/ Research

My research interests so far are the histories, politics, aesthetics, and materiality of sound and image, listening and looking, in relation to race, gender, class, and colonial/imperial histories.

~ Current

studying the politics of sound in the Vietnam War. (hybrid project: writing + making) (subjected to change—I want to make sure that America is at the periphery of my attention).

# sound; media; body; imperialism; weapon; ecology; music; memory

~ MA's thesis

When Objects ‘Speak’ — A Haptic Listening Experiment

the materialization of nonhuman and human objects onscreen and beyond.

Distinguished Thesis Award. (Media Studies. The New School)

Supervisor: Professor Lana Lin; Second Reader: Professor Fabiola Hanna.

(sharing upon request)

Abstract

This thesis emerges from the idea of objects, whether inanimate or animate, ‘speaking’ in nonfiction films. It is a haptic listening experiment being attentive to the audibility of objects, whether in the forms of human voices and nonvocal sounds or the hum of their imagery on the screen and their existence outside the films. The thesis examines how objects function fetishistically and uncannily in documentary and explores the conceptual and material connections between human and nonhuman objects, between objects and the objectified. Three selected films to be analyzed are Sans Soleil (Chris Marker, 1983), All That Perishes at the Edge of Land (Hira Nabi, 2019), and Ascension (Jessica Kingdon, 2021).

The thesis revolves around some central questions: (1) What and how do objects ‘speak’? & How do we listen?; (2) How are human and nonhuman objects in touch with each other on and off screen?; and (3) How could films colonize and decolonize objects?