"CAMP is not a collective." This is the first thing that Shaina Anand says in a bid to rectify popular perception as we get down to discussing the much-awaited retrospective on the artists' group. "We are more like a collaborative studio. It is a space for creative experimentation," says Anand.
The multi-city retrospective, As If, is the first time that the artworks and ideas crafted by CAMP and its constituent members are being shown in a solo exhibition format. Rock, Paper, Scissors is the first of this four-part exhibition and is being shown at Experimenter, Kolkata. The other three will be shown at 24, Jor Bagh, New Delhi and Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum and Chemould Prescott Road in Mumbai. "This is one of the most important shows to look out for in 2015," says Shireen Gandhy of Chemould Prescott Road. "CAMP has been working in the art/ film/archive space for over a decade now and this exhibition of four units visualises itself as a mini survey of their practice over the years."
Consisting of film maker and artist Anand, architect Ashok Sukumaran and software programmer Sanjay Bhangar, CAMP came together in Mumbai in 2007. At the time of its founding, both Anand and Sukumaran had well-recognised individual art practices. Sukumaran, besides winning the prestigious Golden Nica of the Prix Ars Electronica in 2007, had lectured at venues such as the Tate Modern. Anand too had exhibited at venues such as the Serpentine Gallery, London, Powerplant, Toronto, and other places. CAMP was formed with the aim to show how deep technical experimentation and artistic form could have a meeting point. "It has four core members, two are never in the foreground and the other two are the face of CAMP," says Prateek Raja of Experimenter.
Other artists come together for different projects. Anand explains the process further: "Say, curators bring artists together for a biennale. And then these projects tend to grow in complexity." CAMP today has its own library and online archives, Pad.ma and Indiancine.ma. "The rules of engagement are different here. There is no producer or gallerist, just a space where artists can experiment with the dynamism of collaboration," she says. It is different from an idea of a collective such as Raqs where the group works as an individual entity. "Collectives have a rigid structure. CAMP is more fluid," says Raja.
The theme of the show at Kolkata is the rearrangement of roles of the subject, medium and author. The two-part project titled Capital Circus collaborated with Manchester Metropolitan University and the Arndale Shopping Centre to open working CCTV environments to a general audience. People normally "enclosed" by these networks came into the control rooms to view, observe and monitor this condition, endemic in the UK, where there is one camera for every six subjects. Here, the camera, which is usually the medium, becomes the author. "The author of the idea becomes the medium by going to control rooms and enabling something special happening," says Sukumaran. Capital Circus is one of the three early projects to be shown at Experimenter. The other one is Khirkeeyaan that was made in Delhi's Khirkee neighbourhood. It involves neighbours talking to each other via their household TV sets. The TV sets and cheap surveillance equipment, were used with a radio-frequency modulator and microphones.
The exhibition at Delhi, titled Flight of the Black Boxes, probes and tests technology as black boxes. "There are systems and technologies - such as computers, coal mining, electricity - that you use but can't really tell how they work. Technology is black-boxed - there is no sensual way of engaging with it," explains Sukumaran. In one work to be recreated in Delhi, a window in a room will act as the lens to the outside world. People will pay money to go in and see the same view that they had left outside. "There is also a single CCTV film made by eight families in Jerusalem that looks at neighbourhoods that are being fractured into countries," says Sukumaran. The Mumbai shows, Country of the Sea and Night For Day, to be shown at Bhau Daji Lad Museum and Chemould Prescott Road, respectively, feature projects that have covered a long span of time. Of these, Wharfage, was created over five years.
"Two works of CAMP stand out for me," says art writer and curator Meera Menezes. "One is Boat Modes that I saw at Documenta 13. It documents the informal shipping traffic across the UAE, India and Africa outside of the large organised container traffic. It offers insights into issues of global trade, piracy, labour as well as historical relations between countries and continents." The other work turns the controversial telephone conversations between Niira Radia and several public personalities into a screenplay and audio installation. "It was shown at NGMA. I enjoyed CAMP's take on it - it was biting and satirical," she says.
The show will be on at Experimeter, Kolkata till February 10; at 24 Jor Bagh, Delhi between January 27 and February 24; in Mumbai, at Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum between February 21 and April 2, and at Gallery Chemould Prescott Road, between March 9 and April 12
