Overtoon – Platform for Sound Practioners
presents

Instead of “sound art,” say: abrasion, a dirge,
willed from the other side of a leaky room,
undisciplined, celebrative, dangerous, always
emerging.
An 8-part Podcast by Bill Dietz
In conversation with Budhaditya Chattopadhyay, Nikita Gale, Jennie C. Jones,
Aurélie Nyirabikali Lierman, Benjamin Piekut, Marina Rosenfeld, Lauren Tosswill,& Hong-Kai Wang
https://overtoon.org/podcasts/instead-of-sound-art-say/

Episode 02: Budhaditya Chattopadhyay
Released on February 22nd, 2024

Audio TranscriptAudio Intro[Sounds of a cassette tape mechanism and tape hiss, followed by voices of all eightparticipants in the series uttering variations on the word “sound” and “sound art.”
More cassette tape sounds, followed by the voices of all eight participants
simultaneously saying the word “SOUND” in a loop. More cassette tape sounds,
followed by “male” and “female” computer voices read the complete title of theseries (“Instead of “sound art,” say: abrasion, a dirge, willed from the other side of aleaky room, undisciplined, celebrative, dangerous, always emerging.”) and the
Episode Number. Cassette tape sounds cut out.]

Conversation[Throughout the conversation there is series of unpredictably and frequently
shifting virtual audio backgrounds – atmospheres recorded by Bill Dietz & Bryce
Hackford including children playing outdoors, howling wind, a public bus trip, rain
and thunder, nature sounds with a distant saxophone, a quiet field, electrical buzz,
and an outdoor scene populated by cicadas.]Bill Dietz:

Where I found myself starting a few days ago in the very firstrecording was with something that I think we touched on inemail already, which is not speaking about sound art in some
generalized, vague way, but rather starting from a very
provincialized notion of sound art. That sound art is a thingthat comes from a particular geopolitical place at a particulartime in the late '70s in New York, and Europe, and places likethis. And I think the other thing, the other thought that I had
is that if, at the time, when the term itself is fixing andbecoming codified, it was meant to specify something, it's alsoof course come to exclude a lot and to limit. And so I guess
I'm just really curious about your relationship with thatparticular history, or maybe even as a practitioner, as an artist,
if you readily even call your work sound art.

Budhaditya Chattopadhyay: I never call my work sound art. Yeah. I mean, for me, sound art
as a coinage doesn't exist. Because the way I grew up, soundwas everywhere. Sound was embedded in everyday practice.
And often, that manifested in creative expressions, different
ways of voicing, singing, addressing the public, different objects
that are part of everyday life. And in that everyday
embeddedness of sound, I found moments of rapture,
moments of epiphany or transcendence. Just take the example

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of Dhrupad performances, because my family were trained in
Dhrupad. It's an ancient form of performance in South Asia.
My mother was a Dhrupad singer...or later, Rabindra Sangeet
singer, so I grew up with music and the kind of innovation one
can do in the voice. That is also artistic expression, right?
Aesthetic expression. So sound as an artistic expression, acreative means to express yourself, an aesthetic experience, athoughtful critical engagement with the world, these are all
around me such that I never thought of taking sound out ofcontext and posing as an art object separately.
Bill Dietz:

No, that's so great. I mean, from that much more expansive
appreciation of sonic aesthetic experience, how do you relate
to this formal Euro-American sound art tradition? Is it actuallythat relevant for you? Is it something that you draw on? Or is
it something that you're maybe almost incorrectly lumped inwith?

Budhaditya Chattopadhyay: Yeah. Growing up, also in late boyhood or early youth, one
could encounter a multitude of different artists and their work
presented online on MySpace, later SoundCloud...when
MySpace was just beginning, when through internet and theworld wide web, we could meet so many artists online. And atthat time, I was not thinking about sound art as a coinage. I
was thinking sound practice. Practice with sound. As simple asthat. And I called myself audio practitioner. But
2012/2013,was a watershed year, when Barbara London
curated "Soundings" at MoMA and that made, as a coinage,
sound art in the foreground. It was like there was big currency
around sound art, and museums were slowly waking up tosound art, it felt like.
And then 2015, [inaudible 00:04:35], the curator of Centre
Pompidou, gave a keynote in the Media Art History Conferencein Montreal. I was there. I heard her keynote, and she
mentioned that the next 10 years will be the era of sound art,
and there will be so much funding, festivals, publications,curatorial activities around sound art. She proclaimed that theera of sound art is in front of you. That was 2015. So 2013,'15, this period of time, sound art as a coinage came to theforeground. And I was engaging with this idea, "What do I
mean by sound art when I say it? Sound art?" Because during
Soundings in MoMA, many artists worked with sonic objects,
visual objects which present sound. A visual object hiding a

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sound object behind them, or some were paintings or scores ofsound wave. So very visual in nature.
I was thinking whether this is sound art, and there is a lot of
debate. Curators, scholars were talking about it, from Seth
Kim-Cohen to Caleb Kelly to Blake Gopnik, Geeta Dayal. They
were commenting what they mean by sound art. And there isalso, on Seth Kim-Cohen's book called "Non-Cochlear Sound
Art." There was a division between sound practitioners all overthe European context or in the West, so to speak. I'll come tothat later why I call it the West, because sound art is a western
phenomenon, so to speak. It's a provincialized coinage only
known in the Western world. Outside, nobody knows whatsound art is. So it's a western phenomenon, I would say.
Western scholars started dividing, making a binary between
honk-tweeters and those who are more conceptually-oriented.
You know about this debate, right?
Bill Dietz:

Yes. Yes, for sure.

Budhaditya Chattopadhyay: Yeah. So that divided also during post-"Soundings" eradiscussions of "Soundings" as an exhibition. Artists scholars
were dissecting the exhibition. So honk-tweeters andconceptual artists with sound. Even Christian Marclay shiftedfrom being a honk-tweeter to someone who is working withvisual objects. So that shift happened because of this pressure
to be conceptual in sound art practice. I was, at that time, a
PhD student getting to know the field, trying to understand,critically engaging with sound as a phenomenon or an event or
an experience. And for me, I felt like sound is always spillingover the visual object. Sound is not framed within this visualobject, but it's, by its default way of dissemination, it's
always spilling over and making social connections reflected on
different surfaces, coming back to you, making a veryrhizomatic world, which is constantly unfolding around it.
So any museum would be absolutely freaked out...trying toframe sound art in a frame, or a little pedestal on which
artworks are presented like an sculptural object is presented ona pedestal. Can sound art be presented on a pedestal like thator within a frame? And that museum as a context of presenting
sound...I found it so transgressive because, even though you
don't respect the transgression that sound poses as an art
object, even then, handling sound in a museum, silent space

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even...we all know the white cube structure...it's suchtremendously hard work. So of course, museums still are
struggling to accommodate sound art in their architecturallimitations.
Bill Dietz:

So I'm really curious, it's such a great way of putting it, thatyou present your own coming to sound vis-a-vis this much
more broad, expansive, inclusive notion of sonic intelligence,
aesthetic experience, et cetera. Has that actually come into
conflict with presentational structures in the West? Is thatsomething that you struggle with? Is it a burden to have to try
to constantly explain this much broader perspective?

Budhaditya Chattopadhyay: Yes. The way of sound art exhibition is understood in the West,or sound art exhibitions are held starting with, let's say,"Soundings" in MoMA, I found it a little problematic.
But coming from music and, of course, not just Indian classicalmusic, Western classical music as well, my 22 years of listening
experience, from age 8 to age 30, I would say, roughly 22 years,
I only listened to music on the LPs that our family had acollection of...and then I inherited some LPs from my relatives
who would collect Vivaldi, Mozart, Beethoven, very
conventional music, Western classical music. Later, I heard
Gustav Mahler, and that completely blew my mind, growing up
early youth. Then I heard Gyorgy Ligeti in the [inaudible
00:11:21] Goethe-Institut library...I used to visit that often,
they had a huge collection of CDs. Then I started to collectCDs, cassettes, moving from cassette to CD. So that experienceof listening to classical music had, in my mind, sound as aningredient on which you build an architecture. For me, soundart, if there is any explanation what sound art means to me, isthis sonic architecture around me, which has political, social,
and temporal, as well as spatial dimensions. You are talking
about the time you're living in. You are commenting on that.
That sense of reciprocity and oral architecture was something I
imagined myself doing in the future, inspired by the masters.
And then I came to Europe to study for my Master's, and I
encountered so many artists, art organizations, went to
exhibitions...
So firstly, the first few years, I couldn't adapt myself to theexhibition of sound idea. I encountered things likeTransmediale, where there were many sound art works

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presented as part of the festival. Transmediale was my first, so
to speak, encounter with the field, the realm of sound art
exhibition, et cetera. So I was finding it troublesome: what I
encountered. Sound objects with lights coming in and sounds
coming in, how to engage with that phenomenon? How toengage with that experience? What does it mean? So, yeah.
That was a difficulty. And slowly, I accepted that presentationof sound in my cognitive universe. So, yeah.
Bill Dietz:

There's a really interesting simultaneity or dichotomy orsomething in there. Whereas on the one hand, this expansive
notion of sound that you're talking about that is contagious
and always spilling over, et cetera, that refuses to be an object,refuses to be something exhibitable in that way, which iswonderful. But on the other hand, in the West, there's thisvery intense prevailing idea of sound itself, of pure sound,which I think, in a lot of sound art discourse, has been
enforced historically.
I can give an example, which is some of the work of Maryanne
Amacher, when she would make installations, she always
wanted to have objects, and images, and videos, and things.
And they were an integral part of articulating her work exactly
as you say, as an oral architecture that is about something, thathas content. And she struggled in Europe consistently where
curators would say like, "No, no. We just want the sound. It
should be only sound." And so there's this funny stuck-inboth-directions problem there with these ways of presenting.
Whereas in the gallery, it's like the visual is emphasized
because it's the more familiar sensory mode. And on theother hand, you have this extreme purism attached to sounditself.

Budhaditya Chattopadhyay: It is something to do with, I think, sound for the sake of sound,or sound as an experience devoid of any associations around it.
This comes from perhaps recording technologies. Recording
technologies frame the way we encounter sound. Perhaps it's
something to do with the sound object, the disk or comingfrom shellac or the cylinder or later CDs, LPs. That objecthoodis embedded in the way we think about sound. And that's
also something to do with reduced listening. The way it wasunderstood by Pierre Schaeffer, that sound should be forsound's sake, only sound is important, the texture, tonality.
So these are different maybe inspirations through which thePage 6 of 10

sound object or the sound itself becomes foregrounded in the
public understanding or appreciation of sound.
Bill Dietz:

I don't know, maybe we can edit this out later if it's notinteresting or whatever, just to take a few more minutes ofyour time. But I'm curious also just about if you feel you
have a relationship to genre, to specific musical histories, likeyou mentioned Dhrupad, you mentioned very particular
musical histories, and if those... Maybe not at all in a direct
linear obvious way, but if those are still present in your own
work?

Budhaditya Chattopadhyay: In an indirect way. I think indirectly, all the experiences,including for me, the migratory experience. As an immigrantartist living in Europe for the last 13, 14 years, trying to build
my own space or where I can stand, often the ground on which
I stand constantly moves. So those moving grounds, I thinkthey inspire me to think about the sonic in a particular way.
So migratory experience is crucial. Secondly, the thoughts,aligning myself with the Non-Alignment Movement, which is adecolonial movement from 1952, 1955, the Bandung
Conference. So that lineage of aligning myself withdecolonials, anti-colonial struggle historically with the regionsof what is termed today, Global Souths. So that alignment
with the artists who are coming from the Global South orliving in diasporic situations in Europe and in the West,aligning with them, their work, their methodologies, theirapproaches, ethical, philosophical questions around soundand listening. This was something I've been very muchinspired by.
And thirdly, I would say listening to music has been a direct
and also indirect inspiration in my work. I don't know how I
can actually explain or fathom what I do and how Gyorgy
Ligeti's work inspired me, but there is a link, I still am
searching for that link. But maybe in a certain way to breakout from, so to speak, the constraint of harmony andcounterpoint, to break out with an unexpected noise. Gustav
Mahler's cowbell is so revolutionary for me because, suddenly[in Mahler's 6th Symphony], there is a cowbell, which is
unexpected. You don't anticipate in a late romantic
composition, something like a cowbell. And that dynamic
shift, that made me aware of the possibility of sound. So, yeah.

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Classical music and Dhrupad, of course, Indian classical music.
So much to learn from how temporally, spatially sound can besuspended and sound can reconstruct a sense of time andspace. But just voicing. Just voicing, nothing else. So this what
inspired American minimalist school, this minimalist focus ona particular tone like a Tanpura Drone and that sense ofsuspension in time, perhaps.
Bill Dietz:

I love so much drawing a line between decolonial methodology
and the cowbell in Mahler. It's a beautifully unexpectedconnection. And just out of curiosity, I think because I am
trying to... For myself also just in my everyday life, I findmyself more interested in or following sound phenomenon in
the world beyond the arts context. So I'm curious where, foryou, outside of formal sound art, the most interesting things
you hear are happening?

Budhaditya Chattopadhyay: Outside of the museum orBill Dietz:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. A slightly intense example, you've probably
followed in the last few weeks, the people around Forensic
Architecture, for instance, are doing some incredible audio
forensics in Gaza at the moment, which seem, in a way, somuch more urgent and vital than almost anything happening
in the museum or in art context.

Budhaditya Chattopadhyay: Yeah, Cities and Memory would do a lot of works based onstreet demonstrations across the globe. From Rojava to Hong
Kong to Beirut, they have been focused on recording orpresenting the screams on the street and demonstrations,demonstrating that sense of urgency is evident in theirpractice, I would say. They're not thinking of posing thoseworks as art objects for museums. They're thinking ofgathering...so public mobilization, activism. And so this is one
example that comes to mind. I would also say the smaller
pockets of noise musicians, they're expressing their angst
today through noise music performances across Southeast Asia
and South Asia.
I left India around 2008 to '10. And in the last 12, 13 years,
there is a sea change. There are small pockets of performers
gathering in a forest or in an outdoor situation, bringing theirPage 8 of 10

self-made, DIY synthesizers, bringing instruments together andjamming and performing, expressing themselves andcollaborating with others on a ground-up level. And this is theso-called sound scene across South Asia and more so inSoutheast Asia. You know the book by Cedrik Fermont, who isvisiting regularly, Southeast Asia, and they're unpacking thesepractices in a very underground level because there is no
institutional space to present their work. So they are doing
self-organized setups to gather and do something on the
ground. So those practices, I definitely would like to refer to in
response to your question.
Bill Dietz:

That's great. That's really great. I mean, it connects to maybe
a latter direction of questions I had which have to do with thepossibility of institutions for making sound. And there are few
in the world, and I think it's a great moment to be thinking
about what those institutions could be and what's a soundanchored institution that tries to focus on a more expansive
notion of sonic aesthetic experience could be like, or how to
do that formally, structurally, infrastructurally. And I'mcurious if you have any ideas about that. What would beneeded to make such an imaginary institution?

Budhaditya Chattopadhyay: I think an institution would do justice to sound practice ingeneral by breaking their walls. I mean, the walls are thehindrance. Institutional walls, the structure itself
metaphorically and also materially, the constraint of thearchitecture, the way institutions are built. Those are thehindrance for sound to happen or to unfold because sound isfeeling like it's contained within these four walls while sounds
are struggling to come out of it. But there is always apossibility of leakage. And if an institution nurtures thisleakage, then the sound can unfold its own possibilities
through various ways of dissemination, manifestation, different
contingent transient rhizomatic forms, sound can take in its
travels.
So an institution would do good to sound as a medium orexperience if they don't want to contain sound within itself.
So I'm just giving an example. You can think of an institution
with a roof or ceiling on your head, but you can think ofwithout having a roof, or you can consider your garden as theplace where you can perform sound, or your backyard, open

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backyard, or your window. So it's like the peripheral marginal
quality of sound, that's something you can nurture as an
institution. It's just a thought that came to my mind.
Bill Dietz:

That's excellent. I love that and I hope we can find a way toenact it maybe together. Do you have any other... I mean, I
hope that you and I will be speaking much more in the futureand such, but I think just for a very excellent small entity thatpeople can listen to, this is a very coherent, wonderfulstatement.

Budhaditya Chattopadhyay: Okay. Yeah, it was a pleasure to talk to you. I mean, yeah,questioning sound art, this question doesn't arise so much in
the discussion. It's taken for granted as sound art. Yes, this is
a form that emerged in 1970s from happenings and fluxes, and
it is imposed on other part of the globe. You need to accept it
and form your sound practice according to it under theconvention of sound art. This is a convention of sound art.
This imposition I find problematic. So raising question,dissecting the form itself formally is something very refreshing
to me. So thanks for that.

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