Manal Issa, 2024 + The Diary of a Sky

Event has passed ICA,

Artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan has a sonic research practice that acts to investigate human rights abuses. In this essay film he focuses his “Private Ear” into analysing sonic data generated by the UN to chart the incessant noise pollution emanating from unauthorised Israeli plane and drone flights into Lebanese airspace. His study focuses upon a period of relative silence in Beirut, the streets of the city emptied by the Covid-19 lockdowns of 2020-2021. UN data is combined with video documentation of the skies above Beirut, filmed and gathered by Abu Hamdan. In this space he carefully charts the sonic incursions of the sometimes invisible but ever-present aircraft, manned and unmanned, which the artist describes as “atmospheric violence”.

Revisiting their previous collaboration, Maria Schneider, 1983 (2022), in which Lebanese-French actress Manal Issa reenacted a televised interview given by Maria Schneider, Elisabeth Subrin poses the same questions again on September 22, 2024, in Beirut. This instance of the conversation becomes an exploration of refusal, the inadequacies of an ultimately capitalist industry and its reluctance to show resistance.

Followed by a Q&A with Elisabeth Subrin.

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