A fascinating work, Video Art in India explores the genre of new media art. In the opening essay, Beyond the Cube, Pooja Sood, curator, Apeejay Media Gallery, describes new media art loosely as “‘contemporary art that uses emerging technologies in significant ways’”. But how does one define the critically imagistic domain of video art? Tracing the history of the “relatively new” video art in India from early 1990s to the present in the essay, Imaging Truth and Desire, art historian Johan Pijnappel conjectures, “ Maybe video is nothing more than a transitory technology and the all-encompassing term of ‘new media art’ is more appropriate”.

What enamours the reader/viewer is the brilliant ‘showcase’ featuring internationally acclaimed video works by eminent Indian artists such as Nalini Malani, Vivan Sundaram, Navjot Altaf, Sheba Chhachhi and other younger experimental video artists. The verisimilitude with which Video Art in India recreates the artists’ works installed within the gallery space is astounding. Like the works of art themselves, it is classic yet contemporary and even ‘futuristic’.

The rich visual narratives underline the flexibility and assimilative power of this “eclectic” medium. The moving images captured in print emphasise the absorbing interplay of the temporal and spatial dimensions in a curious way. For artists, it is essentially a medium “to explore the phenomenological dimension of time as well as stillness”.

The compelling images of this art form invite the reader/viewer to be a part of the artistic canvas. It is a stimulating involvement that enables the reader/viewer to grasp the nuances and subtleties of a thrilling art form. This is exemplified in Navjot Altaf’s Between Memory and History, Nalini Malani’s Hamletmachine and Subba Ghosh’s Remains of a Breath. For the artist, video art is not just intriguing but it is challenging as well.

The themes, motivated by the spirit of the times, articulate the contradictions of urban life, claustrophobia, alienation, consumerism, communalism, globalisation and the place of women in the world. The video art of Chinese artists in Beijing Spirit “questions the historical process from which the new society is growing…where emotion has taken the place of memory”. Mental Surgery presents “the relationship of human beings to video games and virtual reality” by two distinguished Swiss artists.

The human body is often used as a vital creative tool to interpret the themes. But the most remarkable and also the most obvious facet in video art is the blurring line between illusion and reality. It is an experience that enthrals and entertains at the same time.

A comprehensive, “exciting and an informative resource book”, Video Art in India will not only inspire its owner but also arouse the envy of those who don’t have it on their shelves.

Satarupa Ray