Invitation for a Coup

Invitation for a Coup with AMITESH GROVER, ARNIKA AHLDAG, and SHAUNAK SEN

‘Over-prepared and Under-rehearsed’

We are not a collective.

We mostly work through friendships.

Hyperlinks are the routine that characterize our conversations.

This talk follows an algorithmic principle.

This algorithm renders visible the generators of our work.

These generators open for public scrutiny, momentarily.

Amitesh is a performance-maker with a background in theatre, Arnika, a visual arts researcher, and Shaunak is a film-maker. Though working together on several projects, they resist being clubbed as an artist-collective. The trio shared three projects, namely ‘Encounters’, ‘Downtime’, and ‘Notes on Mourning’, in an unusual style of presentation, relaying and churning the details in an algorithmic format of hyperlinks like “Lies”, “Gossip”, “Speculate”, “Document”, “Experts” etc. Less of a conversation, their performance touched upon numerous subjects from trolls, distraction, mediated encounters, sleep economies to mourning. The evening began with them highlighting the very paradox inherent in the invitation that aims towards a quintessential coup. Therefore, they go on to insist that “this is not a talk and we are not a collective”.

Invitation for a Coup with AMITESH GROVER, ARNIKA AHLDAG, and SHAUNAK SEN

Invitation for a Coup