Urbanscapes

Concept:
In a culture that is private, what do public spaces look and sound like, most importantly, what do public spaces feel like. In a culture that is private, why do people gaze. In a culture that is private, how do personal news travel so fast.

One of the main components of any city is open space. Amman’s open space in specific is interesting, because –according to global standards- it is almost nonexistent. Open spaces are closed off to the public at certain times, to certain people, and against certain activities. Public spaces become places for private meetings; culturally frowned-upon. Public spaces become abandoned. Public spaces are facilities that lack accessibility. Public spaces do not serve their purpose. Walking into them feels like an invasion of privacy both on your part and on the part of the gazers. Gazing is an act of self-defense and a marking of territory; to hold or to break eye contact. In public spaces, people watching almost feels like voyeurism.

The act of filming is in itself an event worth of observation. The lens will see, the recorder will listen, but the recipient will feel the discomfort of the person behind the act of documenting. People in the city are too self-conscious to be seen or heard, let alone documented. That person must at all costs be inconspicuous. That person must be alert. That person must be on guard to catch people off-guard.

Adopting a guerrilla filmmaking approach, we intend to observe a chosen number of Amman’s -some iconic, but mostly overlooked- public spaces, in quick shots unstaged, and without warning; and in doing so, convey the city’s raw pulse and exhausting demand on its citizens to always keep their guard up.

Those are the city’s urban escapes, which have escaped from the city.

Artist page:

Shereen Amarin: Facebook
Amjad Shahrour: Soundcloud

Concept:
The main concept of our project revolves around “Reflection”. Reflection of how youth portray their art in Amman in various forms.

We captured various acts of creativity and art displayed by the individuals of this town. Recording this side of our community was always a main goal for us as a way of encouraging like-minded people and embracing unity.

We created a character with a mirror box walking through Amman, capturing people’s reaction as part of a social experiment. Placing the mirror box in public spaces was a way of delivering the message of accepting unusual sceneries of the people of Amman. The beauty of this concept is, that it reflects the image of the viewer which contributes to the elimination of negative judgements, commentary, and enhances the pathway of positive thinking and acceptance.

The audio part is made of the three most common sounds heard everywhere and everyday in Amman: The sound of the gas truck passing by, the sound of welding guns and the sounds of automobiles.The idea was to use the “Gas truck song” as our main melody while deconstructing it and designing it in our own way. The percussions were made from the sounds of a welding gun and the sound of an old fashioned gas vendor hitting the metal gas containers as he walks through the streets of ‘L'Weibdeh”. Last but not least we added the noise of cars, recorded from one of Amman's iconic traffic roundabouts. All these sounds were then designed and arranged in different ways throughout the track enriched by analogous synths.

Artist page:

Amer Manaseer: Instagram
Abdallah Dabbas: Instagram

Concept: 
We are the youth of Amman, driven by dystopia and locations we belong to. Lost and found at the same time, we keep on rotating.

Artist page:

Idreesi: Facebook, Instagram
Zaid Khaled: Instagram 

Concept:
Amman is a cosmopolitan city in which is made up by a diversity of identities. I understand cities through their built environments, people, buildings, windows, doors, streets, vehicles, interactions, harmony, symmetry, patterns and shapes. In this production I take you into a small experience of how I perceive Amman; through photos, videos and voice recordings that I've collected in Amman.

Artist page:Instagram

Concept:
“K-Hall” was part of the 2019 Ephemeral Territories exhibition at Darat al-Funun, which explored the ways in which spatial and social identities can be constructed via sound. Through portraying abandoned spaces, those fully constructed and those deserted halfway through, as well as structures currently being built and a nighttime cityscape, the work invites the viewer to contemplate the relationships between architecture, power, and permanence. It plays with the contrasts of a city consistently in a state of flux while simultaneously containing spaces untouched for years, imagining the potentials of reclamation of abandoned spaces by those marginalized by the ever-growing and ever-changing urban landscape. The visuals are accompanied by music that could be heard in these peripheral spaces, and the glitched sounds and subtle melodies mirroring the contrasts of these varying locations, and the potential community that could be found within them. Portraying sounds and spaces outside of the proposed urban and sonic hierarchical structure allows the viewer to envision a subversive vision of future cityscapes and experiences of shared listening and community, those untethered to traditional power dynamics, where sound and an in-between-ness of space can create a new architectural identity.

Artist page: 

Basel Hasan: Instagram 
Mostafæ Onsy: Facebook, Soundcloud 
Diana Al Zubi

Concept:
For us, exploring the sounds and visuals of the city was very much tied to an exploration of the tensions between inclusivity and exclusivity. Our aspiration was to address what a creative and holistic interpretation of the urbanscape of Amman means while realizing with every step that this was an impossible endeavor, not only in the overwhelming complexity of sounds, experiences, structures, areas, communities and peoples but also noticing that our experience and interpretation of it was affected by the experience of the city in every moment, as the traffic was moving and as we were entering spaces and seeing structures that we ourselves have never entered nor seen before. As we went along we realized that our interpretation of the sound and visual urbanscape of the city is exactly that: a journey through the temporary, looking for the structure, for the pattern and for the sound of the city which often encompasses contrast much more than an imagined harmony.

Concept:
In my audio-visual piece “Self-Centered”, I express and reinforce my leaning inward in my existence, my art, my expression, even my message. Not denying my obvious existence and functioning within a public sphere and urban space with continuous interaction with all the elements of the urban ecosystem from which certainly a significant portion of my art is consciously and unconsciously inspired or derived. Finding a sense of peace in my being self-centered in my art may well be a defense and coping mechanism that I may have decided to embrace as I struggle to find the genuine appreciation or understanding of my art and expression amongst my community and urban setting. I don’t believe all artistic or abstract expression can and should be fully understood by its creator or its audience, but we naturally aim to earn at least the appreciation of the observer, if not profound understanding. Here, I attempt to attain some higher understanding of my own self and sub-conscious mind, my unconscious influences through the art I create. And If I can achieve this clarity and understanding within my own self, that will be a big relief and achievement.

Artist page: Soundcloud, Instagram