KHOJ INTERNATIONAL SOUND RESIDENCY
(NOV 1- 30th, 2006)
'Sound art' has emerged as a media that challenges the defined categories of sound /art /visual art /music /science /engineering. Creative experiments with sound play on the fringes of our often-unconscious aural experience in spaces.
The four-week intensive KHOJ International Sound Residency between Nov 10 to 30, 06 is focused at exploring the nexus between technology, sound-scapes and creativity.
Sonic practitioners of divergent sensibilities, and different takes on sound are being invited and through the month will explore their work and the different sonic possibilities in India.
PARTICIPANT Artists ::::>
Michael Northam ( Shruti Baba ) - USA + Slovenial
His work is the continuation of more than 15 years active art-life-travel which has brought him to visit, work with, and learn from over 90 artists from over 50 locations in 25 countries. Currently using specially prepared instruments such as the Magnetic Table Harp as well as computer processing, prepared recordings (such as frying potatoes, roasting seeds and walks/climbing through various plants) and a range of sounding objects Michael explores the no-man's land between improvisation and acousmatic composition.
Sophea Lerner – Australia
Sophea Lerner is an australian sonic media artist and broadcaster currently working between Australia, Finland, and India. Her work brings together experience in group devised physical performance with 15 years of experimental radio and new media art into a collaborative art practice, which explores mediated temporal experience. Lerner's radio making encompasses intricately composed radiophonic projects as well as engineering and production and collectively devised, rapidly executed semi-improvised live broadcasts. Community and creative networks are integral to collaborative aspects of her practice.
Alexis Bhagat - USA /India
Alexis Bhagat is a sound-artist from New York and co-editor of SOUND GENERATION, a collage of interviews with 21 contemporary sound artists, forthcoming from Autonomedia.
Masta Justy - Chennai (India)
Jatin Vidyarthi a.k.a. masta' justy -DJ / producer and musical explorer- makes electronic music in a wide variety of styles - break-beat, ambient electronica, techno, hip hop, digital glitch, drone sound, dub and house. As one of the first DJ / producers to pump the underground music scene in India, Masta Justy experiments with novel, complexly textured sounds that evolve through Indian classical music, ambient electronica and Tamil film soundtracks from the 70’s and 80’s. Masta Justy’s soundcsapes encourage you to pay attention to how you listen, and to experiment with new ways of listening.
Cynthia Zaven - Lebanon
Cynthia Zaven is a pianist, composer and installation artist living and working in Lebanon. Zaven has composed music for internationally touring film since 1993 including, The Last Man by Ghassan Salhab (2005), 9 Years Later (2004) a short experimental film by Dima el-Horr, Van Express (2004) by Elie Khalifé and Noble Sacrifice, a documentary film by Vatché Boulghourjian. She also composed music for theater and video installations that toured among other festivals the Bilbao Theater Festival in Spain, the Zuercher Teaterspektakel in Zurich and performed live at the Klangturm (Sound Tower) with Andres Bosshard, live electronics.
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counmasta justy report of khoj sound art residency 2006
I was exited when I was chosen for the residency and had a few goals that I wanted to see through
1. Meeting other people involved in sound art and to interact with them.
2. To produce some sound art material or album.
So basically i wanted to collaborate with someone on a sound art project and make an album by the end of the residency and hang with the artists and Delhi atmosphere.
The residency went off well with me and another artist Micheal Northam hitting it off on day one.
We started to record all sorts of sounds from our environment using various mixing techniques
and hard disk recording of sounds.. Then we sorted out various layers of sound that go together.
So first 2 weeks was for intense recording from me playing on a mixie container to long durations of shruti box sessions. To lovely nature recordings. Then 2 weeks of sorting the sounds and putting then together in logic audio software.Building layers and layers of sound and adding filters, eq and distortion etc and a whole host of plug ins.
Here we started editing what we wanted and didn’t want and what makes sense to both of us. Last week was for mastering and checking for mistakes. Also making the cd cover which included the colour of the chai shop we went to every day and the picture of the place. The amazing thing was that it was a true collaboration. Only when both of us agreed on something it stayed.
The overall vibe of the residency was great. Just the right thing for a music starved nation like ours. It helped me in many ways to develop as an artist. khoj is happening.
The following were the goals set and completed.
1. To be able to interact with other artists related to sound art.
2. To make my second album with Michael. Which I adore.
3. To learn many new techniques of recording and tweaking environmental sounds..
4. Using live musical and non musical techniques and applying it to sound art.
The khoj team was very supportive and helpful.
No, I did not have any issues or difficulties during the residency.All was good and I think it must continue in the same fashion.
Future plans is to be able to go for more residencies. And to start an experimental sound studio with khoj.
Cynthia Zaven's Report
Being asked to participate in a sound residency in New Delhi was incredibly inspiring. India had always been one of the most appealing destinations to me, and to a musician, a one-month sound residency wouldn’t have been a more appropriate opportunity. I took off leaving behind my teaching schedule, my studio and my piano, eager to indulge my senses with new inspirational elements. When I travel, a lot of my production is site specific as I try to get away as much as possible from my usual daily tools. Little did I know that I would spend my time looking for a piano; As if going all the way to India had made me miss the one thing that I’m bound to leave behind each time.Looking for a proper piano to rent in New Delhi was like looking for a sitar in Beirut: very challenging to say the least. But then this is India, and in India crazy things do happen. Through Hemant from Khoj I met the incredible Rabiya Jayaram. We had a brief talk about my work and a few days later, I heard that she was simply offering her piano. It was beyond my expectations. Beautiful, old and out of tune, the instrument was perfect for the performance I had in mind. New Delhi is one of those places where anything is possible, where nature and men intertwine, where colours and sounds overwhelm senses on a daily base; a city with a heart that is so big and loud it could contain anything; Why not a piano on the back of a truck playing with the traffic? One day before my performance a young lebanese minister was assassinated in Beirut; it was part of
the long parade of political assassinations that had started with Hariri in Feb 2005. I decided not to tune the piano. It suited perfectly with the chaos of the city I was in (Delhi) and the city I was from (Beirut). A different chaos, but chaos nevertheless. I had taken the piano out of its normal 'habitat', therefore de-contextualizing an ordinary setting, and was using it to interact with a city that was not mine, in a language I knew best (music). We drove around the
busy roads of Delhi with me sitting in the back improvising on the piano, challenging the
instrument to connect with the urban environment, almost like trying to fit in a place I didn’t
belong to. Some drivers would beep back, some would just stare in awe thinking it was a movie that
was being shot. Feeling the instrument turn into a purely sonic interface to communicate with
cars, rikshaws and trucks was both an intense and fun experiment. Thanks to the super Khoj team
who filmed and Michael Northam who recorded the sound, I had the material I needed to work on the
sound and video installation for the Open Day. And there it was, my "Untuned Piano Concerto with
Delhi Traffic Orchestra" screened on a wall with a rikshaw inside the venue. Speakers on each side
of the screen would be playing the traffic track. Visitors would sit inside the rikshaw to hear
the edited piano track coming out from the small speakers I had installed in the back and the
front of the vehicle. It was messier than I thought as I had imagined the whole setting to be
indoors, but the rikshaw couldn't fit through the door. Messy, chaotic and noisy, like the
performance itself, and definitely an experience I will not forget.
This residency was beneficial to me on several aspects. It gave me the opportunity to step outside
my world, meet and share thoughts with Sophea, Lex, Michael and Justy, as well as Emanuel, get
acquainted with Delhi's vibrant artistic organization Khoj, the wonder girls Aastha and Rohini,
the fabulous Pooja Sood with the fabulous laugh, Hemant (“Ask Hemant!”) the wizard of khoj who had
all the answers, and Surabi, the last minute angel who worked her magic with the editing of the
film.
It also made my return to Lebanon much easier; The country’s turmoil had stopped being
inspirational since the July 2006 war. Back from India, I stayed completely disconnected from the
local news for a while, and couldn’t help wondering why people always fled to the west instead of
the east in search of a “better life”.
Sonic Session 1: 10th Nov, 6:00 PM >>>
The artists in residence will present their work to an audience of peers, students, public etc.
Sonic Session 2 : 15th Nov, 6:00 PM>>>
An evening of sound curated by the artists-in-residence
which will complicate the neat categories of sound / music/ engineering.
Sonic Session 3 : 20th november, 6:00 PM>>>
Sound projects of + Talk by Emmanuele Madan
Emmanuel Madan is a sound artist based in Montreal. For his talk at
Khoj, he will trace his past activities which have centered around
the reclamation and subversion and transformation of found sonic
environments, attempting to regain a sense of agency and ownership
within spaces which are foreign or hostile.
The projects he will present and discuss are:
Symphony for dot matrix printers - http://www.theuser.org
Silophone - http://www.silophone.net
both of these are works created by the artist collective [The User]
which Madan co-founded with Thomas McIntosh in 1998.
Listening Lounge @ Sarai : 5:30 P.M., Friday, 24 November 2006>>>
Artists Presentations @ Interface Zone, Sarai-CSDS