[Reader-list] resending my first posting

[sayandeb mukherjee]

Dear friends,
 
I am Shri Sayandeb Mukherjee. I hail from Kolkata,
West Bengal . Having graduated in science stream with
Mathematics Hons from Kolkata University I completed
3yrs post graduate diploma in sound recording from
Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute, Kolkata. I
have special interests in evolution of sound - an
introduction to soundscape, psychological acoustics,
soundtrack designing and film & music appreciation. 
Professionally I am a sound recordist presently
working as a recording engineer in Mix Facility1 ( a
Dolby Digital/SR and DTS film Re-recording set up ) in
a recording studio complex - Symphony, Ramoji Film
City . Passionately, I practise
paintings,scriptwriting, penning down my observations,
photography and ambience recordings. 
 
For a long time I have been passing through corridors
of different places. Sometimes while consciously
walking through these spaces I thought about the
differences in my social conditioning. In an
architecturally similar space this subconscious
transformation of the 'self' interested me immensely.
And as a sound recordist, everyday I am handling with
the aesthetics of sound in my studio. I have gone
through many pre-recorded sound files in our
Fx-library. Sometimes while using this library,  I
have listened to the  long reverberated sound of huge
elevators recorded by some sound recordist in a big
corridor. These sounds synthesizes in my mind as a
musical expression.  Next is the vivid application of
these spaces in many films.  My research will also
gaze into the intricate properties of the
corridor-like spaces to rationalize their application
in this media.                                        
                                                      
      
Name of the project:  CORRIDORS - THE NEW PATHWAY
 
An abstract:
 
The project is about the contemporary symbiotic
relationship between the urban individual and various
kinds of corridor spaces s/he encounters in everyday
life. 
Corridors are the 'natural caves' of modern
civilization. With decreasing individual space of
existence and increasing pressure of influx on
cities...corridors or vestibular constructions have
become more and more indispensable thus providing a
common pathway/interface to the multitude of flats,
offices and know-not-what. As one walks down the
corridor, s/he finds the sense of owning a
familial/familiar space gradually dwindling and fading
away along the length of the long corridor. The
project delves into the psychological domain, plotting
the emotional contours of an individual and will try
to envelop the dynamics of consciousness ranging from
the pleasure of anticipation to the anxieties of
uncertainty. Another important aspect lies alongside -
the acoustics of corridors. This contemporary
architectural design which may appear simple
structurally possesses a complicated and sometimes
convoluted auditory space due to reflective and
diffractive properties of sound. The project attempts
to enlighten the variability of these acoustic
qualities/characterestics of corridors integrated in
different urban spaces like - hospitals, prisons,
libraries, educational institution, courts and many
other public spaces which are vibrant in terms of
psycho-acoustics. The research would also borrow
references from ancient mythological texts, films,
paintings and literature to discern the mystic and
seemingly improbable destination of corridors and like
spaces.  
 
Methodology, work procedure 
 
The process of research includes a vivid physical
involvement and exploration in the corridor like
spaces, taking notes in a descriptive way in the spot
itself, acquiring photographs and live recordings of
the acoustic environments at different spots of the
same space. The recording process may also involve
time stamps (i.e. recordings of the same space over
the different parts of a day) for the analysis of the
soundscape in a particular space. 
 
The process also includes the collection of films,
texts or any other form of art, where one can notice a
conscious application of such corridor-like spaces. A
critical analysis of these texts and footages would be
attempted to find its role in building up the
emotional contours of the narrative characters and the
contribution of those spaces to the narrative
trajectory of these films or texts. 
 
Visuals from VIDEOGAMES (where the stalker intruding
through endless geometry of corridors) also would be
incorporated for analysis and reflection. 
 
The Formulation of postings:
 
I would like to split each posting into three columns
for a better formulation. They will be continued
throughout the project with some new/added
informations, developments and analysis. 
 
1. THE MAINFRAME:    
This includes the main content, the thematic writings,
the derivations, the historical outline/references and
the phenomenology.
 
2. THE INTERFACE:    
The interviews/ the interactive sessions with
theoreticians, educationists, artists, psychologists
or any person experienced in this field. It will also
include feedback/responses to the project-concept and
its progress.
 
3. THE DATABASE: 
This will be including all references drawn from
journals, articles, discourses, websites and media. 
 
The end product
 
As the end product, this project would generate the
following materials for archiving in Sarai.
1. Images of the new urban buildings and the
integrated corridor-like spaces. 
2. Some data about the acoustic behavior and response
of such structures.
3. A body of audio recordings in the corridor-like
spaces under the scrutiny.
4. Textual interviews of some corridor users. 
5. An audio CD containing specially designed ambience
tracks using the audio recordings in the
corridor-spaces. 
 
 
The first posting:
 
This is a very brief outline of the reconnaissance I
did for the past few weeks. As I have mentioned above,
I will present the posting in three columns followed
below:
 
THE MAINFRAME:
 
Evolution of urban spaces
 
For the past two centuries, every city throughout the
world has seen a gradual remodeling of the SPACE
concept. The utilization, manipulation and
multi-occupation of space has got an immense impact on
the changing façade of urban civilization. 
In earlier days, cities were meant mainly for the
well-to-do especially for Rajas, Maharajas, Zamindars,
high-posted Government officials and also for
commuters who used to diurnally arrive at their
working space located in the city and return to the
outskirts. These people were very few in count in
comparison to the land mass; if the dwellings or
work-spaces in an urban domain are mapped as elements
in a matrix of the city-scape, one could notice the
dispersed, unclustered  spatial distribution of these
elements. Explicitly speaking, a topographic map of
the city in olden days would feature the quantity of
space that used to remain uninhabited.  For this
abundance, space was never thought to be consolidated.
 On the contrary, it was considered to be horizontally
extensible. This property was always exploited for the
exhibition of the dwellers' hierarchical position in
the society. They used to stretch their living space
to the highest extent making an establishment for a
lavish-livelihood. Within an allocated space, the
dwellers through their authority, power or position in
the society would always get an opportunity to give an
individualistic expression in the architecture of
their houses (this exhibition of architectural
splendor is rarely visible today). These factors
rendered the emergence of Palaces, Havelis, Kuthris,
Mansions, Bungalows in the early period of urban
civilization... (continued)

THE INTERFACE:
 
Regardless of its omnipresent nature, corridor or like
spaces evoke a numerous shade of emotions in human
mind. Flickers of which we came across, when we
visited the Osmania University 's psychology
department. Mrs. Beena, the head of the department had
few experiences/informations  to share with us.
She emphasizes on the fact that corridors are like
built-in-spaces --- and she generally feels deserted
in them. Long and vacant hotel or hospital corridors
are suffocating for her. She reasons it out with very
interesting explanation --- human beings like other
animals are essentially related to nature. Proximity
with nature gives them a sense of re-assurance.  That
is why the concept of windows opening outside a house
has come in. whenever one is shut off from nature, the
link gets snapped and the sense of time vanishes.
Parallely, she provides a counter-point. Corridors of
universities and colleges which are vibrant with the
noise of teachers, students and illuminated with
bright sunlight give a positive vibe to her. Temple
corridors which have three sides enclosed and the
other side opening to the temple courtyard or
surroundings are also very charming. They endow an
onlooker with a close contact with nature as well as
with beautiful paintings, murals and sculptures on the
other three sides. 
While summing up her views, Mrs. Beena says that this
sense of suffocation is a resultant phenomenon of the
general traumatic experience of human birth. Every
human baby undergoing this struggle in the birth canal
gets an immediate relief when it is out of the womb.
The birth-cry is the self-assertion of a new human in
the outer world. The birth canal which is similar to
that of a dark corridor threatens the life of a human
baby at the time of its birth and s/he inherits this
experience for the subsequent period of his/her life.
German psychologist Otto Rank and Sigmund Freud has
told a great deal about the birth experience. It is
also noted that human beings are more confident to top
and bottom perspective than to their left and right
orientation giving a general creeping sense to human
beings. 
  
THE DATABSE:

I would like to share the following treatise that I
received from a close friend, Debkamal Ganguly, who's
also interested in the project.
http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/jameson_futurecity.htm

http://www.blackjelly.com/Mag2/features/planetporn.htm
Modern urban life is increasingly experienced within
the non-spaces of (to use a cringe-inducing term)
"supermodernism." Examples include not only elevators,
airports, corridors, subway stations and hotel rooms,
but also the invisible architectures of the
information economy: the digital realms which lie on
the other side of the modem. Hong Kong is a perfect
example of a metropolitan node comprised of many
layers, folding back onto itself like a moebius strip.
Bricks and mortar provide the skeleton, fibre-optical
cables the nerves, and people the bits of data moving
around the system. Which explains my recurrent dream
in which I become a figure of "incessant circulation"
(to use a favourite phrase of Jean Baudrillard's). A
figure who hasn't actually been anywhere at all. Not
in a tangible sense, anyway. Hong Kong 's amnesiacal
momentum is less a case of an imaginary community than
an imaged community: a technotopian megalopolis which
understands the pornographic logic of advanced
capitalism. While Australia passes laws to ban
pornography on the Internet (making itself the
"village idiot of the global village" in the process),
and Giuliani's Brave New York cleans up Times Square,
Hong Kong thrives in the ambiguous spaces obscured
behind digital pixelation.
 
I will be continuing the discourses in the next
posting.
 
Thanking you and keeping in touch with you
 
yours sincerely
sayandeb mukherjee
 
 
 




		
__________________________________________________________
Yahoo! India Answers: Share what you know. Learn something new
http://in.answers.yahoo.com/