Zifzafa: A live audio essay on the sonics of self-determination

Zifzafa, in Arabic, is a word used to describe a wind that shakes and rattles all in its path.
In this live performance, the word becomes a conceptual tool to map a network of social relations transformed through and by wind-sound. In tracing Zifzafa, we can feel the connections between people, pollen, dust and animals across vast open spaces. Yet Zifzafa’s engulfing noise can also act as a border––one that restricts,confines, isolates and divides.
Wind is an increasingly important agent, both as a renewable source replacing fossil fuels and as a destructive by-product of a warming Earth. As such, we are starting to see wind as a participant in the reorganisation of social and political networks and the reshaping of territorial imagination.
This live performance centres around a digital simulation developed by Earshot, the audio research NGO led by Abu Hamdan, serving as a sonic document and archive of the devastating effect that the planned incursion of thirty-one wind turbines will have on the Syrian Jawlani community residing in the occupied Golan Heights.
During this performance, the simulation will be used as a musical instrument, a tool that acoustically guides the audience through this landscape, unfolding a story of dispossession and resistance. The sounds from this simulation will be accompanied with live music performed by the saxophonist Amr Mdah and scored by Busher Kanj Abu Saleh, both renowned for their work in Jawlani band ‘Hawa Dafi’ or Warm Air.
All the sonic turbulence generated in this performance will underscore a text delivered by Abu Hamdan, examining how a tool designed to produce clean energy can become a machine that establishes new borders––blades that carve through economic, spatial, ethnic, social and acoustic communion. From this specific microclimate, the work expands the claim to self determination to include sonic autonomy, showing the vital role sound can play in the struggle for liberation in the face of erasure.
The performance will take place from 5 – 6pm and again from 7 - 8pm on Saturday, 21 September, at the Alserkal Arts Foundation Project Space, Warehouse 50, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai.
Register for 5pm
The Zifzafa performance is presented by the Alserkal Arts Foundation and co-produced by Festival d’Automne à Paris, CENTQUATRE-PARIS and L'Art Rue as part of Dream City 2025.
About Lawrence Abu Hamdan
Lawrence Abu Hamdan is a researcher, filmmaker, artist and activist or as he puts it a ‘Private Ear’. Abu Hamdan has over a decade of experience investigating audio and a doctorate from the University of London on the role of sound in legal investigations and political discourse. In 2023 he founded Earshot, the world’s first not-for-profit organisation dedicated to the study of audio for human rights and environmental advocacy. His work has been presented in the form of forensic reports, lectures and live performances, films, publications, and exhibitions all over the world.

His investigative work has been used as evidence at the UK Asylum and Immigration Tribunal and in a formal request to the International Criminal Court. His research in sound and acoustic events has played a central role in advocacy campaigns for organisations such as Defence for Children International, al Haq, Human Rights Watch, Btselem, Forbidden Stories, Forensic Architecture and Amnesty International. His work with Earshot regularly furnishes journalists at Washington Post, Sky News, AlJazeera and others with the information they need to produce the most accurate reporting they can.

Abu Hamdan has held fellowships and guest professorships at the University of Chicago, the New School, New York and at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. His cultural projects that reflect on the political and cultural context of sound and listening have been presented at MoMA New York, MUAC Mexico, the 22nd Biennale of Sydney, the 58th Venice Biennale, the 11th Gwangju Biennale, the 13th and 14th Sharjah Biennial, the 34th Biennial of São Paulo, the Tate Modern, Hammer Museum L.A and the Hamburger Banhnof, Berlin. His works are part of collections at Reina Sofia, MoMA, Guggenheim, Hamburger Bahnhof, Van AbbeMuseum, Centre Pompidou and Tate Modern. Abu Hamdan has been widely recognized internationally with awards such as the Grand Prix at Winterthur International Film Festival, the 2020 Toronto Biennial Audience Award, the 2019 Edvard Munch Art Award, the award for best short film at the 2017 Rotterdam International Film Festival and the 2016 Nam June Paik Award for new media. For the 2019 Turner Prize, Abu Hamdan, together with nominated artists Helen Cammock, Oscar Murillo and Tai Shani, formed a temporary collective in order to be jointly granted the award.
Image: Zifzafa, 2024, still from virtual reality audio platform. Lawrence Abu Hamdan. Courtesy of the artist .

Host or Publisher Alserkal Arts Foundation