Kochi Muziris Biennale
Dec. 12, 2022 - April 10, 2023
Fort Kochi
Bombay Tilts Down
13m 14s looped, seven channel environment
2022
Six moves that begin in unstable skies and at sea, and descend “into the ordinary” via a vertical landscape filled with unfinished city landmarks, persistent settlements, details without end. A landscape movie in facets, filmed by remotely controlled CCTV camera from atop a 34-floor building in central Mumbai.
Each tilt downwards is made from dozens of repeated shots that show and hide themselves. They become a fluid movement across categories, structures and lines made on land, an interest of CAMP for many years. The stacked and layered city in Parel and Worli (old Bombay tidal islands, and later forming the working-class heart of the city) is suggestive of new subject and object formations.
When people appear in the images, many of them seem to be aware of this eye or hole in the sky. Everyone is, or can be an actor, in diagonal pacts between people and camera. The potential of such new relations drives this work, part of long-term investigations at CAMP that include histories and futures of moving images, housing, infrastructure, and pleasure.
The work has music, haunted by sirens and poets, by BamBoy (Tushar Adhav) who grew up in Lalbaug, Parel. See full credits and installation images on the works page.
