Death Cities: Hearing Atmospheric and Spatial Violence

This talk explores atmospheric violence—violence that is pervasive, diffuse, immanent, ‘in the air’—and spatial violence, what Herscher and Siddiqi (2014) have described as ‘the manifold forms of harm mediated through built environments,’ focusing on the role of sound and listening in violence ‘becoming atmospheric’ in cities (Peterson 2021). It references earwitness testimonies, citizen journalism, and clandestine investigations pertaining to the 51-Day War in Gaza in 2014 and contemporary Beirut in exploring how cities become sites of atmospheric and spatial violence, and how this violence is heard by those who are subjected to it. How is the listening subject reconfigured when their primary apprehension of the crumbling world around them is through sensing vibrations, including through the coupling of their body with the violent shaking of buildings? How do sound and listening participate in the spatial violence that characterizes urbicide? And what strategies have artists and activists developed to make audible forms of atmospheric violence that otherwise go undetected and unnoticed today?

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) and the forthcoming The Trembling City (MIT Press), which investigates cities as sites of sonic and vibrational force, with a particular focus on the contexts of war, genocide, and mass violence. Ouzounian is an Associate Professor of Music at the University of Oxford.

Content warning: This talk depicts violence in the form of survivor and witness testimonies pertaining to the 51-Day War on Gaza in 2014; it also describes violence in other national contexts including Lebanon and South Africa, drawing on architects’ and artists’ writings and works.