OTO SOUND MUSEUM

Untitled (servees) is an audio work located at Bab il Amoud (Damascus Gate) which stands at the start of the road leading to Nablus and onward to Damascus. Once a massive hub of the main regional transport network of serveses (communal taxis), it had direct links to Beirut, Amman, Baghdad, Kuwait as well as every urban Palestinian center such as Lyd, Jaffa, Ramallah, Nablus, Gaza, Ramle.

Damascus Gate was the point where servees drivers used to pick up customers by calling out the names of their various destinations. Untitled (servees) recalls that purpose and the once fluid space of movement, connection and exchange and attempts to make visible the fractures and interactions of everyday life within the disintegrating urban landscape. Calling out cities servees drivers recall their destinations. This audio work is a part of an ongoing long-term research, which explores and investigates the disappearing transportation network in Palestine and its implications on the physical and social experience of space. This is a result of the ongoing fragmentation and continued destruction of the urban landscape by the Israeli Occupation.

This audio work was a Public Sound Intervention installed at Bab il Amoud, Jerusalem in 2008 and commissioned by Al-Ma’mal Foundation, Jerusalem.