Project Cinema City

Project Cinema City

                      Research Art & Documentary Practices

2012

National Gallery of Modern Art

Ministry of Culture, Government of India

Majlis

presents

Curator–Producer Madhusree Dutta

Co-Curator  Archana Hande

Architects  Rohan Shivkumar and Apurva Parikh

Designers Kausik Mukhopadhay and Shikha Pandey

Consultant s Kaushik Bhaumik and Shreyas Mhaskar

Table of Miscellany

Collaborative compilation and installation of photographs, texts, maps

Installation: Shikha Pandey and Paroma Sadhana

Photos: Amit Madheshiya, Avijit Mukul Kishore, Mamta Murthy, Sameer Tawde, Kruti Kothari, Simran Dhaliwal

Atlas: Design Cell of KRVIA

Dossier on ‘Cinema City Lived’: Rohan Shivkumar (editor), Abhinav Shaw (design), Hansa Thapliyal (text)

Timeline: Madhusree Dutta and Shilpa Gupta

Books that are not written, magazines that are fossilized, maps that are constantly being altered, texts that are fluid, photos that capture the ephemeral -- all collated within a structure that is a library-cum-laboratory look-alike. The monochromatic formality of the structure and the fleeting characteristics of the objects represent the inherent frictions in the proclamation of archiving the contemporary.

Bioscope
A game of Cinema–City–Modernity Timeline

Artist: Kausik Mukhopadhay with Amruta Sakalkar

Text: Madhusree Dutta

Snippets of information, gossip, lore and tales swivel around the cityscape and images of urban icons. The game is to create a tangible narrative by arranging appropriate series of data through an interactive device.

The Calendar Project
Iconography in the 20^th Century

Artists: Abeer Gupta, Amit Roy, Archana Hande, Arpita Singh, Bhupen Khakkar, B.V. Suresh, Chhatrapati Datta, Chintan Upadhyay, Christina Zuck, Deepshikha Jaiswal, Gulammohammed Sheikh, Hema Upadhyay, Kamal Swaroop, Mamta Murthy, Meera Devidayal, Mithu Sen, Nalini Malani, Nilima Sheikh, Paromita Vohra, Ranbir Kaleka, Ram Rahman, Riddhi Shah, Sachin Kondhalkar, Shakuntala Kulkarni, Sumitro Basak, Shilpa Gupta, Shreyas Karle, Sudhir Patwardhan, Sukhdev Rathod, Tushar Joag, Vinita Gatne, Vishal Rawlley, Vivan Sundaram

Production team: Afrah Shafiq, Kevat Pad, Rupal Shah

A collaborative project to re-negotiate the process of iconization of contemporary images in the public domain through the 20^th century. The works are mostly based on found images or on earlier works of the artists themselves, which are then hybridized with contemporary readings and speculations on the public and the popular.

The inconspicuous-looking individual works gain temporality and attain a special kind of exuberance when collated and placed together.

Pushpamala N

Return of the Phantom Lady (Sinful City)

a photo-romance

created by: Pushpamala N

photography: Clay Kelton

This is the second adventure of the Phantom Lady, a sequel to Phantom Lady or Kismet (1996–98), a black-and-white thriller shot in the film noir style.

This time the Phantom Lady gets caught in a dark web of murder, intrigue and foul play in contemporary Mumbai. While rescuing an orphaned schoolgirl, she encounters the land mafia and their land-grab operations that unfold through the sites of old movie theatres, artisans’ settlements in slums, and new, glass-facaded office blocks. Return is a look at the new Mumbai

So Near Yet So Far

Sound installation with telephone instruments, 3 listening stations with PBX set, public telephone and STD booth

Paromita Vohra

Engineering: Bhaskar Pal

Sound post: Tarun Sahani

Similar to the city and the cinema, the telephone is a part of the fantasy machine culture that allows one to be something else, somewhere else, to travel without moving. The three consoles trespass real space in three different ways – by impersonating, by creating a private space in the public, and by sampling that which is heart-racingly forbidden.

Fourteen Stations

Paintings in oil, acrylic with marble dust and crackle medium on canvas

Atul Dodiya

Station signboards along the Mumbai Central railway line are painted with portraits of popular Bollywood villains. Between Ghatkopar (the residence of the artist) and CST (Victoria Terminus) there are 13 stations – the artist has added one to the list.

14 Stations of the Cross turn into 14 stations of the iconic villains of Bollywood.

Untitled

a settlement of moving objects made of teak-wood

Anant Joshi

The imagination of the city of dizzying speed and escalating desire is replicated in an installation of moving wooden objects that are shaped in the form of firecrackers and painted/printed in the idiom of matchbox labels. The objects also resemble threaded spindles, the base for production in the textile industry – the erstwhile nerve

centre of the city.

The high speed of movement makes the objects ephemeral and yet desirable, much like matinee idols who are often referred to as patakas – firecrackers.

Vastusangrahalaya ki Dukan (Museum Shop of Fetish Objects)

Object-sculptures

Shreyas Karle

A speculative museum of cinema at the time of post-cinema.

Various fetishes foregrounded by Bollywood – the human anatomy, garments, props, home décor, spoken words – are made into sculptural objects cast in brass, copper and aluminum. These objects, along with sketches, scribbles, diaries and found images, are displayed in a museum-like setting.

Cinema City Lived

Map of the city made of a network of PVC pipes with graphics, models and objects

Structure: Rohan Shivkumar and Apurva Parikh

Objects: Apurva Talpade, Elizabeth Mathew and Shivani Shedde

Water front image: Apoorva Iyenger and Chetan Kulkarni

Train image: Kruti Kothari

A compilation of the marks of cinema on the body of the city.

The pipeline network is conceived as the stitching pattern that holds the map of the cinema city together – tracing production units, shooting studios, exhibition theatres, locations of desires and utility and their interfaces.  

Of Panorama: A Riding Exercise
Video animation and interactive installation

Artist: Archana Hande

Animation rendering: Anand Bhutkar

Technical consultant: Abeer Gupta

Reincarnating the genre of film shooting with painted backdrops for landscapes, the installation invites the viewer to participate in the process of image reproduction. Through the contemporary video device the viewer can opt to be a part of animated outdoor images while comfortably placed within an indoor space.