Sound artist and researcher Budhaditya Chattopadhyay’s talk and listening session focuses on the decolonisation of sound objects and the sonic cultures of the Global South.
The “sound objects” under consideration in this talk include recording media such as early shellac discs and wax cylinders: tools of Western modernity that were distributed and employed throughout the Global South as components of imperial and colonial invasion and plunder. "Recording”, in the sense of fixing sound via these technologies, was both an alien and mutating idea for many of the Global South’s established sound cultures. The imperialist “mapping” of those cultures – for example, the recording of the "timeless" improvisations of Indian and many other Eastern musical traditions – proved both intrusive and objectifying, cutting across cultural and philosophical traditions that in some cases were millennia-long. In Indian linguistics and aesthetics, the potential construction of multiple meanings from single sounds and speech acts – the transmission of immeasurable poetic expressions, and the explosion of affective resonance through mindful listening – are theorised within the longstanding concept of sphoṭa. Little wonder, therefore, that the colonial pursuit of sound recording onto two-minute-long cylinders or shellac discs was met with resistance by classical musicians.
Drawing on his current postdoctoral project (Connecting Resonances), Chattopadhyay will discuss the politics of ethnographic field recording. This event will include a critical listening to recordings taken during expeditions in the Global South post-1900, and look at strategies employed by musicians and others to evade “capture” by colonial technologies.
This event will take place online in English and is free to join. It part of a series addressing issues relating to sound and ecology. It takes place alongside PRAKSIS’s seventeenth residency, Climata - Capturing change at a time of ecological crisis. Climata has been developed with sound artist Lasse-Marc Riek and Goethe-Institut Norwegen. It includes collaborations with Norsk Teknisk museum, Gruenrekorder, and Notam. It is also part of the programme of the klima2+ exhibition at Teknisk museum. klima2+ addresses climate change by bringing together scientific perspectives, insights from the critical humanities and art, as well as inviting action through art interventions, practical workshops and activism.
This event will be held online via the Zoom communications platform from 17.30 CEST. It will be recorded. Recording will focus on the speaker, but if you prefer not to be recorded you are welcome to join with your camera and microphone off.
ABOUT BUDHADITYA CHATTOPADHYAY
Budhaditya Chattopadhyay is an Indian-born media artist, researcher and writer. Deploying diverse media, including sound, text, and moving image, Chattopadhyay’s large-scale installation and live performances address contemporary issues of climate crisis, human intervention in the environment, urbanity, migration, race, and decolonisation. A recipient of numerous fellowships, residencies and awards, Chattopadhyay has contributed to the programmes of Transmediale, Berlin, ZKM Karlsruhe and Darmstadt Hochschule, among many other internationally recognized institutions. His sound-works have been published by Gruenrekorder (Germany) and Touch (UK); and his writings on sound and listening have appeared in publications such as MIT Press’s Leonardo Music Journal and the University of Leiden’s Journal of Sonic Studies. His books The Nomadic Listener and The Auditory Setting are forthcoming this year respectively from Berlin’s Errant Bodies Press and the Edinburgh University Press. Chattopadhyay holds a PhD in sound studies from the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts, Leiden University and an MA in new media from Aarhus University, and recently completed a one-year Mellon postdoctoral fellowship at the American University of Beirut. Website: http://budhaditya.org/
