Destuffing Matrix

4 channel HDV, 8 minutes

Destuffing Matrix 

2012

(Its not so much that all that is solid melts into air, but rather that there are boxes within boxes… )

Ports and cities have been shy of each other throughout the latter half of the 20th century. Suddenly they make a joint appearance, new container terminal facing the waterfront, sharing their most visible parts. Meanwhile thousands of other pieces of the port - goods, workers, customs seals, excel sheets- are scattered across a "hinterland", connected by bridge and wire, and surrounded by fences.

What could be an image of this fractured landscape? The closest available rendering is the "transparent port" (or Indias first e-port, as the website of Cochin port trust proclaims). A port that, like its physical twin, makes things appear in proper columns, and counts rows of containers stuffed, bills paid, and ships expected or berthing. 
Boxes resist images, but also offer an invitation to the curious. Our work here follows from such a curiosity, claims that images are still possible, and then asks if just rearranging them a certain way could change the tenor of this geography. 

First produced for the Kochi Muziris Biennale, 2012.

The Country of the Blind, and Other Stories, 2011

A film that compiles observations made by volunteer guards watching the English Channel, over one year. Filmed by small cameras connected to the eyepiece of telescopes. Produced with the National Coastwatch Institution, Folkestone, Kent, UK.

60 minutes, 5.1 surround sound.

As If - III Country of the Sea

A journey with CAMP’s five-year Wharfage project and related maritime explorations.

Men-At-Work with Boxes in Stereo

20 mins, HD. 2 - channel installation
Cantonese, Mandarin
Filmed in Guangzhou at the Zhuhai International Container Terminal

Men-at-Work with Boxes in Stereo

13 December 2015 – 31 January 2016
Times Museum, Guangzhou

20 mins, HD. 2 - channel installation
Cantonese, Mandarin
Filmed in Guangzhou at the Zhuhai International Container Terminal

at the Kochi Muziris Biennale

CAMP presents
Destuffing Matrix
2012
4 x 3 channel HDV, 8 minutes.

2nd floor, Pepper House, Fort Kochi
12/12/12 to 13/03/13

Show extended till 17/03/13

Wharfage

At first, a project on the creek in Sharjah in 2009, from where a large number of ships leave for Somali ports.



Bombay Tilts Down, 2022

13m 14s looped, seven channel environment with music
2022
Filmed by CCTV camera from a single-point location in South-Central Mumbai.

In Cameras Res, 2019

De Appel, Amsterdam

On three screens, a city-symphony filmed by automated CCTV cameras in Amsterdam. The optical and motor capacities of these cameras are pushed to an extreme. Certain human subjects reappear near or far in the images, suggesting a form of reciprocal knowledge or intent, a secret pact between cameras and people.

A Photogenetic Line, 2019

A 100-foot long sequence of photo-cutouts, first shown at the Chennai Photo Biennale, March 2019

Matrix : Skulptur Projekt Münster, 2017

MATRIX
Of mother, womb, array, environment in which more specialised structures can grow.

Theater Münster
Neubrückenstraße 63
10 Jun - 1 Oct, 2017
Site-specific installation with Electric cable, switches, speakers, monitors, custom electronics.

The Country of the Sea

Single exposure solar cyanotype print on cotton fabric
CAMP with Shunya collective and Clark House Initiative 22 x 5 feet
An image of the sea as its own “country”, with frontier towns at its edges disorients an easy reading of this territory

Descendants, 2014

A three-channel installation from 8mm film From the Clark House family archives, sequenced in a timeline as above. Each screen is a different part of the same 8mm frame, usually a face.

From Gulf to Gulf to Gulf, 2013

Feature-length travelogue by sea between western India, eastern Africa and the Persian gulf. First shown at a purpose built outdoor cinema on the creekside in Sharjah in 2013, where many of the sailors gather. Shown in Documenta 13 in an abridged form, as part of the installation The Boat Modes.

83 mins. Original format(s): HDV, SDV, VHS, Cellphone videos (variable). Stereo audio and in-cameraphone music.

Swearing-In-Whispers, 2011

A screenplay in Courier 12pt melodramatic format, spanning the first three days of lobbying for cabinet spots, in the wake of the Indian general elections of 2009. The dialogue is entirely from phone taps made by the government. The screenplay slows them down and asks: what kinds of environments and scenes may lie behind them, and how are they connected?

Printed screenplay and IVR-based phone line, audience can type in scene numbers to hear dialogue in the original voices. Also performed as a reading.

Hum Logos

Act II (Hum Logos) is a 45-minute audio film spliced from the Pad.ma collection of the Radia Tapes. It covers two months after the Indian general elections of 2009, with the new cabinet in power. The film asks: if debate around these tapes was about whether they are edited or not, or as Justice Mukhopadhay put it, "splice has been added", then what can further editing do?

All Works