Workshop | Zifzafa – A video game simulation fighting green colonialism in the Occupied Syrian Golan Heights (Al-Jawlan)

Saturday April 5, 3PM at Ashkal Alwan Space

A workshop by Earshot | Discussion moderated by Rayya Badran

This workshop offers an in-depth exploration of Zifzafa, Earshot’s latest research investigation advocating for sonic self-determination: the right of communities to define what constitutes noise in their own land.

The session will explore the conceptual foundations of the project and provide a comprehensive overview of Earshot’s use of advanced digital tools, including 3D simulation. Participants will gain insight into how technical innovation and artistic practice can intersect to expand the frontiers of human rights and environmental advocacy.

Held in conjunction with Lawrence Abu Hamdan’s exhibition, opening at the Sfeir-Semler Gallery in Beirut on April 3, this session is intended for a diverse range of professionals, including artists, researchers, open-source investigators, human rights activists, lawyers, and journalists.

About Zifzafa

Zifzafa is a digital tool that advocates for the sonic self-determination of the peoples of the occupied Syrian Golan Heights (the Jawlanis). It is a video game simulation that seeks to safeguard the auditory life of al Jawlan from further acts of occupation and dispossession. 

In 2023, the Jawlanis protested against their occupiers on a scale not seen for 40 years. These demonstrations were catalyzed by the initiation of an Israeli project to construct 31 wind turbines—the largest in the world at 256 meters high—within tens of meters of Jawlani homes and farms.

To support the community’s fight against this wind turbine project, Earshot worked closely with Al-Marsad to develop Zifzafa with two main objectives: to challenge and to preserve. Using this video game simulation, users can enter the homes and farms most affected by the noise pollution and experience the force of this sonic annexation for themselves.

Discover more about Zifzafa and download the video-game simulation at: https://earshot.ngo/investigations/zifzafa 

About Earshot  

Earshot is a pioneering not-for-profit organization that specializes in producing sonic investigations with and on behalf of communities adversely affected by corporate, state, and environmental violence. Central to its practice is a dual understanding of sound: firstly, as a tool of analysis, and secondly, as a weaponized medium. On the one hand, sound unveils traces of violence captured on media artefacts: a door breacher invading a home, a missile striking a hospital-turned-shelter, or a settler's gunshot shattering at night. Conversely, sound itself becomes a weapon: deployed to inflict stress and assert domination, as in the persistent hum of drones hovering in the sky, or to render silence an act of violence, as when the sounds of a community are subdued by the addition of a more potent sound. 

While video captures just 24 frames per second, sound samples over 44,000 times per second, capturing what happens in-between frames—the scrap, the excess, the overlooked. By registering the liminal, sound unveils events imperceptible to the eye and brings to light truths obscured beyond the confines of the frame. Such an investigative approach necessitates both a forensic and ethical practice of listening—one in which the honing of auditory perception fosters a more nuanced understanding of violence itself. Reconceptualizing violence through sound, Earshot endeavors to transform and reclaim sound as a medium of resistance. 

Website: https://earshot.ngo

About Rayya Badran

Based in Beirut, Rayya Badran is a writer, editor, and translator whose practice centers on sonic and musical practices. Her writings have been featured in various publications such as Bidoun, Art Review, Art Papers, Norient, The Wire, and more. She was guest editor of the Beirut Art Center's online publication The Derivative in 2020 and curator and editor of the Norient City Sounds Online Special: Beirut in 2022. She taught courses on contemporary art and sound studies at the department of Fine Arts and Art History at the American University of Beirut from 2014 to 2021. In 2023, she was co-curator of the second edition of the Listening Biennial.

Image: Zifzafa, 2024, still from video game simulation. Lawrence Abu Hamdan. Courtesy of the artist