A Photogenetic Line, 2019

A 100-foot long branching sequence of cutouts, from the photo archives of The Hindu, a 140-year old newspaper based in Chennai.
Here, cutouts are a way of reframing and rebirthing existing photographs as new organisms. Not to remove their background environments, nor to frame heroic figures, but to create a new boundary or border for the image... a border that leads us to the next image.

The sequence evolves by following one or more of these basic rules:

a. Things in the background come into the foreground, or vice versa.
b. People in the images grow older, or younger.
c. Two photo captions refer to each other.

Schedule

Commissioned for the Chennai Photo Biennale 2019, Fauna of Mirrors curated by N. Pushamala
Supported by The Hindu

Thanks:
At The Hindu: Mukund Padmanabhan, Jacob P, Prashant Nakweand everyone at The Hindu’s Photo Library
In Bombay: Gurpreet Kaur, Amol Patil

Links:
Resources:
Gallery: A Photogenetic Line: Experimenter

Related

A Photogenetic Line : CPB 2019
Feb. 22, 2019 - March 24, 2019

New work at the Chennai Photobiennial, drawing from the photo archives of The Hindu, a 140-year old newspaper based out of Chennai.

A Photogenetic Line: Experimenter 2019
April 13, 2019 - July 15, 2019
Experimenter - Hindustan Road, Kolkata

A 100-foot long branching sequence of cutouts drawing from the photo archives of The Hindu, a 140-year old newspaper. Cutouts here are a way of reframing existing photographs as new organisms and to create a new boundary or border for the image.



Works

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.

Wharfage 2022 edition

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.

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.

Men-At-Work with Boxes in Stereo

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

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 film 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.

Destuffing Matrix

4 channel HDV, 8 minutes

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.

All Works