eBook - PDF
The Epistemic Archeology of Ashish Avikunthak
Cinema and Religiosity of Everyday Life
- 281 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF
The Epistemic Archeology of Ashish Avikunthak
Cinema and Religiosity of Everyday Life
About this book
This book explores the diverse aspects of Ashish Avikunthak's cinema, which challenges Western knowledge systems and cinematic practices, as well as ideological hegemonies of present-day India.
For thirty years, Indian filmmaker Ashish Avikunthak has been making self-financed films that have robustly resisted capital and market logic. Starting from his early 16mm short films Etcetera (1997) and Kalighat Fetish (1999) to longer feature length works that he has been making since the past decade–Rati Chakravyuh (2013), Aapothkalin Trikalika (2016), Vrindavani Vairagya (2017), to the most recent Vidhvastha (2022) with several more projects in various stages of production. His body of work now amounts to seven short films and nine feature length works. This collection of essays rigorously interrogates, contextualizes, theorizes, and interprets his work in relation to some of the key preoccupations of this filmmaker, which include Tantric practice, alternative ways of filmmaking, as well as posing a cinematic challenge to oppressive epistemes. Furthermore, the current global assertion of authoritarianism and one-dimensional interpretations of cultural history and practice provide a timely and essential historical moment in which to dialogue with Avikunthak's films. Why? Because Avikunthak's cinema consciously contests totalizing historical and artistic narratives, and constructs frameworks of existential uncertainty and fragmentation that force us to reflect on the increasing political, economic, social, and climate chaos that is infusing and shaping our early 21st century global ontology.
For thirty years, Indian filmmaker Ashish Avikunthak has been making self-financed films that have robustly resisted capital and market logic. Starting from his early 16mm short films Etcetera (1997) and Kalighat Fetish (1999) to longer feature length works that he has been making since the past decade–Rati Chakravyuh (2013), Aapothkalin Trikalika (2016), Vrindavani Vairagya (2017), to the most recent Vidhvastha (2022) with several more projects in various stages of production. His body of work now amounts to seven short films and nine feature length works. This collection of essays rigorously interrogates, contextualizes, theorizes, and interprets his work in relation to some of the key preoccupations of this filmmaker, which include Tantric practice, alternative ways of filmmaking, as well as posing a cinematic challenge to oppressive epistemes. Furthermore, the current global assertion of authoritarianism and one-dimensional interpretations of cultural history and practice provide a timely and essential historical moment in which to dialogue with Avikunthak's films. Why? Because Avikunthak's cinema consciously contests totalizing historical and artistic narratives, and constructs frameworks of existential uncertainty and fragmentation that force us to reflect on the increasing political, economic, social, and climate chaos that is infusing and shaping our early 21st century global ontology.
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Yes, you can access The Epistemic Archeology of Ashish Avikunthak by Erin O'Donnell,Sarunas Paunksnis,Šarunas Paunksnis in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Media & Performing Arts & Film & Video. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction Erin O’Donnell and Šarūnas Paunksnis
- 1 Tantra in Indian Cinema: Ritwik Ghatak and Ashish Avikunthak, a Centennial Memory of the Jagaddal (1920–2020) and a Love Story Amrit Gangar
- 2 Tantra and the Coloniality of Being: The Decolonial Praxis of Ashish Avikunthak Šarūnas Paunksnis
- 3 Ashish Avikunthak’s Cinema of Dissent in an Authoritarian Age Erin O’Donnell
- 4 Ashish Avikunthak’s Nirakar Chhaya—A Barthesian Adaptation Aparna Frank
- 5 Circles of Death in Ashish Avikunthak’s Cinema Arka Chattopadhyay
- 6 Is the World Really as It Appears in Art? Violence as a Civilizational Question in Ashish Avikunthak’s Vidhvastha Pratyush Bhattacharyya
- 7 Ritual-in-Action: Temporality and Its Discourse in the Films of Ashish Avikunthak Hrishikesh Ingle
- 8 Sonic Disjunctions: Critical Listening to Ashish Avikunthak’s Filmworks Budhaditya Chattopadhyay
- 9 Cinematic Practice as Epistemic Archeology: An Interview with Ashish Avikunthak Erin O’Donnell and Šarūnas Paunksnis
- Filmography
- List of Contributors
- Index