Desire Machine Collective
»25-75«, 2007
Video, colour, sound, 6:40 min
Courtesy of the artists

October 29 – November 11, 2010

Invited by Sandhini Poddar (Assistant Curator for Asian Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York)

»25-75« (2007)

Sonal Jain (*1975 in Shillong, Indien) and Mriganka Madhukaillya (*1978 in Jorhat, Assam, Indien) have been collaborating as Desire Machine Collective since 2004. Their artistic output, primarily in digital video and film, has undergone a number of shifts and transformations since then.

The title of Desire Machine Collective’s digital video »25-75« from 2007, which was shot in Shillong in Northeastern India; alludes to a local lottery system. Here, members of the Khasi tribe believe that dreams correspond to numbers, which ultimately inform the outcome of the lottery. The video is an assemblage of images and textures, set against a soundscape of dripping water that drifts viewers into an aqueous dream world. Like with other works, this video is inspired by a penchant for stories about people living with a completely different worldview. By working against grand narratives, the artists focus our attention on what Jain calls »micro modernisms« – seemingly mundane parallel realities and timescapes that escape the notice of a hegemonic center (of government and media production).

Text: Sandhini Poddar