𑂥𑂳𑂕𑂰𑂞 𑂢𑂅𑂎𑂵
bujhat naikhe
can’t understand
Bhojpuri Song
~6-10 mins
Voice and Music by Sunaina (Sunil Ram); Conceptualised by Piyush Kashyap; Written by Raju Ranjan and Piyush Kashyap
2024
This is an original song made as part of Lattar- a devised Launda Naach performance; Collectively authored by Sunaina (Sunil Ram), Raju Ranjan, Piyush Kashyap & Sipahi Lathor; Commissioned by Maraa Media & Arts Collective for Stone Flowers 2024
Written as a reflection on masculinity, the song is about a person scouring for themself in a straw hut they have built. The song explores Nirgun: a form of thinking and singing (an art form and a philosophy). Briefly put, Nirgun is to recognize the world and things as ungraspable, and thus, to practice intelligence (and intelligibility) via materiality and scenes from daily life.
click below to play/pause the song
Lyrics of the Bhojpuri song with English Translation —
बुझात नइख़े
केकरा से बोली
सुझात नइख़े
कौन शबदा में बोली
बुझात नइख़े
खम्भा कटनी
खर कटनी
रची रची कोना के बनहनी
सुझात नइख़े
कौन शबदा में बोली
कूचा लगवनी
बोरा बिछवनी
मढ़ाई के आपन सजवनी
बुझात नइख़े
सतपुतिआ, कोहरा, बैंगन, मरिचा, चाउर, नून, ऐनक, ककही, रिब्बन, लिप्सिटिक, कोपी, किताब, पेंसिल, खेलौना, करेजा
करेजवा के मढ़ई में कोनवा ना भेटाइल
टोहातानी टोहातानी
माया काया
कोनवा ना भेटाइल
केने बाडू हो?
can’t understand
whom to say
can’t think
what words (I) can speak
can’t understand
which tongue (I) can tell
I cut bamboo
I cut straw
making every corner
tying everything together
can’t understand
I swept the floor
laid gunny sacks
I decorated my hut
decorated so much
can’t understand
Greens, Pumpkin, Brinjal, Chilly, Rice, Salt, Mirror, Comb, Ribbon, Lipstick, Notebook, Book, Pencil, Toys,
Feels
inside my hut
(I find) no corner for my feelings
(I am) scouring
(this) world, body
nothing finds me
where are you?
Sunaina (Sunil Ram) performing their song on stage
pari-bartan:
cup presents tea
Broken paper cup, tea
2023, 2024
Pari-bartan (which means transformation) is premised on how kalpana or imagination becomes hypothesis or pari-kalpana. While pari-kalpana, or pari-bartan, wants to be objective, they are nevertheless ideologically contained in (subjectivities, or biases, or choices of) the institution that foundations a real, through unspoken spectral bodies of laws or norms. The institution operates as an undeclared constitution that accesses reality for us; and so the body, of that which constitutes us, is cut open.
The work is premised on the saying: “They break the utensil that feeds them” (original in Hindi: “Jis thaali me khaate hain, usi me ched karte hain”). The saying shames those who criticise their constitutive institution, like their nation, or their family, or the entity that buys their labour.
Puranabad ka naksa / Puranabad’s map
Recycled cardboard made from Puranabad’s garbage and sewage waters
2024
Puranabad ka naksa is an olfactory map.
Puranabad, as the name suggests is an old, populated, and prosperous place [purana: old, historical + abad: prosperous, populated].
History stinks bad, because of being recycled again and again from civilizational residue or waste, using the sewage waters from the same population, returning materially, what was discarded, while as image, an unrelated simulation is pasted on top of it.
Puranabad ka naksa (or a variety of cardboard that smells really bad) is the material used as back-ground for images of god, or whatever other simulations (like nature, garden, horses, mansion, etc) people of Puranabad use to help them forget their real lives. It is the same material often used for delivery cartons and packaging.
Broadcaste
video documentation of research presentation7min 22sec
Investigating the synced phenomena of broadcast as broad-caste (how widely propagated myths sustain the bulk of caste system), this presentation discusses how Listening is brahmanically deintelligentialized to manufacture compliance– historically via dissociative myths and more recently, via Loudness that implements the mythideological dissociation physically into neighborhoods, rooms, and bodies.
This is a video documentation (7min 22sec) of zeropowercut’s research-presentation
as part of “Limits and Sites of Amplification” curated by Suvani Suri
at Listening Academy Delhi 2024; a program in collaboration between
Listening Academy and Sarai-CSDS (The Centre for the Study of Developing Societies) ︎︎︎
To read the research-presentation as a single-page website click here
𑂥𑂩𑂯𑂧𑂹
barham:
restless rest
Used pillow, fragments of thinking process
2023
Spent and torn process of thinking hold this promise of rest. To rest is to know. These processes can be traumatic for sudras forbidden to create anything outside the tradition; but even the most abiding traditionalists get restless.
Among many things we hear barham is, we find [folk] practices of making material resting places for something restless from within (psyche), often as mounds of earth raised a bit from the ground; but here, barham is this pillow.
Patriarchal communities worship barham as the place of male-ancestral spirit. Brahmanical hegemony appropriates this place of worship as representation of brahma— the creator-father of casteist theism. Nevertheless, we hear anecdotes of people making rogue and esoteric barhams to rest feelings, sufferings, emotions, and manythings untold.
Note: The concept of ‘barham’ comes from folk-practices of Bihar. Such folk-practices have been historically misappropriated and weaponised againts their own people.
Materialising the mundane as a shrine/art, my decision to work with ‘barham’ as a concept is an assertion for imaginative access; What the colonial and casteist gaze has termed “spiritual”, is actually an emotionally grounded materiality, that is imaginatively accessible to all.
Materialising the mundane as a shrine/art, my decision to work with ‘barham’ as a concept is an assertion for imaginative access; What the colonial and casteist gaze has termed “spiritual”, is actually an emotionally grounded materiality, that is imaginatively accessible to all.
Naach/Musical, Bhojpuri and English, 40mins
From Chanakewatia, Farhada, Kanaela & Sadikpur; Bhojpur & Patna-Sahib, Bihar
Making Lattar [Vine]: a devised Launda Naach Performance
Research and Workshop setup for Collaborative Writing, Sharing and Structuring
to make a Contemporary-Folk Performance in collaboration with ‘folk’ artists, devised from the traditions of Naach, becoming Launda and Nirgun; Based on real life incidents
Collectively authored by Sunaina (Sunil Ram), Raju Ranjan, Piyush Kashyap & Sipahi Lathor
First version of the play was comissioned by Maraa Media & Arts Collective
2024
In a house he has constructed, a man searches for space to express his sorrow.
Because the show must go on, a Launda Naach artist is forced to continue performing while he receives the news of his spouse’s death.
A person dreams of their lover sending them a love-letter.
A Launda Naach artist recalls having barely escaped dominant caste men trying to sexually harass him.
‘My wife loves me like a Launda’— a Naach artist shares few details from their love life.
zeropowercut’s specific role in the project was to collate and co-conduct on-field as well as theory based research on gender and ‘folk’ art/artist, design and conduct sharing and workshop sessions, co-organise and co-manage logistics and production, co-write songs and dialogues, and conceptualise scene-structure of the play.
*Launda Naach is a folk dance of the Bhojpuri speaking Community of India, Nepal, Mauritius and the Caribbean Islands. It is performed by males who dress as women to become ‘Launda’— a term which can mean: female impersonator, feminine man, queer man, and/or-alternatively a ‘folk’ artist-performer who practices this art-form. The term ‘Naach’ literally means dance, but in folk traditions can mean a mix of dance, drama, theatre, performance and storytelling. [Wikipedia]
Short excerpts of 3 songs/scenes we made:
Scene 2
Because the show must go on, a Launda artist is forced to continue performing while he receives the news of his spouse’s death
Raju told me this story. He wanted this story to be part of the play and its expression of ‘masculinity’. This is the story of a naach artist with whom Sunaina has shared stage, and whom Raju has seen perform many times. We started working with this memory and history, and soon hit the form of reprise: With all that goes in a naach performance (teasing, show of ‘upper’ caste masculinity, firing guns), the crisis resounds again and again; in this we are unsure—
—Is Chilgozra shackled to the stage or committed to naach?
Scene 4
A Launda artist recalls having barely escaped dominant caste men trying to sexually harass him
The artist whose story this is, narrated and sang their traumatic memories to us, as we met them for ‘research’. More artists among the listeners began recounting their own accounts of harrasment from the dominant caste men. We wrote this scene with elements from two incidents. For this scene, the dancing stops, and the dancer, Sipahi tells a story.
Scene 5
My wife loves me like a Launda—
While praise and humiliation stand shoulder to shoulder in crowd, there is certain hope when one is accepted and loved as they become many/other on stage, in life— we leave the play with this hopeful turn of embraced-becoming. Inspired by Sipahi’s story, we return to love; to freedom of expression in the many languages of love.
all scenes:
performed by Raju, Sunaina & Sipahi
music by Raju and Sunaina
co-written by Raju and Piyush
structured and conceptualised by Piyush
food and shelter by Puneet
always everywhere, yet absent
Bricks, Sand, Cement, Soil, Live Sadabahar Plant
2022
This plant is called ‘sadabahar’ or ‘always prosperous’ because it grows anywhere and everywhere.
In the mundane, abject survival is masked as eternal abundance.
Like this plant, poeple subjected to oppressed-castes are expected to survive anyhow, in abject lacks, while always pridefullly believing with in the namesake ‘eternity’ of the ‘eternal-laws’ that oppresses them.
w/ —out-of-line—
2023
jangayek.txt
Online Song Performance and Discussion, Leather and Plastic Dafli (Drum), Text2023
‘jangayek’ means a singer-performer from, amongst and for the public and ‘folk’.
jangayek.txt is an attempt to make, sing and perform new songs and texts from oppressed-caste experiences, while re-editing parts of existing Dalit-Bahujan discourse with contemporary doubts.
Current iteration of the project discussed instances of how sudrafication destroys the scope of Knowledge, and how hegemonic-castes dehumanize worker-castes by appropriating their ‘folk’ expressions.
jangayek.txt is an attempt to make, sing and perform new songs and texts from oppressed-caste experiences, while re-editing parts of existing Dalit-Bahujan discourse with contemporary doubts.
Current iteration of the project discussed instances of how sudrafication destroys the scope of Knowledge, and how hegemonic-castes dehumanize worker-castes by appropriating their ‘folk’ expressions.
Performance duration: 45 minutes, followed by discussion: 40 minutes
Song Performance by Raju Ranjan
Text by Kashyap and Raju Ranjan
Hosted from zeropowercut-base at Sadikpur, PatnaSaheb, Bihar(IN)
Organised with members of —out-of-line— Suvani, Aasma, Radha, Sonam and Kaushal
The work is part of —out-of-line— framework supported by Public Art Grant (2020) of Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art
Song Performance by Raju Ranjan
Text by Kashyap and Raju Ranjan
Hosted from zeropowercut-base at Sadikpur, PatnaSaheb, Bihar(IN)
Organised with members of —out-of-line— Suvani, Aasma, Radha, Sonam and Kaushal
The work is part of —out-of-line— framework supported by Public Art Grant (2020) of Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art
The Culture which calls its Makers
Sudra (unknowledeable, menial and insignificant)
That Culture is itself
Knowledge-less and Backward
The Nation whose Culture is Slavery
That Nation itself is up for Sale
in the World Market
How will we save this Culture?!
Big people (from oppressor castes) own estates
with Bamboo Plantations
People from Dom and Bind caste
Cultivate that Bamboo
and Weave various forms of Baskets
like Dauri, Jhonpi and Soop
among other uses, these Baskets
are used for Threshing
from the Fields to Home, these Baskets
separate the Edible from Inedible
yet the Makers (of these Baskets)
are treated as untouchables
yet the Makers (of these baskets)
are treated as backward
Blacksmiths use Leather Bellows
an Equipment made by the Cobblers
Action becomes Fire
Fire Melts the Metal
glowing Metal is Sculpted
by Hammering
to Make Leather cutting Blades (Katarni)
to Carve Jackets from Animal Skin
yet the Makers (of Tools and Leather)
are treated as untouchables
yet the Makers (of Tools and Leather)
are treated as backward
They robbed us of our Stories
They portrayed us as Monsters
and decorated themselves as Heroes
They portrayed us as Animals
(maybe because...)
I Work with all my limbs
my Legs are as Skilled as my Arms
my Body, my Mind, my Intellect,
my Spirit, Works together
Ram was not the name of any King
Ram was the name of a Bhangi, a Dalit
Which is why even today, in my country
Many Dalits have ‘Ram’ surname
For instance, Jagjiwan Ram,
Chatman Ram, Gharbharman Ram
This word ‘Ram’ was stolen
The word ‘Ram’ was first appropriated
as the name of a King
and then as the name of a God
When I was a child
Uncle Ghurfekan had told me this
Slavery is selling
in the name of Culture
bucketspeak
Buckets, Audio-Electronics, Voice Acting, AmbiencePart of ContainerSpeak multiple-channel setup
2022
Like buckets, like any non-speaking container, any body can speak
bucketspeak wants you to think about the apparatus used in propaganda, and the people who are reduced to the function of apparatus in propagating.
By using the form and material of a plastic bucket to act as an apparatus, bucketspeak presents the zone-of-transfer from signal to image.
Through the whole-bucket (a container, colloquial idea for self) we hear them speak, for whom expression is a taboo.
By using the form and material of a plastic bucket to act as an apparatus, bucketspeak presents the zone-of-transfer from signal to image.
Through the whole-bucket (a container, colloquial idea for self) we hear them speak, for whom expression is a taboo.
The broken-bucket reproduces the audio for 'imitation', a video running in a multiple-channel setup with the speaking bucket.
Voice: Raju Ranjan, Usha Paswan, Sneha Kumar, Deepmala, Anonymous
Audio Technology: Banana Apparatus: Ishan and Saurabh
Multiple Channel program: Saloni
Installation developed at Serendipity Arts Residency 2022
Shown at Serendipity, Delhi and Goa, 2022
Audio Technology: Banana Apparatus: Ishan and Saurabh
Multiple Channel program: Saloni
Installation developed at Serendipity Arts Residency 2022
Shown at Serendipity, Delhi and Goa, 2022
bucketspeak is part of containerspeak multiple-channel installation made of everyday objects (containers, bins and pipes) that BECOME Screens and Speakers. The setup consisted of a Drain Pipe, into which a Screen is broken, two video projections, and two Buckets, one broken and one intact, activated as Speakers, using their own material bodies.
The Image-Sculptures in multiple-channel arrangement project a Proto-Atmosphere that struggles-to-express through appearances and disappearances of what is present or imagined.
w/ —out-of-line—
2023
anumanlok, colloquially translates to guess-wor(/)d; though anuman can also mean ‘inference’
During the month of August 2023, people dialed a phone number to listen, and interact with anumanlok. Like any other IVR, listeners navigated the complex structure an interdependent text, by pressing numbers on their keypad.
anumanlok [guess-wor{/}d]
Interactive Voice Response System, Data Phone, Bhojpuri/Hindi2023
anumanlok, colloquially translates to guess-wor(/)d; though anuman can also mean ‘inference’
During the month of August 2023, people dialed a phone number to listen, and interact with anumanlok. Like any other IVR, listeners navigated the complex structure an interdependent text, by pressing numbers on their keypad.
Like most things meant for the public, and built upon rules invisible to the public, the format of IVR, and its commands (press 1 for x, press 2 for y) encode the limit within which a heavily scripted language operates. anumanlok enters this limit, and expresses how unstable the interdependence of language and meanings are, while still being locked in a code.
The sayings of anumanlok are ordinary expressions which struggle to express caste-oppressions in materially-intersubjective ways, beyond the direct intelligibility of political discourse.
The sayings of anumanlok are ordinary expressions which struggle to express caste-oppressions in materially-intersubjective ways, beyond the direct intelligibility of political discourse.
Text: Deepmala, Raju Ranjan and Kashyap
Voice-Acting: Deepmala
Audio Technology: Suvani and Abhishek
IVR: Aasma Tulika
Produced with members of —out-of-line— Suvani, Aasma, Radha, Sonam and Kaushal
The work is part of —out-of-line— framework supported by Public Art Grant (2020) of Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art
Voice-Acting: Deepmala
Audio Technology: Suvani and Abhishek
IVR: Aasma Tulika
Produced with members of —out-of-line— Suvani, Aasma, Radha, Sonam and Kaushal
The work is part of —out-of-line— framework supported by Public Art Grant (2020) of Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art
atma-nirbhar / self-reliant
Painting: Oil on Canvas Paper2021
On the first bite of our body, we opened to the rest of our suffering, realising, that meanings are transient, not eternal or sanatan.
The notion of ETERNAL SOUL drives the oppressed-caste folks to sabotage their-SELF in service of Eternal or Sanatan Faith. The pain of this ever-present suffering remains unspoken...
...as our hands are stuck in our mouths.
1. The earthen vessel denotes the SELF in the spiritually evocative and anti-caste folk lexicon.
2. In the COVID Pandemic crisis, Indian government commanded the suffering people to become ‘self-reliant’ as opposed to demanding from the State.
2. In the COVID Pandemic crisis, Indian government commanded the suffering people to become ‘self-reliant’ as opposed to demanding from the State.
imitation
Video-Projection, Broken-Bucket SpeakerPart of ContainerSpeak multiple-channel setup
2022
In the video—the child, positioned on top of sound-system-cart, covers their ears to protect themselves from the impact of loud-speakers; but soon, reluctantly imitates an adult dancing senseless to the same noise.
Oppressed-caste people often imitate their oppressors in the aspiration of becoming ‘Cultured’, but it this very imitation, which sustains their oppression.
The compliance is celebrated on streets in criminally loud volumes—in fact, the audio of the street-procession seen in the video was recorded from inside a house roughly 350 meters away from the scene.
The loudness dissociates the bodies from hearing their own thoughts, re-activating materially, the mundane-taboo that the oppressed must only comply without thinking for themselves.
The work is part of ContainerSpeak multiple-channel setup; the audio of the work is re-produced by a Broken-Bucket, expressing the oppressed-caste self as a broken container.
Oppressed-caste people often imitate their oppressors in the aspiration of becoming ‘Cultured’, but it this very imitation, which sustains their oppression.
The compliance is celebrated on streets in criminally loud volumes—in fact, the audio of the street-procession seen in the video was recorded from inside a house roughly 350 meters away from the scene.
The loudness dissociates the bodies from hearing their own thoughts, re-activating materially, the mundane-taboo that the oppressed must only comply without thinking for themselves.
The work is part of ContainerSpeak multiple-channel setup; the audio of the work is re-produced by a Broken-Bucket, expressing the oppressed-caste self as a broken container.
Audio-Video: Kashyap
Audio Technology: Banana Apparatus: Ishan and Saurav
Montage: Kashyap
Multiple-channel Program: Saloni
Installation developed at Serendipity Arts Residency 2022
Shown at Serendipity, Delhi and Goa, 2022
Audio Technology: Banana Apparatus: Ishan and Saurav
Montage: Kashyap
Multiple-channel Program: Saloni
Installation developed at Serendipity Arts Residency 2022
Shown at Serendipity, Delhi and Goa, 2022
Sudrafic(a)tion
Essay-Text-Fictionongoing since 2021
Cultural artifacts like that of narrativity and image are found at work in anchoring the projection of caste in the real. Without the effectivity of these fantastical constructs, ideology becomes nothing but fiction, behind which appears a makeshift of meaning— When the workers were caste-segregated as sudras [which means: unknowledgeable, menial and insignificant], what was actually sudra-fied was not people but intelligence; a ‘cultural’ notion of Knowledge was insignified, which is why, no actuality of culturalisation is possible without annihilation of caste in how we make things intelligible.
To understand the role of broadcast aesthetics in manufacturing Sudra-subjects, we have to look back at the Post-Vedic Epic-Age. What we know of Hinduism or Sanatan Dharma (eternal religion) was manufactured in the Epic Age— The hegemonic Vedics appropriated the fables and symbols of their non-vedic subjects, via vedic-source anchors, to create the illusion of an all encompassing ‘eternal’ religion, with the key motivation to captivate the non-vedic folks in the folds of the Later-Vedic Caste system, against the emergent threat of Anti-Caste Shramanic (spiritual labourer) religions like Buddhism. The hegemony propositioned productive subjects as non-knowledgeable and menial Sudras via narrative and artistic methods. The erasure of productive knowledge cultures was achieved by a ‘broadening’ of religious inclusion, but in the graded inequality of Caste. The epic-puranic broadcast continues to captivate the Sudra-majority even today, as pawns in a propaganda which oppresses them. Ramayana, Mahabharata, Manusmriti, and all other Sanatan texts that symbolise Hindu Sanskriti were written in this age, to manufacture the Sudras— In that sense, what we call Sanskritisation is actually Sudrafication. While we can simply boycott Sanatani texts, a more difficult challenge remains, to understand our notions of narrative, image, aesthetics and art that share history with this idea of Sanskriti or Culture, which is but a hushed erasure of material-intellectual productivity.
what a waste of life
Drain Pipe, Copier-Paper Screen, Video-ProjectionPart of ContainerSpeak multiple-channel setup
2022
Situated distant from commerce and culture, there is only one way to reach the scene.
Through endless congestions and jams, excess of traffic seeps into the imageless dissociated body which then excretes extrahuman temporalities. The view in this congestion is a wall on which drain pipes hang. This pipe is broken. Into that hole, a copier-paper is fixed to catch a video-projection.
Like water, Cuts flow, 24-to-25 unspaced frames per ordinary persistent second—kilometres of stuckness, in every next cut, empties the body of waste.
Through endless congestions and jams, excess of traffic seeps into the imageless dissociated body which then excretes extrahuman temporalities. The view in this congestion is a wall on which drain pipes hang. This pipe is broken. Into that hole, a copier-paper is fixed to catch a video-projection.
Like water, Cuts flow, 24-to-25 unspaced frames per ordinary persistent second—kilometres of stuckness, in every next cut, empties the body of waste.
Imaged at Ashok-rajpath
Video and Edit: Kashyap
Multiple channel program: Saloni
Video and Edit: Kashyap
Multiple channel program: Saloni
Installation developed at Serendipity Arts Residency 2022
Shown at Serendipity, Delhi and Goa, 2022
![]()
![]()
Shown at Serendipity, Delhi and Goa, 2022
The opressed act as dehumanized pawns in a propaganda that oppresses them— Like monkey shaped dustbins with USE ME signs, a monkey-fied aboriginal god mobilises the oppressed caste folks to do the dirty criminal work for their vedic-aryan master.
Found in public places and cermonial halls, the Monkey Dustbin is the sudraverse expressing itself.
The work, finds such a dustbin and animates its text—
USE ME
Found Fibreglass Monkey Dustbin, Text Projection2022
The phrase ‘USE ME’ is found written on anthropomorphic dustbins— In this scene, a uniform wearing civilian monkey holds between their legs, a container, which is to be filled with garbage by a higher (human) jati.
The Hindustani word jati, at once means, caste and species. While the literality of caste as species is stupid, it is exactly how caste laws anchor their dehumanization via Epics such as Ramayana: a mythic construction whose oldest parts date back to 8th century BCE, but which occupies a central position in current Hindutva Fascism.
From the Epic— the devotional-total-servitude of a monkey soldier (an aboriginal) towards his human-master (a vedic-brahmanical avatar), symbolises in the present, the participation of oppressed jatis (or castes) as pawns in a propaganda which oppresses them.
Like the charecterised garbage-bins, the dehumanised people of oppressed castes, often carry an invisible sign on themselves which reads ‘USE-ME’.
In the work— as more words appear to replace USE ME, the Sudra-subject struggles to express their complicated story, in the restricted space of 10 characters, which is all the textual space available on this body.
Installation developed at Serendipity Arts Residency 2022
Shown at Serendipity, Delhi and Goa, 2022
Shown at Serendipity, Delhi and Goa, 2022
a scene from where you live
Scenograph: Drawings and photographs2022
a dancer visits the workshop of a silversmith to get a septum piercing, a dog and a parrot talk, seepage from a drain pipe grows wild flora on brick walls, two different jatis [species or caste] interact.
only 50 years ago, such a scene took place on this exact place, but today, nobody knows.
Culture has preserved the figure of the dancer and the ornaments made by the artisan, as categorically segregated musuem artefacts; but the scene which produces this culture is missing from archival memory, public or private, possibly because as an inter-caste-action, this must never be recognised.
This is an unspoken law, from the streets to the museums.
part of Elephant in the Room: Infrastructures of Signaling in the Arts, a book published by Conflictorium (IN) and Stroom Den Hague (NL), 2023
back-ground
Clay Figurine, TV, Video2022
The back-ground seems distant and dissociated from anything that can be felt.
The videos of congested house-cluster and river waves on the Tele[scopic]Vision are documents from a so-called ‘ backward’ home; the third image-artifact, manifests a possible ‘upward-mobile’ future, of tiny appartments in massive rehabilitation-buildings, through which a migrant reaches for better life.
Shrined on the TV is an earthen figurine, anxiously-suffering-in-silence, empty-in-the-head; because from documentary to dream, nothing seems to re-present image-ination-s, erased by aired (caste-ideological) broadcasts.
Clay figurine 5”x3”x3”
TV 32”
Video 1920x1080
Clay figurine made in collaboration with Nishant Khoiya
Media player setup by Saloni
Videos and Edit by Kashyap
Installation developed at Serendipity Arts Residency 2022
Shown at Serendipity, Delhi and Goa, 2022
you are in the same atmosphere as me
Copier-Paper, Magnet, Copper Wire, Audio-Electronics2022
A collage of photo-copy prints of drawings is made into a speaker with a tiny magnet and some copper wires.
The aggregate-body of copier-papers vibrates, disturbing the air around them to produce an audio which speaks
"you are in the same atmosphere as me". The words reason for Equality or Same-ness. As the sound loops, it appears more and more ambiently distorted.
When ambient distortions consume the words, the paper-apparattus vibrates more and more stressfully, struggling harder and harder, to speak the same words. While the meaning of words obscure, the ambient distortion makes the materiality of the copier-paper become present in its struggle.
A substance lost to the spectre of imitative commonness (copy) becomes Present, when it does a thing it was not manufactured to do.
When ambient distortions consume the words, the paper-apparattus vibrates more and more stressfully, struggling harder and harder, to speak the same words. While the meaning of words obscure, the ambient distortion makes the materiality of the copier-paper become present in its struggle.
A substance lost to the spectre of imitative commonness (copy) becomes Present, when it does a thing it was not manufactured to do.
Drawings, Collage, Installation: Kashyap
Audio Technology: Banana Apparatus: Ishan and Saurabh
Installation developed at Serendipity Arts Residency 2022
Shown at Serendipity, Delhi and Goa, 2022
Audio Technology: Banana Apparatus: Ishan and Saurabh
Installation developed at Serendipity Arts Residency 2022
Shown at Serendipity, Delhi and Goa, 2022
1. Becoming: The word Bahujan forms an emancipatory identity for ‘backward’ caste people. It translates to ‘many people’ but means ‘becoming many’ or ‘becoming other’.
2. A paper speaker
![]()
![]()
3. Drawings in the work are from my daily journal, expressing scenes of migration, dehumanisation, objectification, dissociation and make-shiftness.
![]()
![]()
2. A paper speaker
3. Drawings in the work are from my daily journal, expressing scenes of migration, dehumanisation, objectification, dissociation and make-shiftness.
पैर-दर्शन [Limbicism]
32 pages, Black and white laser print on copier paper, Hand-stitched zine, 50 copies made and distributed
2022
That ‘we cannot represent what is not present’ is captured in the word पैर-दर्शन which gets sanskritised/cultured as प्रदर्शन, which translates to ‘representation’ but actually means ‘limbic thinking or limbicism’.
The term पैर-दर्शन [Limbicism] expresses a desire to move beyond the idea of representation, by thinking of absence as a possibility for presence, through experiences.
The term पैर-दर्शन [Limbicism] expresses a desire to move beyond the idea of representation, by thinking of absence as a possibility for presence, through experiences.
(text in the image:)
how can you make a copy of the real?
how can you sell reality?
truth is non-transferable
you are sold
keep on selling
rooms connected to rooms
endless house
click to the left/right to go through the pages
size: 20cmx14cm; black and white laser print on 70 gsm copier paper; hand-stitch bind; 32 pages
in all directions, but nowhere
Colour Inkjet and Black-n-White Laser Prints on Recylced Paper
Handmade Folds and Binds
2022
Handmade Folds and Binds
2022
“in all directions, but nowhere” catalogues how ~3000 years old, and ongoing caste-oppression renders reality as unintelligible, through excerpts from ~10 years of unpredictable folds, unruly binds and rogue cuts of uncertain search-pathways; which in this exercise of the book, become an invitation to recognise shifts of ‘abjection-objectification, weaponised nature, and cosmic-anxiety of agency’— constructs that de-intelligentialize the cultural measure of work as sudra (nothing of knowledge).
phone and whatsapp: +91 9007573208
instagram @zeropowercut.work
zeropowercut has been shown/ screened/ published at/ by: 1Shantiroad (IN), Tata Institute of Social Sciences (IN), Film and Television Institute of India (IN), Satyajit Ray Film & Television Institute (IN), A Very Deep Surface—JKK (IN), Mumbai Academy of Moving Image Festival—The New Medium w/CAMP(IN), Conflictorium (IN) w/Stroom Den Haag (NL), Serendipity Arts Residency and Festival (IN), India Art Fair (IN), Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art (IN), Vadehra Art Gallery (IN), International Studio and Curatorial Program (US), Athens Art Book Festival (GR), Goethe Institut w/Maraa (IN)
zeropowercut is run by artist, writer and filmmaker Piyush Kashyap, from their small studio in the old part of Patna, Bihar.
