Stay Tuned

This sound installation occupied a series of twelve cells in A Block. Inside each cell, visitors were invited to sit and listen to spoken words, poetry, and music by people who have been detained for the creative expression of their beliefs, as well as works made under conditions of incarceration. Each cell featured a different recording. The diverse selection included the Tibetan singer Lolo, who has called for his people’s independence from China; the Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot, opponents of Vladimir Putin’s government; and the Robben Island Singers, activists imprisoned during South Africa’s apartheid era.

Ai Weiwei has described the texture of the individual voice as a particularly potent vehicle for human connection and communication. Heard inside a cell, speech and singing create a powerful contrast to the isolation and enforced silence of imprisonment.

Ai Weiwei, Stay Tuned, 2014 (installation detail, A Block, Alcatraz); photo: Jan Stürmann
Ai Weiwei, Stay Tuned, 2014 (installation detail, A Block, Alcatraz); photo: Jan Stürmann
Ai Weiwei, Stay Tuned, 2014 (installation detail, A Block, Alcatraz); photo: Jan Stürmann

Installation Views

Works in the Installation

NigeriaFela Kuti (1938–1997)Sorrow Tears and Blood

The celebrated Nigerian musician Fela wrote this song following the Soweto Uprising of 1976, in which hundreds of South African students were killed. In decrying authoritarianism, the song also refers to the harassment and brutality that Fela and his family experienced at the hands of the Nigerian government. Fela was arrested on charges of currency smuggling in 1984 and served 20 months in prison.

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IranAhmad Shamlu (1925–2000)In This Dead-End Street

Shamlu was a Persian poet, writer, and journalist and an important member of the Iranian intellectual opposition under the Shah. Several of his works were banned or confiscated in the 1950s, and in 1954 he was arrested and jailed for 14 months. A strong opponent of repression and censorship, he received the Freedom of Expression Award from Human Rights Watch in 1991.

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ChinaLolo (born 1983)Raise the Tibetan Flag, Children of the Snowland

In 2012 the Tibetan singer Lolo released an album of songs calling for Tibetan unity and independence from China. He was arrested not long afterward and is believed to have been charged with “splittism,” a charge often used against ethnic minorities seeking rights; he was sentenced to six years in prison. This song from the 2012 album is a direct challenge to Chinese rule.

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SudanMahjoub Sharif (1948–2014)A Homesick Sparrow

Sudan’s “poet of the people,” Sharif was well known in the Arabic-speaking world both for his writing and for his political commitment. He was imprisoned for political reasons for the first time in 1971, and was detained many times throughout the following three decades. He composed this poem in prison in 1990 and disseminated it to others by repeating it aloud.

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ChileVíctor Jara (1932–1973)Manifesto

Jara was a Chilean singer, songwriter, guitarist, and theater director. He was also a member of the Communist Party of Chile and a prominent supporter of Salvador Allende’s Popular Unity government. Shortly after the 1973 Chilean military coup, he was arrested, tortured, and ultimately killed. His recordings were banned for many years in Chile. “Manifesto” was among the last songs Jara recorded.

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CzechoslovakiaThe Plastic People of the UniverseToxika

Formed shortly after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, the avant-garde rock group Plastic People of the Universe was a major force in the Czech underground in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1976, after the band performed at an unauthorized music festival, members Vratislav Brabenec and Ivan Jirous were convicted of “organized disturbance of the peace” and sent to prison.

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CzechoslovakiaPavel Haas (1899–1944)Study for String Orchestra (Terezín 1943)

The Czech composer Haas, who was Jewish, was sent to the Terezín (Theresienstadt) concentration camp in 1941; in 1944 he was transported to Auschwitz and killed. While he was imprisoned he wrote at least eight compositions, including this piece for string orchestra. First performed by prisoners in Terezín, it is probably Haas’s best-known work today.

United StatesMartin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968)Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence

Civil rights leader and pastor Martin Luther King, Jr. was jailed at least 30 times for his nonviolent activism. In this speech delivered at Riverside Church in New York on April 4, 1967, he delivers an impassioned call for an end to the war in Vietnam. Other prominent members of the civil rights movement condemned the speech, which became one of the most controversial of King’s career.

[…] Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government’s policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one’s own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexing as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty. But we must move on. […]

Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and dealt death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours.

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. […]

These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wounds of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. We in the West must support these revolutions. […]

We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent coannihilation. We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.

Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world. […]

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South AfricaThe Robben Island SingersWhat a System (What a Crime)

The Robben Island Singers, Muntu Nxumalo, Thembinkosi Sithole, and Grant Shezi, are former anti-apartheid fighters who were incarcerated on Robben Island, the notorious South African prison where Nelson Mandela was also detained. This song calls attention to the exploitation of black workers in African gold mines.

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IranArya Aramnejad (born 1982)Ali Barkhiz

Singer Aramnejad is best known for this song, whose title translates as “Ali, Rise.” Aramnejad wrote it in response to the Iranian government’s brutal treatment of demonstrators during protests that followed the 2009 presidential election, which was widely believed to have been rigged. The song was considered a threat to national security, and Aramnejad was detained, tortured, and eventually sentenced to a year in prison. All of his recordings were confiscated.

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ChinaLiao Yiwu (born 1958)Massacre

Liao Yiwu is a writer, musician, and poet. This poem is a memorial for the thousands of people brutalized in the Tiananmen Square massacre of June 4, 1989, when the pro-democracy movement was crushed throughout China. As a result of the poem, Liao was arrested in 1990 and given a four-year prison sentence. Most of his work has been banned in China. He now lives in Germany.

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RussiaPussy RiotVirgin Mary, Put Putin Away (Punk Prayer)

In 2012 the Russian feminist punk rock group Pussy Riot performed this song at a cathedral in Moscow in protest against Orthodox Church leaders’ support for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Three members of the group, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, were convicted of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” and sentenced to two years in prison; Samutsevich’s sentence was suspended.

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Ai WeiweiChinese, born 1957

Ai Weiwei is a Beijing-based artist and activist whose work encompasses sculpture, installation, photography, film, architecture, curation, and social criticism. His art has been featured in major solo exhibitions including Ai Weiwei at Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, UK, 2014; Evidence at the Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, 2014; and Ai Weiwei: According to What?, which was organized by the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, in 2009, and traveled to North American venues in 2013–14. Ai collaborated with architects Herzog & de Meuron on the “bird’s nest” stadium for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including Amnesty International’s Ambassador of Conscience Award in 2015.

Ai Weiwei Website

Top: Ai Weiwei, Stay Tuned, 2014 (installation detail, A Block, Alcatraz); photo: Jan Stürmann Installation sound design by Earwax Productions. Stay Tuned is generously supported by Meyer Sound.

@Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz is presented by the FOR-SITE Foundation in partnership with the National Park Service and the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy.

Support for the exhibition is provided by Roger Evans and Aey Phanachet, the Fisher family, and other generous donors.