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this edition of framework:afield has been produced in estonia, with recordings made in india, by paul beaudoin. for more of his work see https://paulbeaudoin.net. producer’s notes:
These sounds were recorded while I was an artist-in-residence at the Alice Boner Institute in Varanasi.
I begin at Assi Ghat, the southernmost ghat along the Ganges River. Devotion and daily life occupy the same steps. Pilgrims descend to the water while vendors prepare tea. Motorbikes screech in front of temple walls. Loudspeakers test microphones. Silence is impossible inside these narrow gullies.
At five in the morning, a woman begins to ring a bell. She will chant continuously for more than two hours. Her voice does not rise above the city. It threads through it. Morning traffic grows. Street dogs growl and fight as river boats move alongside the banks.
Later, at the Shri Durga Mandir, a small group of musicians chant in an open courtyard. Their rhythm remains steady while birds cut across the sound field. Human and nonhuman sounds sharing the same space, blissfully.
By evening, the aarti at Assi Ghat gathers fire, bells, amplified speech, recorded music, and water into a single dense field. No element dominates. Each sound persists beside the others. Incense drifts through the air as voices cry out, Har Har Mahadev.
paul beaudoin, 2026.05
Paul Beaudoin is an interdisciplinary artist and composer based in Tallinn, Estonia. His work moves fluidly across experimental music, photography, video, text, and installation, often integrating these forms into large-scale conceptual projects. Internationally recognized for his quiet, perceptually focused compositions and visually destabilized photographic works, he examines memory, embodiment, and queer identity through structural restraint and material sensitivity.
He holds a PhD in music theory and composition from Brandeis University and has worked professionally in the arts for more than four decades as a composer, visual artist, and professor. His music is associated with the Wandelweiser aesthetic and has been performed and released internationally. His visual and video works have been exhibited in museums, festivals, and public urban installations across Europe and the United States.
Beaudoin’s practice treats sound and image as perceptual events rather than fixed objects. Whether working with sustained tones, chromatic interference, archival material, or architectural space, he foregrounds attention itself as a medium. Across disciplines, his work asks how vulnerability, transformation, and presence register under pressure, and how listening and seeing can become acts of awareness rather than consumption.