Sound system of the state
- Submitting institution
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University of Winchester
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- 33TT2
- Type
- T - Other
- DOI
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- Location
- -
- Brief description of type
- Multi-component output
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month
- -
- Year
- 2014
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
-
- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- Yes
- Additional information
- The research examines the politics of sound, asking how do sounds and vibrations operate as media for political struggle? Case studies are analysed and artworks are produced (performances, films, sound art) that question how sound is deployed by the state to claim power, and how those claims are diffused sonically by artists and activists.
Cases studies include videos, sound recordings, media artefacts from political events, archived footage, legal documents and artworks. The artistic creative process helped to offer insights into the material presence of sound, and the embodied experience and spatial affects it evokes.
Access was gained to the B’Tselem Video Archive, featuring hundreds of hours of footage by Palestinian civilians documenting human rights violations against them. Videos were analysed that showcase sonic tactics and weaponry that are deployed as a proxy for physical violence, albeit with similar emotional effects. These videos were incorporated in the performance piece, ‘Archive’ which is one of the outputs of this research (supported by B’Tselem).
A literature review of artworks, sound studies, conflict and borders studies and philosophy was conducted, mapping out the field and creating a theoretical framework underpinning the research.
The research concludes that analysing politics aurally contributes an alternative approach to the visually-dominated debates in Conflict and Border Studies, and to Sound Studies. The project charts a theory and praxis with which sound and listening can be understood as political ideological devices through which actual territorial dominance and power are claimed and counter-claimed.
The insights were disseminated through writings, exhibitions and public talks. The artworks were exhibited at leading exhibitions including the Venice Biennial (with the group Forensic Architecture). The performance ‘Archive’ was performed in more than 100 leading international dance venues. Public talks were given in academic and public fora.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -
