Using his expertise in sound and architecture, Abu Hamdan attempted to reconstruct the psycho-physical conditions in which prisoners lived at Saydnaya by using recorded testimonials. The exhibition, installed in a large room divided into two sections, features a recording of an Amnesty International interview with a former detainee, Salam Othman, broadcast across the space, and renderings of the prison projected onto the walls.
The expectation that visitors listen in silence to the recording mirrors with stunning success the content of Othman’s testimony. Othman explains that all prisoners were kept in the dark, blindfolded or with their eyes otherwise covered, and forced into silence. Prisoners were not allowed to make a sound, even when they were beaten. The more noise they made, the more brutally they were beaten — this enabled prisoners to identify the newcomers who were not yet aware of the consequences of making noise. Their inability to see heightened their awareness of even the most insignificant sound, and produced a population of hypersensitive listeners who helped Abu Hamdan reconstruct the prison through acoustic memory.
(via The Politics of Sound in a Prison)
