Babbles and Murmurs,  Sonic Bodies
Sound Design and Composition: Nikhil Narendra 

 

How do we trace the tremors of our bodies and those hidden deep within the ocean? Can we access immersions beyond surfaces, screens and planes of visibility? Could sound signal blurred  territories that remain indistinguishable, undetected or undiagnosed?  In this piece, we deep dive and submerge into a collection of sonic resonances, vibrations, voices and memories. 

 

Nikhil  weaves a sonic landscape, composed from underwater field recordings of marine life and other organisms, audio material from medical instruments, and auscultation sounds from our own bodies. Field sites involved visits to Kundapur, a coastal town situated in the Udupi district of Karnataka, Agumbe, a village nestled in the thick rainforests of Western Ghats,  and other lakes, tanks, ponds and water bodies in and around Bangalore. 

 

*Humpback Dolphin vocalisations have been generously contributed by marine researcher / bio-acoustician,  Isha Bopardikar. Bopardikar was a visiting researcher at The Cornell Lab Cornell Lab of Ornithology in 2017 and has been studying marine mammals in India since 2012. Her research has primarily focused on the acoustic communication of coastal cetacean species.
 

Nikhil Narendra is an electronic music producer and sound designer, based in Bangalore.