What Happens When We Listen To The Soundscape Of War?


Liturgy of Anti-Tank Obstacles (Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk, 2022), a short film documenting the lives of a group of sculptors in Ukraine after the Russian invasion, begins with a hymn sung by a church choir as the camera pans across the ruins near Lviv. While the operatic psalm continues, the soundscape materialises intricately—we hear the footsteps of a soldier patrolling and alongside him, the rapacious breathing of a military dog, the siren of an ambulance nearby, the tyres of a few cars speedily hum on the road, and finally, inside the artists’s workshop, a radio informs of the lack of resources for those defending Mariupol. The radio never stops talking, and the sculptors themselves utter no words, but sounds made by their tools and machines — drills, brushes, scalpels, chisels, knives, concrete mixer—pervade the screen. These piercing, squalling, caterwauling mechanical sounds slither down our skin, and our hearts palpitate uncontrollably. One thinks if collective pain could be vocalised, this is how it would feel. And it would be so damaging to our world that it would destroy hearing altogether. Just then, the prayer song resurfaces in the film.



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