The Rambles of Fatigued Listening in 5¼ Movements
Published on October 19, 2022
The Rambles of Fatigued Listening in 5¼ Movements AUTHOR Suvani Suri Movement 1: The Burrow of Unsound The air smells pungent and arid. Fatigue traverses and slowly fills up the site of what once was a burrow, now turned outside-in. Heavy and dazed eyelids gaze at the last remaining parts of the immaculately constructed stone […]
Sound from the Ground: Pre-modern Sonic Practices in India
Published on October 14, 2022
Sound from the Ground: Pre-modern Sonic Practices in India AUTHOR Budhaditya Chattopadhyay A pluck of the strings in the lower registers of the Rudraveena or the Tanpura produces sounds that are as plurivocal and multi-harmonic as the sounds of natural phenomena, such as thunder or rains, or heavy wind through the fields, representing a textural […]
Ṣadā: Her-story and Echoes of Nationhood
Published on October 6, 2022
Ṣadā: Her-story and Echoes of Nationhood AUTHOR Shweta Sachdeva Jha fazā ye amn-o-amāñ kī sadā rakheñ qaa.emsuno ye farz tumhārā bhī hai hamārā bhī —Nusrat Mehdi1 To protect the peace around us forever,Listen, this is our duty, both yours and mine. This year, India completes 75 years of independence as a nation-state, while our perception […]
A Symphony Found in the Wilderness of Noise
Published on September 28, 2022
A Symphony Found in the Wilderness of Noise AUTHOR Padmanabhan “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” – Heraclitus. The first recorded sound is only 165 years old, a cacophony of echoes recorded by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville on a phonautogram. […]
Sound and Structure
Published on September 22, 2022
Sound and Structure AUTHOR Natasha Singh Wassily Kandinsky, Composition VIII, Oil on Canvas, New York, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Trains, flyovers, or roads—they all stir a dream of a musical skyline. The patterns and shapes of the old buildings and minarets, when met from a moving vehicle, create an orchestra in the theatre of […]
Sonic Subversions: People’s Music at Chennai’s Margazhi Festival
Published on September 14, 2022
Sonic Subversions: People’s Music at Chennai’s Margazhi Festival AUTHOR Krishna P Unny The rhythmic jan jan jan of the Parai drums resound through a sabha hall, one of the many elite and conservative performance venues in the heart of Chennai. The artists dance with unmatched energy, moving from corner to corner onstage, in sync. In […]
Building Bodies of Song: Community Singing and Vernacular Song Archives in a Pandemic
Published on September 7, 2022
Building Bodies of Song: Community Singing and Vernacular Song Archives in a Pandemic AUTHOR Shruthi Veena Vishwanath साखी Sakhi 8:55 AM (Everyday from 31 Mar to 6 June, 2020) Arshinagar, Gourbazar, West Bengal Machan setup in the Machan (June 2020) With a bit of acrobatics, I can manage phone, tripod, ektara, bama, ghungroos, all at […]
Birdsong, the Climate Crisis, and Sonic Ecologies of Loss
Published on August 31, 2022
Birdsong, the Climate Crisis, and Sonic Ecologies of Loss AUTHOR Piya Srinivasan Writing desks are often perched against windows, inviting us into a state of reverie from staring into an endless sky. Another element that lends an almost spiritual orientation to our thoughts is the sound of birds chirping, a sound that is taken for […]
In Search of Natural Silence
Published on August 23, 2022
In Search of Natural Silence AUTHOR Nikhil Nagaraj Let’s travel back seventy thousand years. The plains and mountains of the Indian subcontinent are overflowing with life. Two species of prehistoric giants–roof-toothed elephants and giant straight tusked elephants–, hippopotamuses, zebra-like horses, aurochs, Asiatic cheetahs, Sunderban dwarf rhinoceroses and Northern Sumatran rhinoceroses, and Shivalik horses as tall […]
Open Call | WAC Edition 5: Sound
Published on June 3, 2022
Edition 5: sonic thoughts Luigi Archetti, Detail from Songs (2018) at Serendipity Arts Festival 2018 Mural, sound installation, drawing & video Introduction “A slow but inevitable foregrounding of sound in sensorial, material, and conceptual domains over the second half of the twentieth century, has unfolded in art, literature, and the humanities, not to mention popular […]
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