Assembly of Ghosts
An installation/performance by Kathyayini Dash
Ghost
(noun):
An apparition of a dead person which is believed to appear or become manifest to the living, typically as a nebulous image. An entity of the past that haunts the present.
The omnipresent bodies that are violently manufactured out of procedural systems assemble here. When the stereotype morphs into a physical body, histories of violence render the body into a living apparition. Historical, systemic, symbolic and physical wounds scab together to form the body-mass of these ghosts. They are figures that have nebulously roamed across our screens and papers, have gone in and out of public memory, circulating as fleeting mediatic and journalistic images. Here, they assemble, re-installing themselves as gestural and iconic images/figures back into the memory of the nation. Pleading, lynched, burnt, beaten, hanged and ripped, these bodies wrench themselves together as monuments of dead bodies living.
The Assembly of Ghosts is an attempt to assemble the bodies of those who are reduced to their immediate identity and the nearest possibility.
The Assembly of Ghosts is an atmospheric and multi-disciplinary performative installation that weaves together voice, body, staged visual fields and text. The project attempts to align the affective processes of seeing, reading, and listening to produce an immersive environment for contemplation.
The installation is composed of five life-sized figures, made of paper mache and cloth. Three of them use kinetic mechanical/electronic parts. In one figure, the flayed body composed of dis-organised organs throb, move, and churn depending on the proximity of the viewer. Another figure is pierced with an 8ft long piece of ploughed land that trails in and out of the kneeling figure who carries mass graves on either side. Yet another hangs from the ceiling, rotating at an ominous speed. The fifth figure is hollow and gets activated during the performance wherein one of the scenes, a 10 ft long projection cloth is pulled out of the figure’s chest onto which the final projection is mapped.
The lights for the performance have been specifically designed for the project, which contributes to the atmosphere of death within the space. They are manipulated according to the performance. The projection work that is mapped over the sculptures and across the room is composed of phrases and sentences from various kinds of proses, poetry, and song. The texts are performed through projection mapping work. They are juxtaposed temporally with the voice-work of the performer. The performer sings phrases from a patchwork of songs over a pre-recorded soundscape. The various alignments of sight and sound, put into order, becomes the narrative of the performance.
I was invited to the production as a Production Controller. Through the course of the making process, I took up several responsibilities such as Light and Projection operation during performance mode as well as installation mode, electric work, rigging, transport and supervision of set construction. In this production, I was able to learn and experiment with projection mapping technology (software: Madmapper) and work with customised lights and understand the basics of electronics in this specific context of the work.
Performed at:
The Serendipity Arts Festival Goa Dec 2018
Direction, Art & performance:
Kathyayini Dash
Light Design:
Anuj Chopra, Abhinav Khetarpal
Production control:
Taha Abdul Majeed
Mechanics:
Rushabh Vishawakarma
Programming:
Aakash Pandey
Metal work:
Ajit Sheikh