Lawrence Abu Hamdan

Lawrence Abu Hamdan, WshWsh, 2025, water fountain, cymbals, 229 × 229 × 49 cm, unique

WshWsh (2025) is a series of kinetic sound sculptures inspired by the Ummayad fountains of Damascus. These fountains were placed at the entrances of mosques, at the intersections to the main ports of entry to the walled city, in hospitals and inside the private courtyards of the upper classes. While also used as water sources, air coolers and sites of ablution, these fountains were built during a time when land was scarce inside the medieval walled cities of Damascus and Aleppo. The white noise generated by each droplet falling from the spout to the pool, made it possible for people to live in these highly dense urban areas and block out the sounds around them. In Damascus fountains produced invisible walls of sound around their interlocutors. Away from prying ears all manner of negotiation could be conducted at their base. Under these umbrellas of white noise, weddings were arranged, elopings were plotted, business partnerships were formed, and hostile takeovers were hatched. All manner of communion and betrayal could be negotiated under this forcefield of sound.   

Today surveillance is so pervasive that the white noise generated by a fountain is no longer capable of masking our chatter from outside ears. The fountain’s sound is too consistent and can easily be phased out by algorithms trained on its predictable behaviour. Enhancing and lifting out speech from recordings made in these former acoustic shadowlands can now happen at the click of a mouse. In order to restore their Ummayad era function, fountains would need to produce louder, more arrhythmic noises. Variegated sounds that would take advanced  expertise just to catch a few of the words cloaked beneath it. These kinetic sculptures are trying to achieve just that. WshWsh is an attempt to modernise the social function of fountains in the era of mass surveillance.