Brazilian Amazon to export cultivated rubber for the booming automobile industry...

Evenings of water and dense forest
© » KADIST

Noara Quintana

2019

The series Belle Époque of the Tropics by Noara Quintana has as its background the history of the rubber industrialization in North of Brazil...