Bioscopes emerge as a medium bridging the geographical travel of the image with the digital mobility it has gained in the contemporary. A device of wonder and a multi-view device, bioscopes in the Indian context have a rich history of being displayed at fairs, markets, and travelling booths, containing clippings from popular cinema, famous monuments, sites, etc.
Here, the bioscope is modified to become a solo viewing device, where the participant has to move the handle themselves to move the footage- demanding labouring of the body to access information. The placement of the bioscope is a height that strains muscles and makes the viewer ‘work’ for information.
The apparatus of the bioscope makes possible an affective stretch through bodily pain and discomfort, thinking of the normalisation of images of oppression and violence in our fleeting image landscape.
Constructing a Prolonged Image , 2022, Modified Bioscopes, Hardwood boxes with rough steel handles, with a roller mechanism and a scroll format footage.
Inner Mechanism of the Biosciopes
Scroll footage used in the bioscopes
Three different bioscopes contained images of key incidents of oppression:
- The brutal crushing of peacefully protesting farmers in Lakhimpur Kheri, Uttar Pradesh
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Attack on students protesting in Uttar Pradesh. for fairness in State Railway exams
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Harassment of a college student for wearing a hijab in college in Karnataka.
Documentation during project rooms at Shiv Nadar Institute of Eminence. 2022
Constructing a Prolonged Image- 2
The second experiment continued engaging with the widely circulated, poor-resolution clip of peacefully protesting farmers in Lakhimpur Kheri, Uttar Pradesh, being crushed by the car driven by the son of a powerful MP. Interested in the moment of impact, thinking of violence, the urge to document, the urge to other; the screen is juxtaposed with a pinhole camera; generating frame by frame the moment of impact, displayed as negatives. What happens when the pinhole camera, devoid of the viewfinder, comes in contact with the lingering in the image of violence that cannot be captured?
The arrangement and the nature of the images demand constant zooming in and out; to think of how images might/might not be able to hold what lingers beyond the moment of violence.
Constructing a Prolonged Image-2 , 2023, 48 Pinhole negatives on FOMASPEED VAR 312, TV Screen and Vinyl text on floor
48 Pinhole negatives on FOMASPEED VAR 312, installed on the wall.
Inverted view of the pinhole images