About

Budhaditya

Budhaditya Chattopadhyay is a contemporary artist, researcher, writer and theorist. Working across diverse media, such as sound, text, and moving image, and incorporating various technologies such as sensors, AI, and Machine Learning, Chattopadhyay produces large-scale installations and live performances addressing urgent issues such as the climate crisis, human intervention in the environment and ecology, migration, race, and decoloniality. Conceptually, Chattopadhyay’s work inquires into the materiality, objecthood, site, and technological mediation of lived experiences and considers the aspects of subjectivity, contemplation, mindfulness, and transcendence inherent in listening. His artistic practice is deeply committed to social and environmental activism and intends to shift the emphasis from object to situation and from immersion to discourse in the realm of sound and media arts as a necessary actant. As an artist, Chattopadhyay is an attentive and (com)passionate listener of the world around him, endeavoring to connect the disparate resonances across the borders and cultures, past and present, tradition and hyper-modernity, through an activating practice advocating for reciprocity and equality in the contemporary societies. His works have been published by Gruenrekorder (Germany) and Touch (UK). Chattopadhyay is a Charles Wallace scholar, Prince Claus grantee, and Falling Walls fellow, and has received several residencies and international awards, notably a First Prize in the Computer and Electronic Music category of Computer Space Festival, Sofia, and an Honorary Mention at PRIX Ars Electronica, Linz. Appearing in numerous exhibitions, concerts, conferences, and festivals, Chattopadhyay’s media artworks have been exhibited, performed, or presented, among others, in Transmediale, Berlin; Experimenta Biennale, Grenoble; Screen City Biennale, Norway; ZKM Karlsruhe; TodaysArt Festival, The Hague; Donau Festival, Krems; Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellín; IEM, Kunstuniversität Graz; Beast Festival Birmingham; Sonorities Festival, Belfast; RE-NEW Digital Arts Festival, Copenhagen; RRS Museo Reina Sofía Radio, Madrid; Q-O2, Brussels; Sluice Screens, London; Akusmata, Helsinki; Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen; CTM, Berlin; Errant Bodies, Berlin; CPH PIX, Copenhagen; Hochschule Darmstadt; SoundFjord, London; Deutschlandradio, Berlin; Institut für Neue Medien, Frankfurt; Quartair Contemporary Art Initiatives, The Hague; and Nikolaj Kunsthal, Copenhagen. Chattopadhyay has an expansive body of scholarly publications in the areas of media aesthetics, sound art, contemporary media, cinema and sound studies in leading peer-reviewed journals, most notably in Organised Sound, Journal of Sonic Studies, The New Soundtrack, SoundEffects, Ear │ Wave │ Event, VIS – Nordic Journal for Artistic Research, [in]Transition, Ruukku: Studies in Artistic ResearchLeonardo Music JournalMusic, Sound, and the Moving Image (MSMI), Journal for Artistic Research (JAR), and Leonardo Electronic Almanac. He has authored five books: The Nomadic Listener (2020), Between the Headphones (2021), The Auditory Setting (2021), Sound Practices in the Global South (2022), and Sound in Indian Film and Audiovisual Media (2023).

Chattopadhyay has graduated from SRFTI, India’s national film school, completed a Master of Arts degree in New Media at Aarhus University, Denmark, and received a Ph.D. in Artistic Research and Sound Studies from Leiden University, The Netherlands.

Chattopadhyay is a visiting professor at Critical Media Lab, Basel, Switzerland.

EDUCATION

PhD in Artistic Research and Sound Studies, The Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA), Faculty of Humanities, Leiden University, The Netherlands, 2017.

Master of Arts in Media, Communication and Cultural Studies (New Media/Audiovisual Arts), Faculty of Arts, Aarhus University, Denmark, 2010

Diploma in Cinematic Arts (Sound), Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute, India, 2007

POSITIONS 

Visiting Professor, Critical Media Lab, Institute Experimental Design and Media Cultures (IXDM), Academy of Art and Design, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW), Basel, 2022 – 2025.

Curator, The Listening Biennial, Berlin, 2021.

AMI Fellow, Google Arts and Culture, 2019 – 2020.

Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for Arts and Humanities, American University of Beirut, 2018 – 2019.

Guest Researcher, Department of Communication and Arts, Roskilde University, 2016 – 17

Research Fellow, SRFTI, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Govt. of India. 2016 – 17

Artist in Residence/Senior Scientist, Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics – IEM, University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, Austria. 2015 – 2016

Artist in Residence, ICST, Zurich University of the Arts, Zurich, Switzerland. 2014

PhD Fellow, Department of Media, Cognition and Communication, Faculty of Humanities, University of Copenhagen. 2011-2015

Visiting Fellow, RayFASC, University of California, Santa Cruz, US. 2012

Artist in Residence, School of Music, Bangor University, North Wales, UK. 2011

Fellow, Jaaga, Bangalore, India. 2010

Artist in Residence, BAR1, India Foundation for the Arts, Bangalore. 2010

Fellow, Sarai, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), New Delhi. 2006

AWARDS AND GRANTS

Shortlisted, CIMA Annual Awards, India, 2022.

Creative Industries Fund, The Netherlands, 2021.

First Prize, Confluence, Serendipity Arts, India, 2021.

Goethe Institute (Music Residency Grant), Munich, 2021.

Cyland Award (Shortlist), Saint Petersburg, 2020.

Artists + Machine Intelligence Grant, Google Arts And Culture, New York, 2019 – 2020.

Mobility Grant, Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF), Singapore, 2019.

Project grant, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi, India, 2019.

Research grant, International Ambiances Network, France, 2018.

Project grant, Leiden University Fund, The Netherlands, 2017.

The Dot Awards (Shortlist), New Media Writing Prize, London, 2016.

Sluice Screens Award, London, 2015.

BSA-sponsored Early-Career Award, SCSMI, London, 2015.

Computer and Electronic Music category (First Prize), Computer Space festival, Sofia, 2014.

Asian Dynamics Initiative (Research Grant), Copenhagen, 2014 & 2015.

Christian og Ottilia Brorsons Rejselegat (Research Grant), Copenhagen, 2013.

Danish Research School in Media, Communication and Journalism (FMKJ), Copenhagen, 2012.

University of Copenhagen (PhD Scholarship), Copenhagen, 2011 – 2014.

PRIX Ars Electronica (Honorary Mention), Linz, 2011.

Charles Wallace India Trust (Arts Scholarship), London, 2011.

PRIX Phonurgia Nova (Shortlist), Arles, 2010.

Prince Claus Fund (Project Development Grant), Amsterdam, 2009-2010.

CoMundus Consortium (Masters Scholarship), European Commission, 2007-2009.

Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) (Travel Grant), Berlin, 2006.

SOLO EXHIBITION

Echoing Field, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi (forthcoming 2022).

Planchette Bot, South Asia Media Art Festival (forthcoming 2021).

Dhvāni, Rewire Festival, Den Haag, Den Haag, September 2021.

Aural Drift, Tonfunktion: Festival für Gebrauchsmusik, Offenbach, June 2021.

Dhvāni (prototype), EXPERIMENTA Arts & Sciences Biennale 2020, Atelier Arts Sciences, Grenoble, France, February 2020.

Expanded Object, ACPA Exhibition Space, Leiden, September – December 2019.

Machine Poetry, Akusmata, Helsinki, August – September 2019.

Talking Frame, Foreningen for Samtidskunst, Copenhagen, April 2018.

Resonating Field, Quartair Contemporary Art Initiatives, Den Haag, November 2017.

Exile and Other Syndromes, Rogaland Kunstsenter, Stavanger, as part of the Screen City Biennial, October 2017.

Passage to the City, The Auricle Sonic Arts Gallery, Christchurch, March 2016.

Exile and Other Syndromes (beta), CUBE, IEM, Kunstuniversität Graz, January 2016.

The Well-Tempered City, RRS Museo Reina Sofía Radio, Madrid, November 2014.

The Room within a View, Widget Art Gallery (for iPhone/iPod/iPad), May – June 2013.

Dismantling a Sound-work in Six Easy Steps, Akusmata, Helsinki, October – November 2012.

GROUP EXHIBITION

Taming the Void, Uncommon Nature, Blindside, Melbourne, June – October 2019.

The Unspoken, The Ineffable, Serendipity Arts Festival, Goa, December 2018.

Echoing Field, Weltkunstzimmer, Düsseldorf, September – November 2018.

Expanded Object, ARC, The Grey Space in the Middle, Den Haag, September 2018.

Talking Frame, Resonant Worlds, ZKM Karlsruhe, September 2017.

Exile and Other Syndromes, Nacht van Kunst & Kennis, Leiden, September 2017.

Decomposing Landscape, International Image Festival/ISEA2017, Manizales, June 2017.

A Day in the Life of a Listener,  “Listenings”, Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellín, December 2015 – March 2016.

A table is a table, Nålen, Copenhagen, July 2014.

Mind Your Own Dizziness, Art Hack Day, Transmediale, Berlin. January – February 2014.

The Well-Tempered City, Spazioersetti Gallery, Udine, Italy. May 2013.

Listening and its discontents, Errant Bodies, Transmediale, Berlin. January – February 2013.

this_location, Studio 21, CIMA, Calcutta, India. April 2011.

The well-tempered Jaaga, Jaaga, Bangalore, India. December 2010.

Audible absence, Select II, Bangalore, India. October 2010.

Eye contact with the city, Rococo Art Gallery, Bangalore, India. September 2010.

Kolkata, Architecture Biennial Rotterdam. 2009

The four corners, Religare Arts Gallery, New Delhi, India. December 2008 – January 2009.

Passage, Private Flat 4.1, Firenze, Italy. 2008.

San Lorenzo, Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Firenze, Italy. 2008.

SELECTED PUBLICATION

2021. The Auditory Setting: Environmental Sounds in Film and Media Arts. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

2021. Between the Headphones: Listening to the Practitioner. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

2021. “Unrecording Nature”, in Sound, Art, and Climate Change. Helsinki: Frequency Association.

2020. The Nomadic Listener. Berlin: Errant Bodies Press.

2020. “The Sonic Drifter: A Psychogeographic Approach to Understand a Re-emerging City”. In Piga, B., Siret, D., and Thibaud, J-P. (Eds.). Experiential Walks: Experiencing, Interpreting, Representing the (Multisensory) Environment. New York: Springer.

2020. “Post-immersion: Towards a Discursive Situation in Sound Art.” RUUKKU Journal 13.

2019. “Listening in/to Exile: Migration and Media Arts.” VIS – Nordic Journal for Artistic Research 2.

2018. “Orphan Sounds: Locating historical recordings in contemporary media”, Organised Sound, Volume 23 / Issue 2, pp. 181-188, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2018.

2018. “The World Within the Home: Tracing the Sound in Satyajit Ray’s Films”, Music, Sound, and the Moving Image 11.2pp. 131 – 156, LiverpoolLiverpool University Press.

2017. “Reconstructing Atmospheres: Ambient Sound in Film and Media Production.” Communication and the Public 2/4: 352 – 364. London: SAGE Publication.

2017. “The Well-Tempered City: participation and intervention in sound art”, Leonardo Electronic Almanac Vol 21 No. 2 (Cybernetics Revisited), Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

2017. “Beyond Matter: Object-disoriented Sound Art.” Seismograf/DMT (special issue).

2017. “Hyper-listening: Praxis”. In Mateus-Berr, R., and Luise Reitstätter (eds.). Art & Design Education in Times of Change. Conversations Across Cultures, de Gruyter.

2017. “Talking Field: Listening to the Troubled Site.” Journal for Artistic Research 13.

2016. “Endnotes on the Margin of Listening”, in Dirty Ear Report #1, Berlin: Errant Bodies Press.

2016. Émergence de nouvelles conceptions sonores”, in Térésa Faucon and Amandine D’Azevedo (eds.), In/dépendances des cinémas indiens. Cartographie des formes, des genres et des régions (pp. 40 – 44), Paris: Presses Sorbonne Nouvelle.

2016. “Being There: Evocation of the Site in Contemporary Indian Cinema”, Journal of Sonic Studies 12, Leiden University Press.

2015. Auditory (Con)texts: Writing on Sound, Ear │ Wave │ Event, issue 2.

2015. The Auditory Spectacle: designing sound for the ‘dubbing era’ of Indian cinema, The New Soundtrack 5.1, pp. 55–68, Edinburgh University Press.

2014. An Elegy for the City: Composing the Urban Character, Leonardo Music Journal, Vol. 24, Nr. 12, pp. 49-51, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

2014. Sonic drifting: sound, city and psychogeography, SoundEffects vol. 3.3. special issue ‘Urban Sound’, pp. 138 – 152.

2014. Object-Disoriented Sound: Listening in the Post-Digital Condition, A Peer-reviewed Journal About, volume 3, issue 1.

2014. Budhaditya Chattopadhyay’s Object Disorientation, NY Arts Magazine, April issue.

2014. “The Invisible Sound: A study in the trajectories of sound practice in Indian films by online archival research”, IASA journal No 42, January.

2013. Auditory Situations: Notes from Nowhere, Journal of Sonic Studies 4 (Special Issue: Sonic Epistemologies).

2013. “Interview”in Cathy Lane & Angus Carlyle (eds.), In the Field: The Art of Field Recording. London: Uniformbooks.

2013. The cinematic soundscape: conceptualising the use of sound in Indian films, SoundEffects, Vol 2, No 2, pp. 65 – 78.

2012. Sonic menageries: composing the sound of place, Organised Sound, Volume 17, Issue 3, pp. 223-229, Cambridge University Press.

2009. Recording the environment: creating an archive of ambience, IASA Journal, Issue 34, December.

2007. Sound Memories: In search of lost sounds in Indian cinema, Journal of the Moving Image, issue 6, pp. 102-111, Jadavpur University Press.

SELECTED CONFERENCE PAPERS 

“Post-immersion: Towards a Discursive Situation in Media Arts.” ISEA2020, Montreal, November 2020.

“Hyper-listening: Conceptualizing Urban Media Poetics”. Methods in Artistic Research, University of Antwerp, February 2020.

“Uneasy Listening”, RE:SOUND, Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology, Aalborg, August 2019.

“AI 2.0: Artificial Idiocy and Sound (Art)”, Politics of the Machines, Beirut, May 2019.

“The Brown Canon: Non-Western Perspectives in Sound Studies”, Sonologia, São Paulo, April 2019.

“Sounding the Unsocial: A Nomadic Listener”, Affective Atmospheres, American University of Beirut, November 2018.

“Mise-en-sonore”, Space, Sound and the Improvisatory, Onassis Cultural Centre, Athens, October 2018.

“Post-­immersion: Towards a Discursive Situation in AR/VR”, GLOBAL CONTROL, the 3rd Open Fields conference, RIXC Art Science Festival, Riga, September 2018.

“Against Immersion: Towards a discursive situation in sound art”, inSonic2017: Immersive Future symposium, ZKM Karlsruhe, December 2017.

“Expanded Object: Rereading the History of Sound Art”, ISACS17, ZKM Karlsruhe. September 2017.

“Migration and Media Arts”, University of Cologne, September 2017.

“Decomposing Landscape: Hearing the Troubled Site”, ISEA2017, Manizales, June 2017.

“Making Sites Audible: Ambient Sound in Practice.” Sonologia – Out of Phase: International conference on Sound Studies, São Paulo, November 2016.

“Hyper-listening: Praxis”. InSEA Regional Conference Vienna, University of Applied Arts Vienna, September 2016.

“Beyond Matter: Object-disoriented Sound Art”, International Conference: “Sound Art Matters”, Aarhus University, June 1 – 4, 2016.

“Unwriting Sound: A Poetic Intervention”, International Conference on Artistic Research, The Royal Academy of Art
 and Royal Conservatoire, The Hague, April 2016.

“Writing on Sound/Writing with Sound”, Media Art History Re-CREATE, Montréal, November 2015.

“Audible Evidence: Recognition of place in the field recording-based sound-works”, Visible Evidence conference 21, JNU, New Delhi, India, December 2014.

“From Soundtrack to the Sound Environment: Listening in the Post-digital Cinema”, ESSA2014, Sound Studies Conference, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, June 2014.

“Auditory (Con)texts: Textualizing the Sonic Phenomena”, International conference: ‘Literature, Media, Sound’, Aarhus University, Denmark, November 2013.

“Hyper-listening: sound, contemplation and the sonic explosion”, Dirty Ear Forum, Bergen Academy of Art and Design, Norway, November 2013.

“Sonified Cinema: A study in the emergence of sound in Indian cinema”, ‘Dépendance/ Indépendance : les cinémas indiens’, Université Sorbonne nouvelle-Paris 3, Nov 2013.

“Subject-Oriented Sound Art: The Curious Case of Auto-Curating”, ISACS, ZKM Karlsruhe, Germany. August 2013.

“Post-cinematic Sound: theorizing sound in the digital realm of cinema”, PhD conference: ‘Expression, Sensation, Mediation’, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. December 2012.

“The Well Tempered City: participation and intervention in sonic art”, IMAC Conference/RE-NEW, Aalborg University, Copenhagen, Denmark. November 2012.

“Sonification of Cinema: studying the use of location sound in Indian films”, Music & The Moving Image conference, New York University, New York, USA. June 2012.

“Archive as social media lab: Creative dissemination of digital sound and audiovisual collection”, IASA conference proceedings. Frankfurt Am Main, Germany. September 2011.

SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY

2020. The Nomadic Listener, Gruenrekorder, Frankfurt AM.

2020. The Well-tempered City, Touch, London.

2017. Elements Songcycle, Cyland Audio Archive.

2016. Wandering Shadows of Sound, Impulsive Habitat, Bogotá.

2015. Decomposing Landscape, Touch, London.

2014. A Day in the Life of a Listener, Gruenrekorder, Frankfurt AM.  

2013. Elegy for Bangalore, Gruenrekorder, Frankfurt AM.

2011. Eye Contact with the City, Touch, London.

2008. Landscape in Metamorphoses, Gruenrekorder, Frankfurt AM.

2006. Benaras, Gruenrekorder, Frankfurt AM.       

2006. On the move, 33.99 Records/M12 label, Berlin.

SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY  

Echoing Field, VR – 360 degrees video with binaural audio, 2018.

Decomposing Landscape, HD, surround sound, Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin, 2017.

Talking Field, HD/ VR, multi-channel sound, 55 minutes, Sluice Screens, London, 2015.

Presence, Digital Video, 18 minutes, Le triennale, Palais De Tokyo, Paris, 2012.

in_transience, Digital Video, 24 minutes, CMCS, India/WIA, Poland, 2011.

The Remains, 16 mm, 10 minutes, SRFTI, India, 2007.

SELECTED LIVE PERFORMANCE AND BROADCAST  

La Semaine Du Son, Beirut, 2019.

Estudiofitacrepe, São Paulo, 2019.

Darb 1718, Cairo, 2019.

3ZEM, Rabat, 2019.

Irtijal | International Festival of Experimental Music in Lebanon, 2019.

Beirut Art Center, Beirut, 2018.

Music Innovation Studies Centre, LMTA, Vilnius, 2018.

Liminaria, Guardia Sanframondi, Italy, 2018.

Jardins Efémeros festival, Portugal, 2018.

Ephémère, The Hague, 2018.

documenta14 (public radio), Kassel and Berlin, 2017.

SPEKTRUM, Berlin, 2017.

Paviljonas, Vilnius, 2017

University of Applied Arts Vienna, 2017.

Alte Feuerwache, Köln, 2017.

Studio Loos, Den Haag, 2017.

Kultūros Baras Kablys, Vilnius, 2016.

Helicotrema Festival, Venice, 2016.

Q-O2, Brussels, 2016.

Vorspiel, transmediale, Berlin, 2016

CKUT 90.3 FM, Montreal, 2015

Phonophon, Institut für Neue Medien, Frankfurt AM, 2015.

SPEKTRUM, Berlin, 2015.

Donau Festival, Krems, Austria, 2015.

Sonorities Festival, Queen’s University Belfast, 2015.

TodaysArt Festival, Studio Loos, Den Haag, The Netherlands, 2014.

Nikolaj Kunsthal, Copenhagen, 2014.

Vejen Kunstmuseum, Vejen, Denmark, 2014

Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen, 2014.

Resonance104.4fm, London. 2013.

Cinemateket, Copenhagen. 2012.

Hochschule Darmstadt, Dieburg, Germany. 2012.

SOUND//SPACE, SoundFjord, London. 2012.

Klangkunst, Deutschlandradio, Berlin. 2012.

Nikolaj Kunsthal, Copenhagen, 2012.

Københavns Rådhus, Copenhagen. 2012.

Byens Lys, Niels Bohr Institutet, Copenhagen. 2012.

Radio24syv, Copenhagen. 2012.

Blipfonica, School of Music, Bangor University, North Wales. 2011.

Institut für Neue Medien, Frankfurt AM. 2011.

Center for Advanced Visualization and Interaction, Aarhus, Denmark. 2008.

Hôrbar, Hamburg. 2008.

7.stock, Dresden. 2008.

EretikArt, Firenze. 2008.

Club Transmediale, Berlin. 2008.

TEACHING, TALKS, WORKSHOP, AND LECTURES

Workshop – ‘Hyper-listening: praxis’, volume VI, Caos, Jardins Efémeros, Portugal, 2018.

Lecture, School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong, 2018.

Workshop – ‘Hyper-listening: praxis’, volume V, ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, 2017.

Workshop – ‘Hyper-listening: praxis’, volume IV, Quartair Contemporary Art Initiatives, Den Haag, 2017.

Artists’ talk, Goethe University Frankfurt, 2017.

Lecture, Leiden University, The Hague, 2017.

Artists’ talk, The Gujral Foundation, New Delhi, 2016.

Artists’ talk, Kabinetas, Kaunas, Lithuania, 2016.

Talk, Falling Walls Lab, Aarhus University, Denmark, 2016.

Workshop – ‘Hyper-listening: praxis’, volume III, University of Applied Arts Vienna, 2016.

Workshop – ‘Hyper-listening: praxis’, volume II, Q-02, Brussels, 2016.

Lecture: Object-disoriented Sound: Poetic Intervention in Listening and Meaning-making, IEM, Kunstuniversität Graz, 2016.

Talk: ‘Auditory Situation and Contextual Listening‘, Kunstuniversität Graz, 2015.

Guest lecture, Institut for Kunst og Kulturvidenskab, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, 2014.

Artists’ talk, Holbæk Kunsthøjskole, Denmark, 2014.

Artists’ talk, Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen, 2014.

Workshop – ‘Hyper-listening: praxis’, volume I, Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen, 2014

Workshop – ‘sound art im globalen kontext’, Berliner Künstlerprogramm des DAAD, Berlin, 2013.

MA course: ‘Sound Design for film and video’, University of Copenhagen, Spring term, 2013.

Guest Lecture, Theatre Academy Helsinki, Finland, October 2012.

MA course: ‘Art of Sound in Cinema’, University of Copenhagen, Fall term, 2012.

Workshop – ‘sound, environment and space’, BAR1, India Foundation for the Arts, Bangalore, August 2010.

Workshop – ‘sound art’, The Media Lab, Jadavpur University, Calcutta, July 2009. 

Portfolio is available on request.