Zifzafa

Zifzafa

In 2023, political unrest erupted throughout the occupied Syrian Golan Heights on a scale unseen for more than 40 years. The focus point of this protest movement was the looming construction of 31 of the largest land-based wind turbines on the last remaining open space left for the Jawlani Syrians who have been living under Israeli military occupation since 1967. Though European regulations stipulate that a wind turbine of this size must be at least 2 kilometres away from the nearest residential developments, this project has planned turbines to be erected as close as 35 meters to homes, causing an unbearable amount of noise that will effectively force people off their land. With fellow researchers at Earshot, Abu Hamdan set about to create a tool that could help the occupied Syrians of the Golan heights (Jawlanis) contest the construction of these turbines by simulating how this noise will deeply affect life on their lands. Three works from this project are presented here: Zifzafa: a livestream audio essay (2024), Wind Ensemble (2024) and Tilting at Windmills (2024).

Zifzafa is a video game simulation made by Earshot that accurately models how the noise pollution caused by the wind turbines will spread and occupy space and transform the lives of this community. By using this video game simulation, users can go into the homes and farms most affected by the noise pollution and experience for themselves the force of this sonic annexation. But the turbines are not the only thing that can be heard in Zifzafa. Over 40 geolocated field recordings are embedded within a scale replica of the landscape of the Jawlan, allowing the video game simulation to serve as an archive of the vibrant sonic life of the Jawlani community. While Zifzafa the video game is available for all to download and play from the Earshot website (www.earshot.ngo), in this installation, Zifzafa: a livestream audio essay, we experience the game used as an instrument in a narrated livestream listening session led by the artist. Inspired by the aesthetic practices of those who are today producing the most consumed genre of moving image, streamers, the artist takes a markedly audio-focused approach to the video game walkthrough genre.

Wind Ensemble (2024) documents an improvisation performed by Jawlani saxophonist Amr Mdah on the balcony of a farmhouse. 1300 sites of habitation similar to this farmhouse are threatened by the looming construction of the wind turbines and the vast noise which they will generate. The construction of such farmhouses has been a tool of resistance to land dispossession by the Jawlani community for decades. Here, the house projected on the mesh of a speaker cabinet and amplifier becomes a stage for an exuberant act of sonic self-determination; the principle that, on your land, you decide what noise you make, what noise you permit and what sounds define your community.

The image of wind turbines leaks into all manner of advertisements, branding, screensavers, school classrooms and almost all renderings of our world in the future. But the noise it makes, complicates this pristine image. Tilting at Windmills (2024) is an attempt to visualize the sonic turbulence created by wind turbines and showing the amount of acoustic space, they consume.