The background score almost sounds like a striker slamming the sides of a carrom board at short intervals. To this lonesome, foreboding sound, viewers enter the Metropole Hotel in Hong Kong on the night of February 21, 2003. Just like the “choose your own adventure” format of Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, the viewer can go anywhere at his own peril. At the outset, the screen flashes a warning sign: “On the 9th floor, some people will leave unscathed, some people will die.” A suave voice then leads the audience through “the corridor of uncertainty” into the bare, sterile rooms of 17 individuals who subsequently check out of the hotel, taking the SARS virus with them to the Philippines, Singapore, Canada, Vietnam, Australia and the US.
The virtual interactive artwork ‘A Cluster of 17 Cases’—showing at the Science Gallery Bengaluru in its online exhibition, Contagion—was created by the first-ever artists-in-residence at the World Health Organization in Geneva in 2018. Blast Theory, the UKbased artists’ group, reconstruct the mysterious events of that fateful day after gaining insights from key WHO strategic health operations staff and epidemiologists. They conducted tests to trace airflow and movement of people between rooms. The result was an installation which has been updated into the form of a video art for the first time for Contagion, which explores the phenomenon of transmission, not just of diseases but also of emotions, behaviours and information.
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Denne historien er fra June 06, 2021-utgaven av THE WEEK.
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What Will It Take To Clean Up Delhi Air?
IT IS ASKED, year after year, why Delhi’s air remains unbreathable despite several interventions to reduce pollution.
Trump and the crisis of liberalism
Although Donald Trump's election to a non-consecutive second term to the US presidency is not unprecedented—Grover Cleveland had done it in 1893—it is nevertheless a watershed moment.
Men eye the woman's purse
A couple of months ago, I chanced upon a young 20-something man at my gym walking out with a women’s sling bag.
When trees hold hands
A filmmaker explores the human-nature connect through the living root bridges
Ms Gee & Gen Z
The vibrant Anuja Chauhan and her daughter Nayantara on the generational gap in romance writing
Vikram Seth-a suitable man
Our golden boy of literature was the star attraction at the recent Shillong Literary Festival in mysterious Meghalaya.
Superman bites the dust
When my granddaughter Kim was about three, I often took her to play in a nearby park.
OLD MAN AND THE SEA
Meet G. Govinda Menon, the 102-year-old engineer who had a key role in surveying the Vizhinjam coast in the 1940s, assessing its potential for an international port
Managing volatility: smarter equity choices in uncertain markets
THE INDIAN STOCK MARKET has delivered a strong 11 per cent CAGR over the past decade, with positive returns for eight straight years.
Investing in actively managed low-volatility portfolios keeps risks at bay
AFTER A ROARING bull market over the past year, equity markets in the recent months have gone into a correction mode as FIIs go on a selling spree. Volatility has risen and investment returns are hurt.
