Paper Short Abstract:

Reflecting on the production of sound collages of the 2023-24 War on Gaza, as experienced in Amman, Jordan, this paper considers assemblages through examining events where they materialize and their effects (Bennett 2010) and eventfulness (Strassler 2020) become sensible.

Paper Abstract:

This paper explores assemblage thinking through reflecting on sound collages that emerged in response to the 2023-24 War on Gaza. It examines the processes of mixing these collages in/from Amman, Jordan — a city characterized by transitions and junctures — and the multiple elements contributing to their formation. These include personal and collective commitments, fractured connections to place, regional and global power structures, online platforms and technologies, and the sensory and embodied. In addition, it asks how the effects of this assemblage of elements become materially sensible (Bennett 2010), and their “eventfulness" produced (Strassler 2020).

Presented at in-person listening sessions and broadcasted on online radios, sound collages blend an array of materials that index the present while invoking a longer history. They incorporate sounds recognizable within their social milieu: drones and bombs; voices from Gazans under fire, lawyers, and protests; iconic speeches of Palestinian leaders and resistance songs. Filtered through artists’ experience, diverse platforms, and processes of composition and sound design, these collages function as a means of bearing witness, articulating their view of the world “at the time of genocide,” and curating sound experiences that (re)contextualize these sounds and associations.

This case establishes a foundation for a broader reflection on assemblage ethnography. After summarizing the range of elements converging, here, it will suggest a conceptual framework for understanding how these assemblages materialize around specific events and moments, and argue for an appreciation of online and in-person domains not merely as intersecting but as inextricably linked.