ADS8: Data Matter: Digital Networks, Data Centres & Posthuman Institutions
Meera Badran
Meera holds a BA (Hons) in Architecture from the University of Kent, where she was awarded the International Student Scholarship (2014 - 2017), the the Ede & Ravenscroft Academic Award (2015) and the Head of School Award (2017). Moving to London, she worked for a year in an architecture and design studio, during which she collaborated on an installation for Burning Man 2018, before beginning her MA in Architecture at the RCA.
At the RCA, Meera’s research has focused specifically on bodies, politics and the spatial context in which they operate. Her dissertation ‘Violence in War Photography and the New Aesthetic Movement’ explores the struggles of raising awareness to political violence in a society that is growing completely immune to the violent image. It asks for a new type of concentrative attention and argues for the importance of the gallery as a political space.
In ADS8: ‘Data Matter: Digital Networks, Data Centres and Post-Human Institutions’, Meera continued exploring bio-politics. Her project ‘On Behalf of the Voice’ focuses on the role of physical and digital infrastructures in aiding political power, and their use to control bodies in space. Looking specifically into the voice and the spoken word, she explores the role of (and the flaws of) speech translation software and their effects on the deeply multilingual and surveilled population of East Jerusalem.
I have recently discovered the importance of my tongue as a foundation of my identity. Speaking in the Palestinian dialect, that is very specific to its people, and easily recognisable by other Arabic-speaking bodies, my history and my heritage is therefore evident in every utterance that I make.
The project ‘On Behalf of the Voice’ therefore specifically explores this nuance. I aim to understand the dialect's variations and resolutions in relation to speech-operated softwares that act within the Palestinian/Israeli context. Projecting this through the lens of the people of East Jerusalem, 'On Behalf of the Voice' is presented as a story.
Due to borders, papers, and politics, my practice intends to understand the current sociopolitical and digital landscape that acts on the bodies of East Jerusalemites, without being able to visit it. Therefore, through the aid of testimonies, photographs, videos, news articles and mapping, the project takes on a multi-scalar and multi-media approach.
Through storytelling, the three films use the voice in two distinctive ways: as a testimonial to the current oppressions, and as a dialogue that proposes language as a form of resistance.
I hope to continue learning, researching and exploring the beauty and nuance within specific dialects and languages - understanding their role in relation to the body, and investigating them in parallel to political, biological and digital contexts.
Infrastructures of Control — The surveillance infrastructures that act on the body of an East Jerusalemite range from the territory down to the dividual.
Proposed Dialectal Shifts — The alphabetical order is shifted to a new phonetical order - where you train your body to speak in relation to the geographic location that you live in, work in, shop in, or move through.
Within this dividuation, the focus lies on the analysis of the voice, speech and language. A delicate and nuanced relationship between bodies and the city, that is completely compromised. Speech operated softwares, although extremely advanced, remain deeply flawed due to the complexity of the Arabic language and its dialects, causing great repercussions when used in deeply multilingual and surveilled societies: such as the population of East Jerusalem.
These glitches and mistranslations lead to the suspension of the Palestinian body within space and time: from interrogations, detainments, to house-arrest and imprisonment, completing the infrastructure of control. Furthermore, the enforcement of barrier walls, checkpoints, back roads, and slower data coverage turn a ten minute journey into a two hour trail. Here, time itself is held hostage, stretching distances and isolating locations, creating an entire population with mobility disabilities.
‘On Behalf of the Voice’ is therefore a story that follows two dividuated bodies as they navigate through the city with their tongues.
‘On Behalf of the Voice’ acts as a protocol. Creating a new form of cultural practice that allows people to navigate the city of East Jerusalem without being understood. The language that we speak, and the dialects in which we speak it is a big part of the culture and identity that is being negated. These dialects retain a level of resolution that the AI software that tracks it, still does not.
The project proposes the asphyxiated body as the site of resistance. Where language becomes the form of resistance, in which the mouth acts as the architecture of resistance.
East Jerusalemites therefore train their own bodies to speak in relation to the geographic locations that they live in, work in, or move through; from the historic city center to its outskirts, from the depth of the throat to the tip of the tongue and the lips. They therefore navigate between these two spatial realms - the internal and external - through oral and urban thresholds. They are a society that act, live and belong in the city and its streets, and therefore they amalgamate into it as an undetectable glitch.
‘On Behalf of the Voice’ is consciously politicized, it is passionate, it is partisan. It aims to give rise to the discourse and practice around the documentation and portrayal of people, places, territory, time and language - while simultaneously contesting the authority of conventional cartography.
It is within the streets of the Old City of Jerusalem where the dialectal proposal takes on its own life. As seen with street culture all around the world where language is rapidly adapted - this project seeks that the streets of the city become the database for this new resistance.
This database is to remain open and incomplete. It is to be unstable, fragile, and extremely temporary - it is to be ever changing with the rapidly advancing context of digital surveillance. It acts as a conversation, not a statement.