Poulomi Desai

CTM Festival 2023 – Portals

Poulomi Desai's unique, modified sitar embraces elements of chance, challenge and subversion. Her prepared / bowed sitar is extended with modified cassette decks playing her field recordings, circuit bent toys, optikinetic instruments, kitchen knives, axes, and massage tools. It is a conscious response and reaction to the idea of »authenticity« seeking to break the rules and expectations of how a »sacred« instrument should be played, the strictures upon the player, the guru-shishya approach, and the assumptions made upon the identity of the player herself. Her sitar is the primary basis for sonic improvisation and exploration; an allegorical antidote to the objectification of the »South Asian woman's body« in Bollywood cinema / popular culture and, in a broader sense, affirming her idea of noise as protest.