LAWRENCE ABU HAMDAN

" T HE FREEDOM OF SPEECH ITSELF is an audio documentary Aural Contract – – 171 February 2012 March looking at the the history and contemporary application of forensic speech analysis The Freedom and voice-prints, focusing

on the UK’s controversial use T

of voice analysis to determine HE the origins and authenticity

of Speech Itself of asylum seekers’ accents. S Testimonies from lawyers, HOWROOM phonetic experts, asylum seekers and Home Office officials reveal the geo-politics Since 2010, THE SHOWROOM has been working of accents and the practice of with the artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan on the ongoing listening that led to shocking research project AURAL CONTRACT, commissioned stories of wrongful deporta- as part of the gallery’s participatory programme tions. When combined with COMMUNAL KNOWLEDGE. Constituted by a series of events, the experimental audio compo- publications, performances, exhibitions, interviews, sition these interviews are compositions and workshops AURAL CONTRACT examines designed to fully immerse the politics of listening through a focus on the role of the listener in the heart of the voice in law. Throughout the project Abu Hamdan a discussion that profoundly has built up a sound archive, containing audio extracts problematises the nature of his works together with specific moments of juridical of listening, forensics, free listening and speaking gathered from a wide range speech, migration, borders of sources such as the trials of Saddam Hussein and and the law. Judas Priest, UK police evidence tapes, films such as DECODER and readings from texts including Italo ! Appendix A Calvino’s A KING LISTENS. U NHRC E AR P IECE THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH ITSELF was presented at the 14th Session Here THE SHOWROOM presents the most recent stages of The UN Human Rights Council Geneva. There are no amplified voices in of the project as an installation featuring a new com- the UNHRC, so the talk was broadcast, translated and received through ear mission THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH ITSELF, excerpts from pieces like this one. The feature of the non-amplified voice is the only thing Abu Hamdan’s audio archive, and a workshop led by that distinguishes that room from other political and legal spaces. This the artist on Harold Pinter’s play MOUNTAIN LANGUAGE. distinction is fundamental as rather than performing to a captive audience To accompany the exhibition is a series of events titled it is more like shouting at a busy office, your violation is registered and THE RIGHT TO SILENCE that focus on the legal status of recorded as the single ear piece slips on and off the ears of your would-be the voice, programmed in collaboration with Electra. " interlocutor while they distribute papers and negotiate private discussions.

Appendix B JAMES VANCE VS. JUDAS PRIEST Trained as a marine biologist, William Nickloff’s The 1990 trial of the heavy metal band JUDAS PRIEST supposed expertise was the result of his work as was to be forensic listening’s fifteen minutes of fame a producer of self-help tapes for his company, SECRET and the beginning of its unshakable reputation as SOUNDS INC. Being himself a firm believer in the persua- a pseudoscience. The civil trial examined whether sive power of audio, Nickloff unwittingly paid the the band was responsible for an incident in 1985 ultimate compliment to an artist’s work; not even in which twenty year-old James Vance and eighteen when the band recorded the album was the sound year-old Raymond Belknap shot themselves in so scrutinised, and never before was Halford’s sing- Sparks, Nevada, with a gun that belonged to Vance’s ing process subjected to such specialist attention. stepfather. In their suit, the families of the two However, the outcome of all this ‘high-tech’ listening young men alleged that subliminal messages hidden was the rather ambiguous identification of seven throughout the band’s 1978 STAINED CLASS album instances when the album played backwards yielded contributed to the suicide of Belknap and the severe the subliminal message: ‘Do It!’ injuries sustained by Vance, who died before the trial commenced. ‘Do what?’ we may ask. The case was thrown out of court when Halford decided that forensic listening Prior to his death, Vance had convened with lawyers, was not altogether that difficult, and after a quick singing for them parts of his favourite Judas Priest listen to his album backwards, he took it upon himself songs. This led to the song BETTER BY YOU BETTER THAN to present the more meaningful fragments he had ME becoming the focus of analysis for the court’s found to the court with a boom box pointed directly designated forensic listening expert, William Nickloff, at the judge. When the band’s song EXCITER, for who used the most up-to-date digital sonic waveform example, was played backwards, the lyrics ‘Stand analysis technology to wow the judge with a perform- by for exciter salvation is his task’ could be heard as ance of microscopically precise sonic attention. ‘I asked for a peppermint, I asked for her to get one.’ Nickloff’s testimony resulted in Judas Priest’s lead singer Rob Halford taking to the dock to give The trial of Judas Priest demonstrates that, no matter an a cappella rendition of the song in its entirety. how ridiculous the context, forensic listening begins Afterwards, Halford faced a gruelling cross-examina- every investigation with the obstinate idea that all tion in which he was asked a series of questions sound/noise is a kind of speech if you only listen long about when, where, and why he chose to inhale and hard enough. What becomes amplified in such and exhale during his singing. The court also devoted investigations is the political potency of legal listen- particular attention to Halford’s ‘meeeee’ya’, his way ing; the affirmation that listening is never simply of singing ‘me’. In response to the intense scrutiny a passive and receptive process, but an act that plays of his vocal chords and enunciative patterns, a fundamental role in the construction and facilitation Halford simply said, ‘It’s just the way I’ve always of the speech of the other (person or thing, subject sung it really.’ or object).

! Appendix C A URAL CONTRACT SESSIO NS Diagram of the ‘Microphone Workshop’ with the Marylebone Bangladesh Society Youth Club at
THE SHOWROOM, 2010 C S A A Aural Contract Audio Archive O T T N T E I R G C I O B R U I T E E S S THE VOIC E IN LA W TEC HNOLOGIES OF LEGA L LISTENING FORENSIC LISTENING 9 $ male + Voice Coach for Lawyers female Speech + Microphone + Little Red Button = Testimony female 1984: The Birth of Forensic Listening (no description) ...... voice(s) Aural Contract Sessions: First meeting, Sabrina’s Testimony, The Showroom, 2010 ...... voice(s) From an interview with Dr. Peter French director of an independent forensic male laboratory specialising in forensic analysis of speech and audio...... voice(s) Role Play for Courtroom Interpreters Move Away From the Judge’s Microphone female A performance written and recorded by Lawrence Abu Hamdan for MODEL COURT male Aural Contract Sessions: The Mock Trial Workshop, The Showroom, 2010 ...... voice(s) Vocal Mug Shot male at CCA, Glasgow, 2009 ...... voice(s) A police voice line-up to identify the suspect of a voice crime ...... voice(s) That’s gonna break down a lot of walls! I Object Your Honour female From Stanley Kramer’s INHERIT THE WIND a dramatisation of the first trial male YouTube Justice Aural Contract Sessions: The Mock Trial Workshop, The Showroom, 2010 ...... voice(s) to be broadcast on radio ...... voice(s) YouTube based voice analyst employs new lie detection software male to explore the truth in current affairs ...... voice(s) We Wanted a Plea Not a Speech The Sonic Design of Eichmann male + The opening proceeding of the Tokyo hosted, International Military Tribunal male The first three minutes of sound design from THE SPECIALIST (dir. Eyal Sivan and female The Re-enactment of Sonic Trauma male for the Far East, 1948 ...... voice(s) Rony Brauman, 1999) ...... voice(s) Dr. Peter French explains the acoustics of crime scenes ...... voice(s)

Take the Oath with Me Effects Pedals in the Trial of Saddam Hussein National Grid = National Time The First Federal West German Judges being sworn in ...... chorus Pitch shifting and harmonising are employed during the trial of Saddam Hussein disguised The hum of the mains operates like sonar, sonically and temporally male to disguise and infantilise voices testifying in his defense ...... voice(s) mapping unlawful activity ...... voice(s) male OYEZ OYEZ OYEZ voice(s) A peculiar American legal vocal tradition ...... + musical Milosevic’s Sex Change Colin Powell’s Sound Evidence Excerpt from the ICTY trial of Milosevic, in which he was dubbed by a female translator, female Excerpt from Colin Powell’s 2003 presentation to the UN Security Council male Say I Say NO also here witnesses present at the trial discuss the consequences of this ...... voice(s) in which he presents recordings of intercepted phone calls ...... voice(s) Voice voting from House of Commons, 9th December 2010 ...... chorus Shaving the Fur off Gerry Adams’ Voice Bin Laden Chooses Audio male + male Right to Silence male Excerpt from the BBC documentary SPEAK NO EVIL about Margaret Thatcher’s 1988 female Excerpt from Fox news in which a forensic audio expert discusses the body voice(s) American Police officer announces the Miranda warning ...... voice(s) Broadcast Ban ...... voice(s) in Osama Bin Laden’s audio tapes...... + musical

For the Benefit of the Tape That is a queer hat your wearing A King Listens male male AKA No Comment; Police interview tape with an animal rights activist ...... voice(s) Re-enactment of an experiment from the 70s that sought to ascertain if synthetic disguised Audiobook of Italo Calvino’s A KING LISTENS produced by Lawrence Abu Hamdan voice(s) speech was akin to perceptions of lying. Delfina Foundation, 2011 ...... voice(s) and workshop participants at 98 Weeks, Beirut, 2011 ...... + musical The truth comma the whole truth comma and nothing but the truth period Senator McCarthy receiving a lesson on the 5th Amendment taken from the film Hear the Bug Buzz Modern Popular Repetitive Music male male male POINT OF ORDER (dir. Emile de Antonio, 1963) ...... voice(s) The FBI hack mobile phones and use them as audio recording devices, this excerpt voice(s) Demonstration in the tape enhancement lab of JP French Associates, voice(s) explains how to tell if this has happened to your phone ...... + musical removing extraneous sounds and pulling the speech out of a recording ...... + musical The Incorporated Phonographic Society A group of court typist enthusiasts who meet weekly to improve their typing FREE SPEECH 6.0 Judas Priest vs. James Vance female male speeds, dictating from transcripts of trials at the Bishopsgate Centre, London ...... voice(s) Audio ripped from Israeli company PERSAY LTD’S demonstration of voice identification Sounds from the 1989 JUDAS PRIEST vs. James Vance trial, including a forensic investigation voice(s) male security technology ...... + musical of subliminal messages in JUDAS PRIEST songs that Vance had claimed had made him voice(s) Corrupted Stenography male shoot himself ...... + musical A scene from Woody Allen’s 1971 film BANANAS ...... voice(s) The Lie in His Voice male + Explanation of new technologies of lie detection using ‘Layered Voice Analysis’ female Decoding Muzak Hearing and Repeating But Not Listening female which detects ‘emotional content’ in the voice ...... voice(s) Forensic deconstruction of muzak from the 1984 film DECODER (dir. Muscha), Aural Contract Session: Typist Workshop, The Showroom, 2010...... voice(s) in which muzak is an audio virus that is used to pacify the population ...... musical

MGM’s Lion: The first sonic theft Listening in Defense of National Borders Metro Goldwyn Mayer’s roaring lion was the first ‘non musical’ sound animal The story of vocal impostor Charles Albert Stopford II aka Lord Buckingham ...... musical to be copyright protected ...... voice(s) If You Lie, Do a Nice Lie Mountain Language Interview with a refugee who faked his accent when his voice was analysed as part male Theatrical reading of Harold Pinter’s 1988 play MOUNTAIN LANGUAGE, voice(s) of the asylum process. Disguised for anonymity with ‘Yusuf’, the Arabic speech to text disguised adapted for audio by Lawrence Abu Hamdan for 98 Weeks, Beirut, 2011 ...... + musical software, reading in English ...... voice(s)

Shouting Valley; the porosity of sonic borders male Families communicating across the Israeli/ Syrian border in the Golan Heights, voice(s) shouting across physically impenetrable jurisdictions ...... + musical

Listen online at: www.113dalstonlane.com/auralcontract The Freedom of Speech Itself was produced by Somethin’ Else and commissioned by THE SHOWROOM and Forensic Architecture at the Department for Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths’, University of London. The project is part of Com- munal Knowledge supported by The Paul Hamlyn Foundation, John Lyon’s Charity and members of THE SHOWROOM’s Supporters Scheme. It is also part of Survival Kit: Art linking society, knowledge and activism, supported by Culture 2007–2013 programme of the European Union. Leaflet design: Kaisa Lassinaro