John Bingham-Hall
×

I am a researcher, writer, and cultural organiser based in Paris and Marseille. My current work focuses on the ways how climate adaptation strategies are transforming the cultures and politics of the urban public sphere, engaging critical humanities, creative research methods, and artistic works to address sonic, choreographic, and narrative dimensions of change. I draw on a training in music and urban studies, as well as a decade of work connecting arts and urbanism with Theatrum Mundi, to explore the complex dynamics that shape public life in cities through a series of cross-cutting threads including ecology, infrastructure, sound, movement, culture, and voice.

 

I work with universities, cultural organisations, and private practices to lead learning programmes, international knowledge exchange, and collaborative, cross-disciplinary research around these approaches. See my LinkedIn or Instagram for more, or email me to contact me about working together.


Website: CC-17

←

More-than-human publics

This audio-visual essay asks what role non-human life plays in Beirut’s public realm. Observed from an outsider’s perspective, it reflects on the different ways that other life forms are both put to work and take up space in Beirut.


The materials were recorded on a walk through Gemmayzeh, Geitawi, and Qobayat during Theatrum Mundi and Recomposing the City’s 2018 research networking trip to Beirut. Though this is just one part of the city, the questions raised could apply anywhere. Inspired by the works contributed by Nathalie Harb and Nadim Mishlawi to the Acoustic Cities edition, that we first heard during the 2018 trip, I wanted to pay attention to the ways that listening to quiet sounds could make acoustic space without imposing silence on the city.

By putting noise in the background, they suggest different modes of attention. These modes of listening have wider implications. Can we think of democracy as something that allows component parts of a social system that could otherwise be drowned out to be made audible?

Results from

Presented in

Video