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.
Denne historien er fra June 06, 2021-utgaven av THE WEEK.
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Denne historien er fra June 06, 2021-utgaven av THE WEEK.
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William Dalrymple goes further back
Indian readers have long known William Dalrymple as the chronicler nonpareil of India in the early years of the British raj. His latest book, The Golden Road, is a striking departure, since it takes him to a period from about the third century BC to the 12th-13th centuries CE.
The bleat from the street
What with all the apps delivering straight to one’s doorstep, the supermarkets, the food halls and even the occasional (super-expensive) pop-up thela (cart) offering the woke from field-to-fork option, the good old veggie-market/mandi has fallen off my regular beat.
Courage and conviction
Justice A.M. Ahmadi's biography by his granddaughter brings out behind-the-scenes tension in the Supreme Court as it dealt with the Babri Masjid demolition case
EPIC ENTERPRISE
Gowri Ramnarayan's translation of Ponniyin Selvan brings a fresh perspective to her grandfather's magnum opus
Upgrade your jeans
If you don’t live in the top four-five northern states of India, winter means little else than a pair of jeans. I live in Mumbai, where only mad people wear jeans throughout the year. High temperatures and extreme levels of humidity ensure we go to work in mulmul salwars, cotton pants, or, if you are lucky like me, wear shorts every day.
Garden by the sea
When Kozhikode beach became a fertile ground for ideas with Manorama Hortus
RECRUITERS SPEAK
Industry requirements and selection criteria of management graduates
MORAL COMPASS
The need to infuse ethics into India's MBA landscape
B-SCHOOLS SHOULD UNDERSTAND THAT INDIAN ECONOMY IS GOING TO WITNESS A TREMENDOUS GROWTH
INTERVIEW - Prof DEBASHIS CHATTERJEE, director, Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode
COURSE CORRECTION
India's best b-schools are navigating tumultuous times. Hurdles include lower salaries offered to their graduates and students misusing AI
