The World of Pulsator. The Automation of Church Bells Tolling in Contemporary Kerala, India

Résumé En

Despite a plethora of publications and periodicals devoted to church bells, a major turn in the history of bells has yet to be truly documented: their automation. In Europe, bell towers were mechanised over fifty years ago, with a decline in the job of bell-ringer its corollary. In contrast, this process only began in India in the early twenty-first century. What implications do these transitions have on contemporary operational techniques? How does the old knowledge of the bell-ringer articulate with the contemporary knowledge of engineers? To what extent does automation transform the acoustic community to which these sound messages were destined? To address these questions, I will focus on the Indian company Pulsator, a pioneer in the field that is headed by a local electronics giant. I will introduce the history of its activities, and then explore how its creator intends to forgenew connections between historical, kinetic, and liturgical knowledge at various steps in his work.