Lawrence Abu Hamdan
Lawrence Abu Hamdan (born 1985, in Amman) is a contemporary artist based in Beirut. His work looks into the political effects of listening, using various kinds of audio to explore its effects on human rights and law. Because of his work with sound, Abu Hamdan has testified as an expert witness in asylum hearings in the United Kingdom. His work has been featured in major group exhibitions including the British Art Show 8 (2015–17), the Liverpool Biennial (2016), and third New Museum Triennial (2015). Solo exhibitions of the artists work have been presented at the Chisenhale Gallery  (2018); The Showroom, London (2012); Kunsthalle Sankt Gallen (2015); and Portikus, Frankfurt (2016). His work is included in the collections of the Arts Council England and The Museum of Modern Art, New York. He was nominated for – and jointly won with Tai Shani, Oscar Murillo and Helen Cammock – the 2019 Turner Prize for his work based on interviews with former detainees at a Syrian prison. Career and artwork. Abu Hamdan received his PhD from the Center for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths, University of London in 2016. The artist has a background in music production and describes his work as concerned  with the "politics of listening." His work confronts specific instances and examples of listening and the voice as they related to legal and political contexts. In his 2012 radio documentary "The Whole Truth", he explored new technologies that were attempting to act as lie-detectors for voices. In a 2015 commission for The Armory Show in New York, the artist distributed bags of potato chips in foil wrappers. The work builds on research undertaken by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in which they were able to turn common objects into listening devices by capturing vibrations recorded on physical  objects and transferring them back into speech. In 2016, Sternberg press published a monograph on the artist: