What do film and video accomplish for activism? There are pros – so many eyes — and cons – so many different eyes.
Posts tagged with protest
For many people, Mazen Kerbaj is just Mazen Kerbaj, an accomplished graphic artist and trumpet improviser who’s toured and recorded in France, the US, Lebanon, etc. He’s gotten plenty of well-deserved, enthusiastic press for his playing.
Sound was a persistent, if at times inscrutable, undercurrent to the 2009 SEM conference. HVBE6GGVBHTQ
The city of Pattaya, Thailand, closish to Bangkok, hosts an annual laughing contest.
The winner of the 2008 contest, who laughed for more than 12 minutes and reached 110 decibels
In the wake of the first domestic use of sound cannons, against protesters at the recent, sparsely-picketed G20 summit in Pittsburgh, which comes just a few weeks after the same technology was used to suppress protesters at a factory in Bangkok, I want to discuss sound as an absolute phenomenon – that is, at the point where a human listener experiences acute physical harm through exposure, where sound stops being musical or aesthetic and becomes quite literally indistinguishable from a blunt object or explosive device.
Voice is integral to many acts of protest.
Why? First, voice, in the low-tech sense, is a readily available public alert system. If one is unable to appear on broadcast media, or to start a blog or distribute printed material for fear of political reprisal, one can usually still walk out into the street and scream.
Second, the use of the voice has acute affective power for listeners. It carries not only explicit meaning but also a great deal of emotional content. If listeners feel the depth of a speaker’s resolve, they may be moved by it.
Third, the use of the voice in unison, as with singing or chanting, produces a sense of political singularity that can serve to inspire fellow protesters, and to recruit others.
Read the rest of this entry »
THIS IS WEIRD VIBRATIONS // the politics of sound
Ben Tausig, ed.
