8 August 2025, 10:35am - 10:45am
The sounds around us are often taken for granted as part of daily life, but if we listen and reflect deeper, we can appreciate them as part of the diverse culture in our societies. Soundscapes reflect our reality, heritage, life, and cultures. A research study initiated by the composer Gardika Gigih Pradipta with the support of The Japan Foundation Asia Center Fellowship 2019 proposes a study of the soundscapes of Southeast Asia and Japan. Published in www.lostinsound.art, the findings amasses five months of recorded sounds from across Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, and Japan. The collected recordings include that of traffic, market rituals and religious activities, street vendors, sounds of children interacting, etc. The selected recordings were analyzed and treated as cultural narratives through a process that can be described as an ethnography of sounds. This research proposes an alternative way of perceiving the current worlds of Southeast Asia and Japan through the medium of sound. From this study, Gardika will also share creative possibilities to create new works of art with soundscape materials and open new paths for multicultural collaborations as a reflective voice on our current global issues. As an example, he will present “Mimpi Owa – a duet with Javanese Gibbons,” which he pieced together with the magical sounds of Owa, endangered Javanese Gibbons in Petungkriyono Forest, in Central Java, and elaborated it with the Sundanese zither to create a contemporary composition as a reflection of the current climate crisis.
Gardika Gigih is an Indonesian composer, pianist, and soundscape researcher. After studying music composition at the Indonesian Institute of the Arts, Gardika’s interest in the intersection of music, society, and culture led him to pursue a Master’s degree in Cultural Anthropology. His work spans numerous genres, including concerts, contemporary improvisation, film scoring, multidisciplinary collaborations, and sound ethnography.
In 2019, he undertook a journey across Southeast Asia and Japan to listen to and study soundscapes as cultural narratives within societies. He recorded rituals, markets, villages, urban areas, and more. This research was supported by a Japan Foundation Fellowship and published at www.lostinsound.art.
Since 2023, Gardika has been based in New York as an Asian Cultural Council (ACC) Fellow, studying multicultural collaborations within the city’s music scenes. In May 2023, his composition Mimpi Owa: A Duet with Javanese Gibbons—a response to the climate crisis—was awarded “Sound of the Year” by the BBC Radiophonic Institute and the Museum of Sounds at the British Library.
His most recent project, as a DeCoSEAS (Decolonising Southeast Asian Sound Archives) Visiting Fellow 2024 at the University of the Philippines’ Centre for Ethnomusicology, focuses on the traditional and indigenous musical cultures of the Philippines and their influence on contemporary Filipino composers.
Gardika continues to develop new works inspired by his global research, with a particular focus on the diverse musical cultures and soundscapes of Southeast Asia. He actively initiates multicultural collaborations, offering reflections on socio-cultural and environmental issues through his artistic practice.