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LISTENING IS THE NEW RELIGION
Contemporary world is strained with intensified conflicts between nations, and within various sects and segments of people. The future human societies need to learn how to resolve conflict of interests, values and beliefs. Acceptance and tolerance are essential for the humanity to navigate the challenging times ahead, which is marked by scarcity of natural resources and an unprecedented human-made decay in the environments, leading to possible natural calamities. However, many of the practicing religions fail to provide any solution. In this context, it is the assumption of this concert series that the root of all conflicts is essentially embedded in a lack of ability to listen carefully. As philosopher Gemma Corradi Fiumara suggests, a propensity to listen to the others, without making immediate judgments, may potentially lead to bridge the troubled water of difference. The proposal for these concerts is to employ an inclusive and contemplative listening practice as a way to approach many of the contemporary crises. The idea is to consider listening as a creative act to engage with our environment, and various bodies inhabiting the environment, more compassionately. The concert series incorporates multi-channel diffusion of field recordings to suggest auditory situations for in-depth mode of listening, providing a scope for transcendental and meditative engagement with places, people and various others that exist on the social margin.
Works:
Arithmetic of Distance (2017), duration: 5 minutes
Eye Contact with the City (2010 – 2013), duration: 17 minutes
The Well Tempered City (2010 – 2014), duration: 18 minutes
Exile and Other Syndromes (2015 – 2018), duration: 22 minutes
Decomposing Landscape (2015 – 2018), duration: 35 minutes
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Budhaditya Chattopadhyay is a media artist and researcher, with a PhD in sound studies from Leiden University, The Netherlands. Focusing on sound as his primary medium, Chattopadhyay produces works for installation and live performance broadly dealing with contemporary issues of climate crisis, human intervention in the environment and ecology, race and migration. Conceptually, Chattopadhyay’s work inquires about the materiality, objecthood, site, and technological mediation of sound, and addresses the aspects of subjectivity, contemplation, mindfulness, and transcendence inherent in listening. His artistic practice intends to shift the emphasis from object to situation, and from immersion to discourse in the realm of sound and media art. Chattopadhyay’s works are published by Gruenrekorder (Germany) and Touch (UK). He has received numerous fellowships, residencies and international awards, and his works have been widely exhibited, performed or presented across the globe. His writings on various issues of sound studies regularly appear on peer-reviewed journals internationally. Prior to his PhD, Chattopadhyay has graduated from the national film school of India specializing in sound recording, and received a Master of Arts degree in new media/sound art from Aarhus University, Denmark.
