KMD researcher and postdoc Budhaditya Chattopadhyay is an artist, researcher, writer, and theorist. He works across various media, and his projects often involve technology. In his exhibitions, performative projects, and installations, he addresses themes such as climate, global justice, migration, and decolonialism. It was not a given that Chattopadhyay would become an artist. However, his love for film was present from a young age.

"One of the first films I saw left a huge impression on me. It was Sergei Eisenstein’s film Que Viva Mexico! I was nine years old, and my father took me to the cinema. From that moment, I knew that film could be something very special. Film was my first love," says Chattopadhyay.

Nevertheless, it took many years before he returned to filmmaking. First, he pursued a completely different direction in education.

"My family wanted me to become an engineer, and I completed my entire education. But my mind and heart were always in film. After I finished my engineering degree, I decided to apply to the National Film School in India and got accepted. That radically changed my life."

Chattopadhyay later moved to Aarhus and Copenhagen. Working with artistic exploration within an academic framework was unusual. He didn’t want to work on other people’s films but rather explore the medium through his own artistic work. After moving to the Netherlands, he was finally able to do just that.

EXPLORING AN ATMOSPHERE

Can you tell us about your PhD and what you explored in that project?

"The project is about sound atmospheres that have been recreated in media—the environments and atmospheres that are generated. I focus on various atmospheric sounds from films and study how these sounds relate to the places depicted."

"A meadow, a beach, forest, jungle, and underwater. Spatial sounds. I chose fairly generic sound locations and explored their soundscapes. How the places are represented."

Chattopadhyay selected various international films and studied them individually.

"Both the beach where Leonardo DiCaprio walks around and beaches from European art films. I delve into them and examine the atmosphere," says Chattopadhyay.

“When I completed my PhD, I had a day where I felt very liberated. It had been years of work, but once the degree was awarded,  all possibilities seemed open in a new way."

Chattopadhyay traveled to Beirut and developed a newfound interest in working with the non-Western cultures.

"I know India well, of course, but I left the country very young. I began a process of reconnecting with the non-Western art world. I traveled to Morocco and South America. I met artists and spoke with them. This became a book that recounts many of the conversations we had."

Studying the intercultural transmissions from the global South to the global North has become significant in many of Chattopadhyay’s works since then.

ART AS RESEARCH

After many visits to Bergen, often in collaboration or by invitation from Brandon LaBelle, Chattopadhyay began exploring the possibility of a research project affiliated with the Faculty of Fine Art, Music, and Design. Applications for European research funding exceeded all expectations.

"And I received the Marie Curie fellowship! It's a big achievement and it feels like a great honor to receive recognition from a fellowship with such size and tradition."

The fellowship is prestigious, but it has almost never been awarded for artistic research before.

"It moves me that artistic development work is finally being recognized at this level of research. My own artistic work has developed alongside the institutions’ openness to artistic work as research. It's new, and meaningful because it provides institutional validation for artistic work," says Chattopadhyay.

SET AI FREE

Chattopadhyay works closely with technology in his projects. In his ongoing research project, artificial intelligence plays a significant role. It’s not necessarily about using AI to create art but rather making art that explores what AI is and can be.

"I don’t see AI as a tool or a technique. I see it as something animistic, something with a sensory quality—like a plant. A consciousness," explains Chattopadhyay.

He’s not as interested in the artificial. He’s more focused on what happens when you allow AI to be unpredictable, emotion-driven, and erratic.

"AI lacks the human, affective quality. And isn’t that affective quality the most important part of being human? It’s certainly a quality that needs to be incorporated to understand how we interact with each other and our surroundings," says Chattopadhyay.

But isn’t AI human-made and a product of our fallible activity?

"Yes, AI is absolutely technology created by humans. But the tool is made based on an idea we have of what intelligence is."

"AI systems are stuck in mathematical logic, and I don’t think rationality is enough to understand how we humans experience and exist in the world. There’s so much that operates outside the logical. That’s where the human lies, and perhaps where AI becomes truly interesting," Chattopadhyay explains.

In contrast to many others in the public debate, he advocates for not controlling artificial intelligence. He wants to unleash its powers.

"When I use AI in exhibitions and projects, I let the tool control itself. I want AI to become a self-regulating entity, to achieve autonomy in some way. As long as AI is stuck in the rational and instrumental, a big part of the picture is missing. I believe the unexpected, the emotional, and the random must be part of the equation."

Chattopadhyay looks out the window and points to the clouds gathering.

"AI should be allowed to be like the weather. It’s sunny, and a few minutes later it’s raining. Major changes that have no reason, that we cannot control. The unpredictability in us and in nature should be allowed to take up more space."

"AI is seen as a toy, but it’s so much more. AI is evolving, and now is the perfect time to dive into the discussion with a critical mindset. If we see AI as an author, we must also give artificial intelligence copyright for what it produces," Chattopadhyay argues.

THE POTENTIAL OF POETRY

With his engineering background, Chattopadhyay finds it exciting to work closely with technological innovations. But as an artist, it’s poetry, nature, and conversations between people that matter most to him.

"Poetry is the most important thing for me on multiple levels. The poetic is important to me in my approach to both life and art," says Chattopadhyay.

He carries the poetic from his upbringing.

"A relative of mine was a composer and writer—he wrote India’s national anthem. My father was a poet. Through my family, I inherited that special way of viewing the world, the poetic way. I’m grateful for that."

Chattopadhyay highlights that there are two different levels of truth in the poetic and the scientific.

"Poetry is so different from the classical scientific approach. Poetry holds so many layers of the reality we find ourselves in. It’s like an onion with its many layers and levels. Language becomes asemantic, and poetry works with the absence of familiar linguistic forms. It’s exciting to work with exploration that allows more than the traditionally scientific."

His interest in the random, the poetic, and nature is about making people think. A work should never be just beautiful for Chattopadhyay.

"Art is not harmless; I want to create art that invites the audience to think and feel. That’s why I create art that always facilitates the audience to not just observe but also reflect. I hope that the art I make can help people imagine real discursive change."