AGORA: Martial sounds and silences
The first AGORA session of 2024 is an assemblage performance by Susanna Hast and Noora Kotilainen.
Martial sounds and silences is an assemblage performance of thinking and sound circling on martial violence. The piece explores some of its authors’ new as well as previous works of war-like sounds, sounds neighbouring war, and sounds produced by martial bodies. The soundscape is fragmented with glitches, inaudibility, and hierarchies of voice. Presented is, for example, a piece on gun pornography, sounds of deportation, and sonic walks in a militarised space.
Performers
Susanna Hast, author, researcher, singer
Noora Kotilainen, senior research fellow, University of Helsinki
Dr Susanna Hast is a writer, researcher and songwriter. She has the title of Associate Professor in artistic research at Uniarts Helsinki. Susanna has studied war experience, military training, capoeira, trauma, and subtle resistance to violence. She published the novel Body of Evidence (Ruumis/huoneet, S&S) in 2022 and has released two music albums.
Noora Kotilainen (D.Soc.Sci) is a historian and social scientist. Her focus is on international politics, media and visuality. She has published on crises, wars, violence, suffering, humanitarianism, militarism, migration, and photography. She works as a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Helsinki and heads the project “Language of military power within the Finnish democracy”, which is funded by the Kone Foundation.