Chaotic Magnitude

Quotation

«Like observing the global behavior of hyperchaotic analog circuits, whether from a small perspective of its myriad micro-localities or as an entire city, the sonic circuitry rather spreads open in chaotic magnitude. This is what listening to the city often feels like – a perturbation to daily existence in the form of overstimulating spectacles, dust, smog, river foam, cockroaches, teflon, asbestos, traffic, waterlogging, and dengue singing in hyperchaotic unison.»

This quote is excerpted from the liner notes to Ruhail Qaisar’s composition «Night and Silence» as a part of the virtual exhibition «Norient City Sounds: Delhi», curated and edited by Suvani Suri.

Project Assistance: Geetanjali Kalta
Graphics/Visual Design: Upendra Vaddadi, Neelansh Mittra
Audio Production: Abhishek Mathur
Video Production: Ammar

Biography

Ruhail Qaisar is a self-taught artist from the Himalayan region of Ladakh. As a musician, he explores the confines of memory, the dry rot of intergenerational trauma, and the eerie swarms of the human unconscious, incorporating vernacular concepts, poetic gestures, and improvisational chaos. His practice serves to transmit sub-zero sound-collage excavations based on real-life events and local mythos, as developed through his recollections of growing up in the frontier villages of the Ladakh region located in the high-altitude Himalayas, drones of hauntology disgracefully disturbed with spastic tremors of post-industrial delirium and cruel power-electronics. His debut full-length Fatima is out on Danse Noire. Follow him on Instagram, Facebook, X, SoundCloud, Spotify, Bandcamp, or Youtube.

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Ruhail Qaisar: «Night and Silence» (Norient)

Published on September 29, 2023

Last updated on April 03, 2024

Topics

City

Listening

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Norient City Sounds: Delhi

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In the Time of Qawwali

Quotation

by Anubhuti Sharma

«Qawwali carries within itself the memory of another city. It becomes equally ephemeral, belonging to a bygone epoch and an elsewhere place. It is the unfolding of such a memory that activates our desire for a Delhi which is not there; like the great Mughal miniaturists, these voices paint images of time with sound.»

This quote is excerpted from Anubhuti Sharma’s essay «Folds of Time: Delhi in the Memory of Qawwals». This essay is part of the virtual exhibition «Norient City Sounds: Delhi», curated and edited by Suvani Suri.

Project Assistance: Geetanjali Kalta
Graphics/Visual Design: Upendra Vaddadi, Neelansh Mittra
Audio Production: Abhishek Mathur
Video Production: Ammar

Biography

Anubhuti Sharma is an independent researcher and musician from Delhi. She completed her PhD in theater and performance studies from the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University in 2018. She worked on the music of Kumar Gandharva and interrogated the idea of knowledge and freedom in Hindustani music in the 20th century. As a practitioner, she is keenly interested in studying different forms of music and building an innovative critical pedagogy for Hindustani music.

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Anubhuti Sharma: «Folds of Time: Delhi in the Memory of Qawwalse» (Norient)

Published on September 29, 2023

Last updated on September 29, 2023

Topic

Tradition

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Norient City Sounds: Delhi

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Music Moves in Delhi

Quotation

by Sumangala Damodaran

«Delhi is a site where there was immense exposure to all kinds of musics which are associated with ‹Delhi›, but at the same time are also from all kinds of places. Delhi is a site through which music moves.»

This quote is extracted from an interview with Sumangala Damodaran by Suvani Suri. The interview is part of the virtual exhibition «Norient City Sounds: Delhi», curated and edited by Suvani Suri.

Project Assistance: Geetanjali Kalta
Graphics/Visual Design: Upendra Vaddadi, Neelansh Mittra
Audio Production: Abhishek Mathur
Video Production: Ammar

Biography

Sumangala Damodaran is an economist and a scholar of popular music studies. She is also a musician and composer who has archived and written about Indian resistance music traditions. As a development economist, her research and publications fall broadly within the rubric of industrial and labor studies, and more specifically on industrial organization, global value chains, the informal sector, labor, and migration. Apart from her academic involvements, she is also a singer and composer. Her archiving and documentation of the musical tradition of the Indian People’s Theatre Association from the 1940s and 1950s has resulted in a book titled The Radical Impulse: Music in the Tradition of the IPTA and an album titled Songs of Protest, and she has performed from the documented repertoire extensively in different parts of the country and abroad. She has also collaborated with poets and musicians from South Africa around a project titled Insurrections, which has resulted in four albums. Her recent publication Maps of Sorrow is a collaboration with poet and musician, Ari Sitas. Follow her on Instagram, Facebook, X, a href="https://soundcloud.com/sumangaladamodaran” target="_blank">SoundCloud, or LinkedIn.

Links

Sumangala Damodaran: «Tracing the Routes Through Which Music Moves» (Norient)

Published on September 29, 2023

Last updated on September 29, 2023

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Place

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Norient City Sounds: Delhi

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