Lawrence Abu Hamdan's AirPressure.info exposes Israel's ecology of fear in Lebanon

Lawrence Abu Hamdan and the work of Airpressure.info are a crucial response and resource in understanding Israeli violence on Lebanon and Lebanese airspace. They also evidence the harmony that can be created between data science and art.

By pairing irrefutable data and the emotive realities of the trauma that constant aggression from Israel in the region has produced, Lawrence Abu Hamdan has allowed his art to draw attention to the "things we might otherwise overlook."

"[AirPressure.info] has aggregated, transcribed and developed a comprehensive, searchable, and interactive database to make the Israeli illegal aerial invasions of Lebanon visible in their totality"

There is a common idea that data and emotion are removed ideals, that data is there to support emotion and emotion is often a shield to the truths that data hold.

However, in the work of AirPressure.info, Lawrence told The New Arab that this body of work "has aggregated, transcribed and developed a comprehensive, searchable, and interactive database to make the Israeli illegal aerial invasions of Lebanon visible in their totality."

Elaborating further, Lawrence said that "one can see the importance and poignance of placing both on an equal footing." Data and emotion are interlinked and when pairing each together we can “mobilise the facts” and eventually “produce and circulate knowledge broadly.”

Art in its most effective and inspiring form has the ability to show the viewer truths that other forms of expression cannot.

Be it Khadijah Saye, the British- Gambian photographer whose works now stand as a powerful reminder of the Conservative government's weaponised silence over the Grenfell fire or Steve McQueen’s seminal film Education, Art, now more than ever, creates a platform to which one can expose truths.

When The New Arab asked Lawrence about arts responsibility in this he replied, “In this unwillingness to accept the world as it is, art allows a platform for us to make its audience sensitive to politics and social issues in unconventional and surprising ways.”

In creating work with this sentiment, Lawrence Abu Hamdan in Airpressure.info and his other collaborative and solo efforts presents the audience with the unfiltered truth, which is by comparison a lot harder to find in other presentations of ‘data’ (news, social media, radio etc).

That being said Lawrence’s work often sits beside others in the region who are creating and revealing the realities there. Of these other platforms and creators in the region, namely Radio al Hara and Forensic Architecture, he says, "All the people here are all people I work closely with and respect hugely. I think we inspire, learn and validate each other in making counter-narratives from a citizen's perspective."

In this ‘fake news, ‘deep fake’ and over-edited world of modern media we currently exist in, platforms and individuals like the examples above are forging new ways of divulging truth globally. Be it through art or any other medium these alternatives are fast growing and this can only be a good thing.

When viewing atrocities in the world, especially in a constantly churning media cycle it is normal that the facts wash over you, simply becoming another story unless outlets deem it exceptionally horrific, and, even then the significance of most events is often missed.

Lawrence Abu Hamdan as an artist presents the totality, or reality, of the subject he has chosen to research and through an artistic lens leaves no room for misinterpretation.

This means that the work carries a contextual significance too, meaning that it can, in fact, take on significance as a  more instinctively artistic body of work or in fact a historical narrative.

"It's always been important for me that the claims that are generated out of my work can work across disciplines and forums," Lawrence added.

From law courts to advocacy and news media to the art biennial. Each one of these spaces offers a different resolution to dive into the work. Some of these spaces are more geared to create visceral feelings and zoomed out historical context while others are more able to mobilise the facts and produce and circulate knowledge broadly.

It is important then to note that these two sides, artistic and data, support each other challenging each’s existence and thus creating a more striking and more complete body of work.

Lawrence Abu Hamdan also creates emotional connections by showing facts: "22111 Israeli military aircraft have violated Lebanese airspace over the last 15 years" heads the homepage of the website.

There is no ignoring the facts and in doing this, similarly to those in Lebanon, we find the truth of the matter unavoidable.

For 15 years a total of 8.5 of those years the airspace about Lebanon has been filled with the Israeli army and their aircraft.  

"While the sound of each of these violations is short-lived and no two residents could hear it in the same way or at the same time, I want to present these violations as an accumulated event, one long crime," states Lawrence highlighting in his work the necessity for clarity when observing the crimes of Israel, not a collection of singular crimes but instead a continual barrage of noise, violence and oppression.

By creating, compiling and presenting this data Lawrence hopes that "it can be a resource for anyone who wants to understand these violations, not as simply individual acts of the violation of sovereignty but to see it as a protracted military strategy to collectively punish all of Lebanon's residents."

The sheer weight of his work and the stark reality of how much of the last 15 years for Lebanese and Palestinians have been invaded by the threat of Israeli violence leads to unavoidable truths. For example, those that are victims of these acts have been victims of them for a long time and it has been inescapable.

The presentation we see of random acts of violence on the people of Palestine should be challenged too, by the evidence presented by Lawrence Abu Hamdan and his peers in other bodies of work these are calculated, consistent and strategic crimes "by arriving at 8.5 years total flight time (over the last 15 years) I want people to see that the land in Palestine and the air above Lebanon form a contiguous space of occupation and oppression."

Rudi Minto de Wijs is a writer and curator based in South London. They have a vested interest in post-colonial histories both through their practice and also their background, as a child of immigrants to England.

Follow them on Twitter: @Rudi_MD