The Magnetic Residencies artistic committee met on September 15, 2025, and selected artist Raheel Khan for a residency at Bétonsalon as part of the 4th edition of this program. Bétonsalon will host Raheel Khan in residence for three months, from April to early July 2026. He will receive a monthly grant of €2,500, benefit from a studio-apartment at the Cité Internationale des Arts as part of the Institut Français x Cité Internationale des Arts program, receive curatorial support from the Bétonsalon team, as well as networking opportunities with art professionals to develop his research.

Raheel Khan’s research will situate itself within the historical and contemporary trajectories of experimental sound in Paris, with particular reference to the compositional methodologies developed through Musique Concrète and subsequent electroacoustic practices. He is aiming to critically examine how the relationship between sound and human behaviour has transformed as auditory environments have shifted from the mechanical and industrial toward infrastructures characterised by digital automation, acoustic insulation, and operational silence. As formerly pervasive sonic markers of labour and urban modernity recede, a conceptual and perceptual vacuum emerges: what constitutes the auditory identity of public space when its material processes withdraw from audibility? How does listening evolve when it becomes increasingly privatised, introspective, or technologically mediated?
Engagement with institutions such as INA-GRM and CREM-CNRS is central to this investigation, given their extensive archival collections documenting the foundational theories, discourses, and socio-cultural implications of post-war sonic experimentation. His study focuses specifically on the vibrational and corporeal dimensions of sound — with an emphasis on low-frequency and voice-derived resonance — interrogating how such sonic phenomena operate not only as aesthetic material, but as agents of affective, behavioural, and collective experience. This inquiry aims to position devotional and ritual listening practices within a broader electroacoustic framework, hopefully broadening my perspective on how sound structures exist in both communal and individual modes of attention in the contemporary sphere.