Experimenter gallery in Kolkata, India, is presenting the exhibition In Between the Notes (August 25-October 14, 2023), exploring sound as a thought-form—a vector for human memory and experience—through sound-centric works by Lala Rukh, Parul Thacker, Biraaj Dodiya, Samson Young and the contemporary artist duo Superhero Sighting Society, made up of Taus Makhacheva and Sabih Ahmed.

The exhibition bears the same title as American film director William Farley’s 1986 documentary on Pandit Pran Nath (1918-96). Pran Nath was a highly acclaimed Indian classical vocalist of the Kirana Gharana style and served as a source of inspiration for American avant-garde artists and musicians such as longtime collaborators La Monte Young and Terry Riley. In the documentary, Pran Nath talks about the interstices occupied by time in between the notes or swaras of a raga, which is a melodic mode that underlines classical Indian music. However, to the late vocalist, ragas are living, breathing entities that exist within these aforementioned interstices and may only be invoked by a performer of sufficient skill. So firm was Pran Nath’s reverence for the raga, that he adhered to the belief that specific ragas were tied to specific hours of the day, and to specific seasons as well, and refused to perform them outside of their designated times. By his heyday, this practice had been largely abandoned by his peers.

Like Pran Nath, In Between the Notes also treats sound as an entity possessed of a certain “life” through the human knowledge, memory, and experience it transmits. Prateek Raja and Priyanka Raja, the directors and co-founders of Experimenter, discuss the vocalist’s connection to the exhibition, telling STIR: “Pran Nath’s work became a starting point both conceptually as well as physically in the exhibition. The practice made us think of the wider influences of sound as art and artists, who have either directly or indirectly worked with sound as material or thought-form or influence, although their work may not necessarily directly result in sound-based works. In all of the artist's works, sonic experiences, aural training, and sound environments play a central role, but is not the only point of entry.”

The first room in the art exhibition is completely darkened and is enveloped in a raga of Pandit Pran Nath’s voice, timed to the hour of the day. Experimenter’s co-founders explain the significance of this experience, saying: “That initial experience of the show immediately situates the viewers firmly in the context of the exhibition and slows them down to reflect upon the fact that how we listen is deeply rooted in what we hear.” The Rajas treat the sense of active listening this room facilitates as formative to developing a method of interaction with the works on show at In Between the Notes and hope that their audience will immerse themselves totally in the sonic environment they have presented, engaging actively with the art.

The exhibition presents a sonic and visual interplay in which works are in dialogue with one another. Prateek and Priyanka Raja tell STIR: "The sound of a tabla playing the rupak taal from the work of Lala Rukh permeates into the room with the installation of works by Parul Thacker. So, although you are looking at Thacker’s work, there is a resonant sound one is surrounded by and soon the patterns of the embroidered sculptures by Thacker easily reveal themselves to be energy fields and sonic vibrations.”

Going beyond the contemporary art works installed in the exhibition, In Between the Notes also nods to some of the American avant-garde musicians that Pandit Pran Nath inspired with the opening concert Hidden Contexts, performed on August 25 by the digital artist Varun Desai and musician Jivraj Singh. This was a concert of five musical compositions by La Monte Young, Benjamin Patterson, John Cage, Earle Brown, and Terry Riley.

On the musical selection for Hidden Contexts, the Rajas tell STIR: “While these works have many different loci, several of them were made with distinct patterns of listening and playing using instruments and sound experiments that seem new age even today. It was very important for us to expand the impact of sound practices and also to contextualise sound practice and underscore how this exhibition is only a very small sliver of the wide and rich history of contemporary sound art." In hindsight, they reflect that Hidden Contexts acted as the perfect point of entry into the world of sonic textures and aural landscapes that Experimenter sought to construct through In Between the Notes.