Intermedia Lab + CCRMA Colloquium | Budhaditya Chattopadhyay

The talk introduces Chattopadhyay’s two recent books: 

The Auditory Setting (2021) investigates how narrative and a sense of place are constructed in film and media arts through the reproduction and mediation of site-specific environmental sounds. Although this sonic backdrop acts as the acoustically mediated space where a story or event can take place, there has been little academic study of sound’s undervalued role in cinematic setting and production. Drawing on theories of narrative, diegesis, mimesis and presence, and following a varied number of relevant film and audio-visual works, this book is a ground-breaking exploration of human agency in mediating environmental sounds and the nature of sonic experience in the Anthropocene.

Between the Headphones (2021) is a collection of interviews, introducing leading film industry sound practitioners from the Indian subcontinent. The book examines historical developments from the advent of the talkies to present-day digital cinema productions, providing an embodied understanding of the unique Indian film sound with new perspectives on cinematic narration in the practitioner’s own words. https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-6299-8

Budhaditya Chattopadhyay is an artist, media practitioner, researcher, curator, and writer, and a professor at Critical Media Lab Basel. Incorporating diverse media, creative technologies and research, Chattopadhyay produces works for large-scale installation and live performance addressing contemporary issues of environment and ecology, migration, race and decoloniality. Chattopadhyay has received numerous residencies, fellowships, and international awards. His sound works have been widely exhibited, performed or presented across the globe, and released by Gruenrekorder (DE) and Touch (UK). Chattopadhyay has an expansive body of scholarly publications in the areas of media art history, theory and aesthetics, cinema and sound studies in leading peer-reviewed journals. He is the author of three books, The Nomadic Listener (2020), The Auditory Setting (2021), and Between the Headphones (2021). Chattopadhyay holds a PhD in Artistic Research and Sound Studies from the Faculty of Humanities, Leiden University, and an MA in New Media from the Faculty of Arts, Aarhus University.