ContainerSpeak, at once, in the Present
Version 1 : this world is stuck in my throat/bucket/drain
This work is a collection of 3 works that come together in a multiple channel interaction.
2 Channel Video, 3 Channel Audio built into
1 drain pipe into which a screen is broken for video of flowing traffic
1 bucket which speaks but struggles to express
1 bucket apparently broken by too much noise
1 video of a kid who covers their ears to protect themselves from the noise but soon imitates an adult dancing senseless to the same noise
The multiple channel interaction is at once, of voices, sounds and images, and that of everyday objects, which screen, speak and broadcast those images, sounds and voices.
The Object-Screen-Speaker entities are placed in the exhibition space such that an audience may find themselves in-between them, creating a proto-atmosphere around themselves. This proto-atmosphere tries to make transformations of meanings experiential, by shifting, what is in front, to the back, and vice versa.
Example of floor plan for the work
Container-speak Synposis Edit:
Container-speak: Various Image-Sculptures:
The bucket by itself is also, a placeholder for a person. As a ‘container’ it is a colloquial metaphor for bodymind.
The work uses the form and material of the bucket to produce audio (using surface transducers), and thus, transforms the bucket, a non-speaking container into a speaker-apparatus, which is at once a tool of expression and a tool for broadcasting propaganda.
Through the transformation of a bodymind symbol into a broadcast tool (screen or speaker), I have attempted to express the phenomena in which ‘backward’ caste people (like screens and speakers) themselves recede into a present-absence while propagating distant hegemonic signals through their own body.
Here, while one bucket speaks but struggles to express, another bucket is broken, yet we hear sounds through it’s body.
Through the first bucket we hear anecdotes from a ‘backward’ caste realm— From where expression is a taboo, we hear attempts to make experiences and thoughts intelligible. These anecdotes come from a decade of my writing [1]. They document my struggle to express, as I live and grow in a casteist reality which is breaking me, which is why the second bucket is broken.
From where I come from is consumed in loudness of loudspeaker-ed propaganda camouflaged as celebratory [2]. The sound we hear from the broken bucket [3] is such a sound, as heard and recorded from a room in this oppressed realm. The video[4] on the wall, is of such a celebration, in which you can see the actual loudspeakers and an instance of ‘imitation’ under the influence of this hegemonic broadcast.
As a spectacle that consumes the consumer, oppression is emotionally rendered with music and drama. This loud ‘entertainment’ overpowers our ambient atmosphere and literally makes it a struggle to think anything. Under the influence of this loudness we imitate the rhythms of oppression.
‘Imitation’ — ‘backward’ caste people often imitate their oppressors, in the aspiration becoming ‘cultured’, but the sad truth which history reveals is that this religion-culture is actually what makes them ‘backward’. These songs and dramatic performances, literally manufacture the backward caste Sudra-subject in the graded inequality of casteism masked as religious-culture.
In the video we see a child who covers their ears to protect themselves from the noise but soon imitates an adult dancing senseless to the same noise.
This happens on a historical road, which is known and feared for its traffic jams. If we want to go anywhere, we have to go through this road and its jams. After every journey, it feels as if this road and its stagnant jams are stuck in our bodies. We desire to excrete this suffering, which is manifested in the drain pipe, into which a screen (of desire) is broken. Through this pipe, which is not a pipe, what is jammed within us flows like water, going back to the river[5] which symbolises the flux of reality, which we inevitably pollute with our excretion, after having consumed too much sight and sound.
Jam is a congested stagnation of something which was meant to be moving. This is at once a feeling of living in the congested and ‘backward’ part of the city, and also a feeling of being stuck in an ideological reality which is oppressive but which is maybe all you have.
To express such a present-absence is the intention of this proto-atmosphere— In the multiple channel architecture, moving from one stream/location of media/object to another, we move through apparent/covert interactions and movements of meanings, feelings and influences.
The work uses the form and material of the bucket to produce audio (using surface transducers), and thus, transforms the bucket, a non-speaking container into a speaker-apparatus, which is at once a tool of expression and a tool for broadcasting propaganda.
Through the transformation of a bodymind symbol into a broadcast tool (screen or speaker), I have attempted to express the phenomena in which ‘backward’ caste people (like screens and speakers) themselves recede into a present-absence while propagating distant hegemonic signals through their own body.
Here, while one bucket speaks but struggles to express, another bucket is broken, yet we hear sounds through it’s body.
Through the first bucket we hear anecdotes from a ‘backward’ caste realm— From where expression is a taboo, we hear attempts to make experiences and thoughts intelligible. These anecdotes come from a decade of my writing [1]. They document my struggle to express, as I live and grow in a casteist reality which is breaking me, which is why the second bucket is broken.
From where I come from is consumed in loudness of loudspeaker-ed propaganda camouflaged as celebratory [2]. The sound we hear from the broken bucket [3] is such a sound, as heard and recorded from a room in this oppressed realm. The video[4] on the wall, is of such a celebration, in which you can see the actual loudspeakers and an instance of ‘imitation’ under the influence of this hegemonic broadcast.
As a spectacle that consumes the consumer, oppression is emotionally rendered with music and drama. This loud ‘entertainment’ overpowers our ambient atmosphere and literally makes it a struggle to think anything. Under the influence of this loudness we imitate the rhythms of oppression.
‘Imitation’ — ‘backward’ caste people often imitate their oppressors, in the aspiration becoming ‘cultured’, but the sad truth which history reveals is that this religion-culture is actually what makes them ‘backward’. These songs and dramatic performances, literally manufacture the backward caste Sudra-subject in the graded inequality of casteism masked as religious-culture.
In the video we see a child who covers their ears to protect themselves from the noise but soon imitates an adult dancing senseless to the same noise.
This happens on a historical road, which is known and feared for its traffic jams. If we want to go anywhere, we have to go through this road and its jams. After every journey, it feels as if this road and its stagnant jams are stuck in our bodies. We desire to excrete this suffering, which is manifested in the drain pipe, into which a screen (of desire) is broken. Through this pipe, which is not a pipe, what is jammed within us flows like water, going back to the river[5] which symbolises the flux of reality, which we inevitably pollute with our excretion, after having consumed too much sight and sound.
Jam is a congested stagnation of something which was meant to be moving. This is at once a feeling of living in the congested and ‘backward’ part of the city, and also a feeling of being stuck in an ideological reality which is oppressive but which is maybe all you have.
To express such a present-absence is the intention of this proto-atmosphere— In the multiple channel architecture, moving from one stream/location of media/object to another, we move through apparent/covert interactions and movements of meanings, feelings and influences.
[1]A preview of few pages from the decade long archive of anecdotes, from where the spoken dialogues/poetry is developed.
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[2]A short video to present the problem of loudness, shot within 500mts radius of zeropower-studio, between 2019-2021.
[2]A short video to present the problem of loudness, shot within 500mts radius of zeropower-studio, between 2019-2021.
[3] The sound we hear from broken bucket.
[4] Stills from the video. Still1: They close their ears. Still2: They imitate the adult
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[5] A video-note showing how the notion developed
[4] Stills from the video. Still1: They close their ears. Still2: They imitate the adult
[5] A video-note showing how the notion developed