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 20th 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 20th 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.
