Press text, Witness-Machine Complex

Abu Hamdan not only explores what is clearly audible in ear-witness testimonies, but his work allows us to perceive the discrepancy between what is said and what is heard, conjuring unheard spaces that lay between speech, noise, and silence. The Witness-Machine Complex (2021) is an installation that pays tribute to translators of the Nuremberg trials from 1945–46. These trials mark the first ever use of a system for simultaneous translation. The newly developed electronic audio technology enabled the live translation of the trial proceedings into Russian, French, German, and English.  Even though the translators’ work was of great importance to the procedure, there are no recordings of them in the act of translation. The only indication of their presence in the film footage of the trial is marked by the flashing yellow and red lights built into the witness stand and the prosecutor’s podium. These lights were used to slow down or pause the speed of the speech flowing into their headphones. The Witness-Machine Complex reanimates the way in which these lights flashed in the original trial. The lights symbolize the kind of obstacles that need to be traversed in order to translate an experience into a testimony.