The Otolith, Courtesy Yui Kugimiya

The Otolith Group, still from "Otolith III" (2009). Video, 45 min.

September 2009 Field Guide

Modernologies

Gustav Metzger

Yui Kugimiya

11th International Istanbul Biennial

Lee Ufan

YARD

Ron Arad

Le Corbusier William Holder “Le Corbusier Le Grand” The Armchair Architect Alex Schweder Antiquing in Paris Trial by Design South African Market Continues to Grow

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In the past, films by the London-based duo Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun, otherwise known as The Otolith Group, have probed pressing global issues by fast-forwarding into the future. The 22nd century in the first installment in their "Otolith" series, which debuted in 2006 at the Tate Triennial, was plagued with antiwar protests in London and mushroom clouds. In Otolith II (2007), the filmmakers imagined the city of tomorrow by juxtaposing contemporary scenes of Mumbai’s slums with the sleek lines and curves of the architecture in Chandigarh, the city designed in 1963 by Le Corbusier. The pair’s time-traveling continues in the third and final chapter, which will be screened for the first time at The Showroom’s new gallery space on Penfold Street, in a customized environment designed by British artist Will Holder. (Earlier this year, he set up a dining table for visitors to use at The Otolith Group’s exhibition of the first two segments in the trilogy at Gasworks.) The group, named after the structure in the inner ear that gives us a sense of gravity and orientation, returns to 1967 and reconstructs the past in Otolith III (2009) by "remaking" Indian auteur Satyajit Ray’s unrealized sci-fi film about a friendly alien visiting a rural Bengal village.

theshowroom.org

"The Otolith Group" originally appeared in the September 2009 issue of Modern Painters. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Modern Painters' September 2009 Table of Contents.