Label: Cronica

やはりこの人物のセンス素晴らしいです!!蚤の市で入手した古いオープンリール・テープを素材とした実験録音[Elegy For Bangalore From Eye Contact With The City](アルス・エレクトロニカ表彰作品)が当店ベストセラーの一つとなっている、インド生まれのメディアアーティスト、作曲家、研究者のBudhaditya Chattopadhyay。なんとフィジカルのアルバムとしては9年振りにリリースされた[Withering Field]を入荷。急速に都市化が進む南アジアの経済特別区"SEZ"へのアンチテーゼ作であり、広範な現地のフィールドワークと現場で収集した音響要素を組み込み、環境の衰退及び自然破壊の複雑なプロセスを表現。



The current geologic era is ascribed to the Anthropocene defined by unprecedented manmade violence over earth’s ecologies and natural environments. In this era, the ecological balance and the traditional livelihood of indigenous habitats in the re-emerging economies of Global South are endangered due to a global pressure for rapid growth in technological infrastructure and industrial development, which is a modernist project. Facing an impending climate catastrophe, these tribal landscapes and indigenous habitats along with their naturalist settings are undergoing massive displacement and dispossession resulting in an estrangement and alienation of the tribal community from nature, on which their livelihood has been based. Withering Field creates a narrative auditory situation to facilitate a contemplative listening to such events of displacement and dispossession. The work is developed through extensive fieldwork and recordings made at specific sites now considered Special Economic Zones (SEZ), situated in South Asia. It aims to delineate transitions of indigenous habitats dislocated from their natural settings, forced to gearing fast towards a contemporary urbanisation. This process is rendered in the composition within a mode of criticality and questioning. The project not only intends to foster the capacity to reconnect with the tribal community, but also makes the displacement of natural landscapes and societies audible for wider public awareness. Methodology of the composition includes incorporating the sonic elements collected from the sites to create a post-immersive and augmented narrative facilitating a context-aware listening, which creates the space for in-depth reflections on the intricate processes of environmental decay and destruction of nature that deeply affect the tribal communities, along with their endangered memories and eroding cultural practices.

Budhaditya Chattopadhyay is an Indian-born media artist, composer, researcher, and writer. Incorporating diverse media, such as sound, text, and moving image, Chattopadhyay produces works for large-scale installation and live performance addressing contemporary issues of climate crisis, human intervention in the environment and ecology, urbanity, migration, race, and decolonization. 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. He lives and works in and out of Kolkata, Berlin, and The Hague.