Porous Altas, a center for socio-scientific research founded by Avik Debdas and Chinmoyee Deori held its first open house, on 30th September, 2023. The open house saw many friends and peers visit; with screenings, gameplays, and intense discussions around the presented work. 

The project “Propositional Inhabitations” prompts to reimagine the sites we inhabit as sites of active thought and contemplation; than passive engagement..The site finds itself rendered as a game interface where ‘doubt’ is the weapon that protects from attacks that threaten perceptual morphings.  Here, the mapping of our bodily rhythms and thought planes within everyday spaces becomes paramount. 

A thought map; retracing invocations by the site of Old Bulandshehar Jail in Bulandshehar, an abandoned jail in the middle of Bulandshehar city that was integral in the revolt of 1857.  The map combines anecdotes, audio narration, and doodling opening up historical and cultural lingerings. These anecdotes, narrations were done in the vernacular, combining interaction with inhabitants of Bulandshehar and people present on site; as the residue of walks I organised as part of the research/dialogues. 

The map had QR codes, which could be scanned to hear sounds, conversations with inhabitants of the city, as well as personal anecdotes that brought in the history of the space and its importance in contemporary times. 

 

 

"Propositional Inhabitations", display at Porous Altas, New Delhi