There is a sense of impending doom in the air. A clear and present danger of climate crises hangs over humanity today, whether or not we pay adequate heed to the facts and figures lurking around. Perhaps our fear and anxiety due to the immediate dangers of a global pandemic lead us to avoid this matter even when we cannot disengage us from the onslaught of information about climate breakdown and the unavoidable and devastating consequences for their lives. We react to the pandemic with widespread panic but don’t respond to the climate breakdown in the same urgent manner. However, the situation escalates towards a worsening end. Multiple warnings from scientists indicate that a tangible end of human civilization is not far off.
This project responds to the sense of doom and ending and probes into the human (in-)action and fear. It draws ideas from Fatalism – a philosophical doctrine that stresses the subjugation of events or actions to fate or destiny and is commonly associated with an attitude of resignation in the face of some future events that are thought to be inevitable. What if we accept the impending doom as a natural course of human civilization? What if accepting an ending opens the door for emancipation from fear and loathing for the present? Fatalism is a much-practiced strand of philosophy in the global South. The approach of fate and destiny makes the millions of people in remote South Asia accept the harsher realities, such as colonialism, imperialism, economic exploitation, and their outcomes in poverty. Their attitude of acceptance towards destiny makes them softer, hospitable, and compassionate people, unlike the arrogance and self-centredness usually encouraged and practiced in Western societies.
Can there be an auditory equivalence to the gleam of acceptance against the darkness of fear and anxiety? Towards an Amicable End emerges from this (re)search, culminating in a re-generative work involving archival field recordings of primary climate variables like water, wind, and woods, and environmental phenomena captured using custom-built radio receivers, weaved together by double bass and electronics. I incorporate a classical Western instrument to explore its textures to render the narrative for a universal reach. The work draws from non-Western ideas around fate and acceptance of human destiny, but these ideas are proliferated for social listening across the globe. The work advocates accepting human’s inevitable destiny by creating an affective premise to counteract today’s fear and angst. The aim is to ask humans to yield to the natural forces and again be part of nature, from which they are long estranged.
The project was conceived at the Royal Academy of Art Den Haag in 2018 and later developed through 2019. The sketches were completed at Copper Leg Residency, Estonia, in 2020, and a prelude from the project was shortlisted for the Cyland Media Art Award in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in 2020.
In 2021, the project received a Goethe Institute residency grant (music) to advance the research, realizing a prototype concert with Achim Tang, Sabine Akiko, and Judith Hamann at Alliance française du Bengale Kolkata and online.
In 2024, a solo version was published in the Petit Bardo series.
