Videogram 140: Gascia Ouzounian – Death Cities: Hearing Atmospheric..., 20 Nov 2024 19:00 (online via Zoom)

VIDEOGRAM 140: Gascia Ouzounian
20. 11. 2024, 19:00, on-line via Zoom
Zoom: https://cesnet.zoom.us/j/99439620135 
Info: https://videogram.favu.vut.cz/gascia-ouzounian

Death Cities: Hearing Atmospheric and Spatial Violence

This talk explores atmospheric violence—a pervasive, diffuse, immanent form of violence that exists ‘in the air’—and spatial violence, which Herscher and Siddiqi (2014) describe as “the manifold forms of harm mediated through built environments.” It focuses on the role of sound and listening in the process of violence ‘becoming atmospheric’ in cities (Peterson 2021). Drawing on earwitness testimonies, citizen journalism, and clandestine investigations related to the 51-Day War in Gaza (2014) and contemporary Beirut, it examines how cities become sites of atmospheric and spatial violence and how this violence is perceived by those subjected to it. How is the listening subject reconfigured when their primary means of apprehending the crumbling world around them is through sensing vibrations, such as the coupling of their body with the violent shaking of buildings? How do sound and listening contribute to the spatial violence inherent in urbicide? And what strategies have artists and activists developed to render audible forms of atmospheric violence that would otherwise remain undetected and unnoticed in today’s world?

Gascia Ouzounian

Gascia Ouzounian is a sonic theorist and practitioner whose work explores the intersections of sound, space, urbanism, and violence. She is the author of Stereophonica: Sound and Space in Science, Technology, and the Arts (MIT Press, 2021) and the forthcoming The Trembling City, which investigates cities in relation to sound and vibrational force, particularly within the contexts of war, genocide, and mass violence. Ouzounian leads the Sonorous Cities project at the University of Oxford, where she serves as Associate Professor of Music. She also hosts Countersonics: Radical Sonic Imaginaries, a conversation series exploring how sonic practices can act as modes of resistance and repair during times of conflict and crisis. Her work has been featured at Mosaic Rooms, daadgalerie, SAVVY Contemporary, Akademie der Künste, Sursock Museum, Goethe Institute, OSCILLATIONS Festival, and Café OTO, among other venues.

Author doc. MgA. Filip Cenek
Published
Short URL https://www.favu.vut.cz/en//f26745/d269202

Share