Preemptive Listening (Part 1: The Fork in the Road)

Storyline

A short 16mm film which serves as part 1 of a larger research project on sonic obedience and disobedience through the trope of the siren. It posits the siren's loud glissando wail as a conditioned and learned signal, one that can potentially be perceptually and musically rewired. For this first chapter of the project, Lebanese trumpet improviser Mazen Kerbaj has composed a new siren sound using circular breathing, alongside the actor and activist Khalid Abdalla's account of the siren as the emblematic sound of resistance, oppression, and lost futures during the Arab Spring. Shot on 16mm, the film is literally driven by its soundtrack, as the voice becomes a beacon, activating emergency rotating lights.