Installation 100 Velocity Pieces
By Amitesh Grover
100 Velocity Pieces present an account of precarity. They are displayed on a public board (resembling a church board) as concise pieces of text to express the sensations and resignations of the present. A new text appears every day for one hundred days straight. Neither upwards nor beyond, this board presents the velocity inside us.'Velocity pieces are accounts of regimes of precarity – of soliciting, caring, drifting, waiting, pushing, falling, on turning, leaving, and returning. They provide a way of understanding the sensations and resignations of the present, the normalized exhaustion that comes with life in the new economy. It is a way of framing citizen as body, body as word, word as an act, act as poetry, poetry as political, political as gyration. Velocity pieces are assembled as rehearsal pieces. They will be created, and circulated for a 100 days straight. The intention is slow down the city, zoom in on the mundane, and theorize about ‘genres for life’. The idea is to build worlds out of small rehearsals, to begin to explore rehearsal as pleasure. The secret motto of the Velocity Pieces is: “We refuse to be worn out.”
Actant
Amitesh Grover occupies an intermediate space between theatre, performance, and interactive art. He has created work on grief, on sleep, on happiness, and on other ephemeral grounds of knowledge. His works have been shown internationally, and he is the recipient of several awards and artists' residencies. This year, he was awarded MASH FICA New Media Artist award, and was nominated Artistic Director for ITFOK Theatre Festival, Kerala 2020. He writes prolifically, works collaboratively, and teaches at various universities including National School of Drama, and Shiv Nadar University. His work, thoughts, reviews are available online www.amiteshgrover.com