Lanterns at Guantánamo (2018)

In April 2015, Jordan Scott was granted access to the Guantánamo Bay Detention Center, a visit which lasted five days. At Guantánamo he was allowed to take photographs and notes, as well as capture field recordings, while under constant supervision. His attention focused on the facility’s library, collection of detainee art, and surrounding landscape. All Scott’s material was subject to military censorship during daily Operational Security meetings, except for his poetry and field recordings, which escaped scrutiny entirely. In addition to discussing paintings located in the detainee art gallery at Guantánamo Bay, and his engagement with the directionality of light and the ethics of witnessing, Lanterns at Guantánamo, explores connections between redaction and ambient sound; between the act of listening and the act of writing; and between interrogation and dysfluency, to examine the possibility of listening to redaction. Is it possible to access or listen to a system of state produced dysfluency, silence, and absence?

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Lanterns at Guantánamo Lecture