From Surgipelago, the Beach Surgery encyclopedia
Guwahati adaptations of Beach Surgery
This article surveys Guwahati-based adaptations. For individual works, see The Brahmaputra Frequency Walk and The Brahmaputra Tidal Archive.
The Guwahati node of Beach Surgery adaptation is marked by audio-locative works, participatory archive projects, and collective interventions along the Brahmaputra River. These adaptations centre on pirate community radio broadcasters and durational installations mapping the river as a geographical and temporal stand-in for the glitch.
The most sustained work is The Brahmaputra Frequency Walk (2022–present), an audio-locative pilgrimage in which listeners navigate marked routes while receiving GPS-tethered monologues and field recordings from ferry workers and riverbank residents. The Brahmaputra Tidal Archive (2023–ongoing) expands this as a participatory sound-mapping installation, with participants documenting seasonal flood patterns and archiving oral testimony. Both works employ small solar transceivers concealed in banyan root-knots along the riverbank, broadcasting archival fragments at low bitrate [citation needed].
A third strand, Static Frequencies, exists in disputed pre-2020 state: a serialized radio drama purportedly aired on Radio Kassan between 1989–1994, rediscovered in archival cassettes in 2019. The adaptations typically resolve the glitch through a twin-flow metaphor (monsoon vs. dry season), with Leif and Katita recast as ferryman and riverbank witness. Baul music traditions feature as registers of oral resistance and cyclical return.