On Pre-colonial Indigenous (Sound) Technologies

This paper unpacks the finesse and intricacies with which some of the pre-colonial and pre-modern sound-producing instruments were conceived and built in South Asia using indigenous technologies. The paper argues that these indigenous technologies were as sophisticated as the technology we know today from a Western modernist and colonialist understanding of it riding on ideas of control, surveillance and exploitation of nature and human resources. The paper intends to substantiate this view that these indigenous technologies had an embedded quality to them and it makes no sense today to adhere to the hierarchy of “high tech” and “low tech”. The paper suggests expanding the terms media arts and “TechArts” or technology-driven arts in the Western taxonomies, represented often by large-scale, spectacular immersive arts proliferated in European and American festivals. Given the historical examples of artistic practices using pre-modern technologies in South Asia, the paper proposes to redefine what “TechArt” means, aiming to decolonize media arts field giving due credits to tech-artists and artisans from the Global South.

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Budhaditya Chattopadhyay

Conference

Publication date: September 2021

Publication date (Print): September 2021

Pages: 32-37

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Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/POM2021.4

SO-VID: c7773970-e28c-4dac-bb2f-17b63f877c14

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: Proceedings of Politics of the Machines - Rogue Research 2021

Conference acronym: POM 2021

Conference number: 3

Conference location: Berlin, Germany

Conference date: September 14-17, 2021

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: debate and devise concepts and practices that seek to critically question and unravel novel modes of science

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1477-9358 BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/POM2021.4

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

REFERENCES

Theodor W. Adorno (1990). “The Curves of the Needle”. Translated by Thomas Y. Levin. October 55 (Winter, 1990), 48-55
W. Benjamin (1969). “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”. In Hannah Arendt (ed.), Harry Zohn (transl.), Illuminations. Schocken Books, New York.
J. Cage (1973). Silence: Lectures and Writings. Middletown. Wesleyan University Press, Conneticut.
D. Chakrabarty (2000). Provincializing Europe: postcolonial thought and historical difference. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J.
B. Chattopadhyay (2020). Unrecord: Demodernising and/or Uncolonising Sound Objects, talk given at PRAKSIS, Oslo. http://www.praksisoslo.org/events-calendar/2020/8/chattopadhyay (October 2021)
B. Chattopadhyay (2021). “Uncolonising Early Sound Recordings”. The Journal of Media Art Study and Theory 2 (2) 81 – 88, (Special Issue: Sound, Colonialism, and Power).
B. Chattopadhyay (2021b). “Unrecording Nature”, in Petri Kuljuntausta (ed.), Sound, Art, and Climate Change. Frequency Association, Helsinki.
B. Chattopadhyay (2023). Sonic Perspectives from the Global South: Connecting Resonances. Bloomsbury Academic New York. (forthcoming)
L. Chude-Sokei (2015). The Sound of Culture: Diaspora and Black Technopoetics. Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, Connecticut.
A. Daniélou (1995). Music and the Power of Sound: The Influence of Tuning and Interval on Consciousness. Inner Traditions/Bear, Rochester, Vermont.
E. Fischer-Lichte (2005). Theatre, Sacrifice, Ritual: Exploring Forms of Political Theatre. Routledge, Abingdon-on-Thames.
Thomas Y. Levin (1990). ”For the Record: Adorno on Music in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility”. October 55 (Winter, 1990), 23-47.
D. Mosse (1997). “The symbolic making of a common property resource: History, ecology and locality in a tank-irrigated landscape in South India”. Development and Change 28(3), 467-504.
D. Mosse (1999). “Colonial and contemporary ideologies of community management: The case of tank irrigation development in South India”. Modern Asian Studies 33(2), 303-338.
N. Rothman (2017). “Beyond Eurasia: Technology in Africa, the Americas, and Oceania in pre-Modern Times,” Comparative Civilizations Review 76/76.
E. Shah (2012). “Seeing like a subaltern – Historical ethnography of pre-modern and modern tank irrigation technology in Karnataka, India”. Water Alternatives 5(2), 507-538.

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[1] Theodor W. Adorno (1990). “The Curves of the Needle”. Translated by Thomas Y. Levin. October 55 (Winter, 1990), 48-55

[2] W. Benjamin (1969). “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”. In Hannah Arendt (ed.), Harry Zohn (transl.), Illuminations. Schocken Books, New York.

[3] J. Cage (1973). Silence: Lectures and Writings. Middletown. Wesleyan University Press, Conneticut.

[4] D. Chakrabarty (2000). Provincializing Europe: postcolonial thought and historical difference. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J.

[5] B. Chattopadhyay (2020). Unrecord: Demodernising and/or Uncolonising Sound Objects, talk given at PRAKSIS, Oslo. http://www.praksisoslo.org/events-calendar/2020/8/chattopadhyay (October 2021)

[6] B. Chattopadhyay (2021). “Uncolonising Early Sound Recordings”. The Journal of Media Art Study and Theory 2 (2) 81 – 88, (Special Issue: Sound, Colonialism, and Power).

[7] B. Chattopadhyay (2021b). “Unrecording Nature”, in Petri Kuljuntausta (ed.), Sound, Art, and Climate Change. Frequency Association, Helsinki.

[8] B. Chattopadhyay (2023). Sonic Perspectives from the Global South: Connecting Resonances. Bloomsbury Academic New York. (forthcoming)

[9] L. Chude-Sokei (2015). The Sound of Culture: Diaspora and Black Technopoetics. Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, Connecticut.

[10] A. Daniélou (1995). Music and the Power of Sound: The Influence of Tuning and Interval on Consciousness. Inner Traditions/Bear, Rochester, Vermont.

[11] E. Fischer-Lichte (2005). Theatre, Sacrifice, Ritual: Exploring Forms of Political Theatre. Routledge, Abingdon-on-Thames.

[12] Thomas Y. Levin (1990). ”For the Record: Adorno on Music in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility”. October 55 (Winter, 1990), 23-47.

[13] D. Mosse (1997). “The symbolic making of a common property resource: History, ecology and locality in a tank-irrigated landscape in South India”. Development and Change 28(3), 467-504.

[14] D. Mosse (1999). “Colonial and contemporary ideologies of community management: The case of tank irrigation development in South India”. Modern Asian Studies 33(2), 303-338.

[15] N. Rothman (2017). “Beyond Eurasia: Technology in Africa, the Americas, and Oceania in pre-Modern Times,” Comparative Civilizations Review 76/76.

[16] E. Shah (2012). “Seeing like a subaltern – Historical ethnography of pre-modern and modern tank irrigation technology in Karnataka, India”. Water Alternatives 5(2), 507-538.

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