First Listen: Sandunes & Wolves Present 'The Memory Lamp'

Sanaya Ardeshir has had a hectic year. She dropped ‘Slybounce’ in June, promoting her future garage goodness as Sandunes around the country through the summer. Videos, performances and collaborations have been popping up on our radar since then, but her latest project – ‘The Memory Lamp’, created alongside visual artists Joshua Dmello and Jash Reen (aka Wolves) stands apart from the rest.

Sanaya delves into an experimental artistic aural space with her collaborative installation at the TARQ Art gallery in Colaba, Mumbai. ‘The Memory Lamp’ was created as a part of TARQ’s ‘Pocket Maps Of The Mind (Residues Of Memory)’ exhibition that began on 23 September and will continue till 7 November. She produced a short, 4 track “aural narrative” that will loop in the background to the visual installation by Wolves.

The artist has shared the second track from the installation created to evoke a sense of intense nostalgia in the listener and study the human perception of a collective unconscious. Part ll follows the stripped down orchestra that was ‘The Memory Lamp – Part l’ with gradually building minimalist tones and droning experimental synths, punctured by human voices:

“For this particular segment of the soundscape, I spent time casually interviewing friends and acquaintances about their earliest memories, their views on a collective consciousness, and on the possibilities of 'collective memory' - all ideas playing to the exhibition’s theme: ‘Pocket maps of the mind (residues of memory)’.

The purpose of the installation was to engage the viewer via images and audio. We questioned the possibility of transcendent memory; the potential memory to go beyond childhood, previous lifetimes and back to the birth of the collective consciousness/the origin of all existence - the birth of the universe. Many may roll their eyes at me, but we were sort of going for the collective nostalgia which inherently reminds us of our interdependence in an age where independence is so celebrated!” - Sandunes

Sanaya has had an ongoing affair with art and the experimental since May, at the immersive KYTA residency which took place in the verdurous hills of the Parvathi Valley. The two tracks released so far stand starkly apart from her other work but are still quintessentially Sandunes. ‘The Memory Lamp’ takes her futuristic synth and melody, strips it down and finally produces electronic art soundscapes that are contemplative and immersive.

Sandunes is off on a new project once again, this time to the US with the OneBeat program. If you’re in Mumbai, we suggest you drop by to have a look at the exhibition at TARQ. Follow Sandunes and Wolves on Facebook for updates.

You can listen to the ‘The Memory Lamp – Part ll’ below:

Words: Diya Gupta
All images courtesy TARQ