“A Cinder Block Falling on Concrete” consists of sounds and stories from Lawrence Abu Hamdan’s Earwitness Inventory, a personal library of sound effects related to the testimony of earwitnesses in criminal investigations. The objects in Earwitness Inventory are derived from interviews that Abu Hamdan has conducted with earwitnesses, as part of his work as a “private ear,” as well as transcripts from trials across the globe. (Multiple entries concern the reconstruction of Syria’s Saydnaya prison and the experiences of detainees, which Abu Hamdan undertook with the London-based research agency Forensic Architecture and Amnesty International from 2015 to 2017.) The library ...

“How do fictions give rise to nations and nationalities? How do they come to be understood as real and fundamental to identity?” An essay on fictional homelands, Potemkin nations, and wonders of the industrial world.

“How could my grandmother have made millions from the antiquated traditions and ridiculous superstitions that I’d been so desperate to abandon?” An essay on the monetization of traditional Chinese medicine and failed promises of diaspora. “Aconite, My Roots,” by Henry Zhang is part of Resentment, the twenty-fifth issue of Triple Canopy, that is devoted to reclaiming—if not recuperating—resentment, especially as harbored by those who are used to fits of anger and bitterness being indicted as unproductive, petty, selfish, even pathological.

The Amme Talks is a conversation between poet and machine. In 2003, poet Ulf Stolterfoht and a chatbot named Amme (which means “wet nurse” in German) met in Berlin. For one week, Stolterfoht interrogated Amme: not just a chatbot, actually, but a steel-and-glass construction with a computer interface, which is connected to a glass of milk, a robotic arm that tips over the glass, and a tube that releases water, as if urinating. Stolterfoht asked Amme—the creation of artist Peter Dittmer—about the nature of authorship and the agency of language; he intended to turn the answers into an essay on poetics. ...

Nikita Gale and Alexander Provan are joined by Derica Shields, a writer, researcher, and cultural worker living in London. She speaks about her book-length oral history of Black experiences of the welfare state, “A Heavy Nonpresence,” and the value of listening to Black peoples’ accounts and analyses of their own lives. Shields reflects on her effort to share the stories of Black people who are mistreated and monitored by the state, while also being made to feel that they should be grateful for receiving the assistance to which they’re entitled. Her work shows how, in Britain, liberal nostalgia for the ...

“Now we have to learn to listen to the speechless ruins.” A meditation on Black silence.

Nikita Gale and Alexander Provan are joined by Tashi Wada, a Los Angeles-based composer and performer. Wada presents Table of Visions, a composition for a “high-resolution player piano” commissioned by Triple Canopy, and asks how we discern between human expression and technical perfection, how we listen to virtuosos and machines. With Gale and Provan, Wada discusses the pandemic-era vogue for liveness at home, technologies that claim to capture the souls of performers, and music that prompts listeners to discern between the sounds of machines and humans. They listen to Conlon Nancarrow, Glenn Gould, Perry Como, advertisements for hi-fi systems, the ...

“The Does leveled a challenge: if you can’t afford Avon, move.” A contemporary witch hunt in a picturesque New England town, amid faux colonials and foreclosures. “The Devil in Connecticut” by Jacqueline Feldman is part of Resentment, the twenty-fifth issue of Triple Canopy, that is devoted to reclaiming—if not recuperating—resentment, especially as harbored by those who are used to fits of anger and bitterness being indicted as unproductive, petty, selfish, even pathological.

“Which is real, Yazygia or France, and to which of them are you lying?” A fiction about an amnesiac who must choose between two nations, two languages, two identities. Translated by Daria Chernysheva and excerpted from the eponymous novel, which was published in French in 2016.

“I came to think of foreignness as a source of fellow feeling, even freedom, and as an antidote to the brutish nationalism of my grandfather, which allowed for equality only among soldiers.” An essay on the inheritance of fascism and the trials of becoming a “new man,” whether through violent subordination, personal reckoning, or political rebranding.

“A fence’s integrity rests on its ability to enclose what one is unwilling or unable to offer.” Views from a performance of black fatherhood. “Fences” by Saretta Morgan is part of Resentment, the twenty-fifth issue of Triple Canopy, that is devoted to reclaiming—if not recuperating—resentment, especially as harbored by those who are used to fits of anger and bitterness being indicted as unproductive, petty, selfish, even pathological.

“I thought we’d wake the snipers / Thought we’d wake the birds / I thought we’d wake Allah himself and he’d come down to dance / Oh man, he did, he did, he did….” A suite of songs about a Syrian sculptor who carves stone, takes up arms, dances in the ruins of Homs, confesses on camera, and seeks official status, performed by Aliana de la Guardia and Ganavya Doraiswamy.