Presence
Yashaswini Raghunandan and Ekta Mittal
Documentary/17min/2012/India/Hindi with English subtitles
Presence is part of film series called “Behind the Tin Sheets”. The film explores the haunting attributes of the transformation in the city against the ghost stories narrated by the workers.
“The ghost is not simply a dead or a missing person, but a social figure, and investigating [that social figure]…lead[s] to that dense site where history and subjectivity make social life…The way of the ghost is haunting, and haunting is a very particular way of knowing what has happened or is happening” – Avery Gordon.
Behind the Tin Sheets is a project which uses video and other related media to engage the changing landscape of Bangalore, a “Garden City” increasingly associated with technology and private sector research.
Drawing connections between a literal restructurion of the metropolis and a host of related social concerns – the invisibility of certain sections of society and palpable contrasts dividing class and caste – the project considers the erasure of memory in relation to a radically altered landscape. Working at the cusp of old and new Bangalore, the project strives to make visible its various unseen actors.
To be screened with Hamare Ghar, I Sing the Body Electric, The Adventure of a Married Couple and Shit.
Sheharnama 