Budhaditya Chattopadhyay
DISMANTLING A SOUND-WORK IN SIX EASY STEPS (2012)
6-channel sound installation
October 20th – November 16th
The installation explores the artistic process involved in a sound composition. Not
merely deconstructive in approach, the installation rather incorporates review and
recapitulation of the process of composing that uses field recording as a material.
The installation thus acts as a decomposition of the finished work in order to
question over-determination in the end product of sound-based artworks. Primarily
considering sound as an artistic material of essentially ephemeral in nature, the
installation examines the trajectory of phenomenological development the work
possibly has gone through. As methodology, it disengages the six primary layers of
field recording materials used in the work. In doing so, the installation involves the
audience to experience the work in a process-oriented way. The multi-level sound
projection unwraps the work into its source material of field recording disembodied
in their inability to translate actual location onto augmented space of the gallery,
thereby remaining as visceral audio layers disposed to the audience as a speculative
structure of the work. Rather than contributing to the tradition of process art, the
installation stems out of a necessity to analyze, articulate and describe a sound-based
artwork from a phenomenological angle. The artist’s current academic involvement
with sound here works as a catalyst keeping the installation in a discursive state.
Budhaditya Chattopadhyay biography
Born in Birbhum, India, Budhaditya Chattopadhyay studied Cinema specializing in Audiography at national film-school SRFTI in Calcutta (2003-2006), and later received Master of Arts in New Media with an emphasis in Sound Art from Aarhus University, Denmark (2007-2009). Since studying at film-school, he has been involved with sound composition primarily as response to the visual supremacy over predominantly artificial construction of sound in Cinema; consequently, his critical engagement with an autonomous auditory practice develops into a body of work that consists of sound-based new media artworks processed in dialectical opposition to cinematic sound. His works have been exhibited at a number of venues and performed widely. In 2007 he has collaborated with Rijksakademie network to produce an archive of urban audio imageries for a series of curated shows; being a SARAI fellow in 2006, he has worked on a sound art project presenting the outcome at CSDS, New Delhi. Between 2009-2010, he has received a generous grant from Prince Claus Fund to collect audiovisual materials for producing a large-scale sound and video installation. He is recipient of the prestigious Arts Scholarship in 2011 from Charles Wallace India Trust London. He has been short-listed in the PRIX Phonurgia Nova 2010, and awarded with an Honorary Mention in PRIX Ars Electronica 2011. Currently he is engaged with a practice-based PhD project researching on the inter-relationship and cross-influences between cinema, digital media and sound art.
In cooperation with:
Artists’ Association MUU http://www.muu.fi