Other Species, Other Times: New Video Art From India Curated by Lalitha Gopalan + Anuj Vaidya

Other Species, Other Times: New Video Art From India
Curated by Lalitha Gopalan + Anuj Vaidya April 17th

SUNDAY, April 17th
@Ritz Alamo Drafthouse
320 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78701 (map)
Austin, TX

Time 4.30pm
Admission $8.50

Experimental Response Cinema presents Other Species, Other Times: New Video Art From India a program curated by UT Professor Lalitha Gopalan and Anuj Vaidya. The screening includes videos by Sonia Khurana, Ranbir Kaleka, Munir Kabani, Nikhil Chopra, Jana Prepeluh, Neha Choksi, Tejal Shah, Sahej Rahel and Shambhavi Kaul.

In a reversal of exhibition practices, this program lines up single channel video art and installations in a repertory film space and suggests novel ways of considering bodies in movement. These bodies are neither discrete nor constant; they challenge borders and boundaries and prefer entanglements with other species and other kinds. Varied in their consideration of the digital and their use of performance practices, the works are primarily by artists living in Mumbai, Goa, and New Delhi.

A woman lies amongst pigeons in a public plaza in Logic of Birds, her body hospitable to their pecking and fluttering; man and bird merge in a play between painting and video in Man with Cockerel; an island sets the stage for bodies becoming other in Fjaka; and melting ice clocks the duration of a row in Iceboat. These performances of time and in space offer new utopias: a universe inhabited by myth and desire is the setting for the queer eco-fable Between the Waves; ancient ruins and spaceships offer a promise of time and space travel in the Forerunner; a landscape comes to life in the liminal time between digital and analog in Night Noon.

Logic of Birds (Sonia Khurana, India, 2006, 5:44 mins, Color, Digital Video)
Man with Cockerel (Ranbir Kaleka, India, 2001, 5:41 mins, Color, and B&W, Digital Video)
Fjaka (Munir Kabani/Nikhil Chopra/Jana Prepeluh, India, 2014, 13:06 mins, Color, HD)
Iceboat (Neha Choksi, India, 2013, 13:17 mins, Color, HD)
Between the Waves – Channel 1, A Fable in Five Chapters (Tejal Shah, India, 2012, 26:14 mins, Color, HD)
Forerunner (Sahej Rahal, India, 2013, 12:13 mins, Color, HD)
Night Noon (Shambavi Kaul, USA/Mexico, 2014, 11:38 mins, Color, Digital Video)

Acknowledgments: Special thanks to all the artists, Chatterjee & Lal, Project 88, Pacific Film Archive, and 3rd i Films.