VIDEOTANK #31
Mountain Castle Mountain Flower Plastic
April 26 – July 13, 2024
Artist
Annapurna Kumar
Overview
In computers, small pieces of information can be stored separately within a shared container. The most efficient containers can store multiple pieces of information in the same location, intersecting from different angles. Mountain Castle Mountain Flower Plastic is an experimental animation inspired by hard-drive prototypes accidentally turning into an environmental film.
Mountain Castle Mountain Flower Plastic is inspired by storage containers of all sizes. In this work technological and material waste is pitted against a natural landscape. Kumar depicts a colorful metamorphosis from buildings and mountains to material waste.
Artist
Annapurna Kumar is an American animator and filmmaker. Her work is largely inspired by the complex histories of image capture and simulation technologies, and their ties to consumerism, enforced normativity, and the built environment. The work manifests as diaristic, playful fantasies that oscillate between scenes of intense planning and improvisational digressions. Themes of fertility, ecological utopia, the structures of memory, repressed sensuality, and a preoccupation with plastic recur throughout Annapurna’s short films, which are fast-paced, non-linear, and at times, totally abstract. Her work blends CGI and drawn animation, 16mm filmmaking techniques, and camera-stand stop-motion. She occasionally makes artist books, tapestries, ceramics, and interactive work. She is currently a Visiting Lecturer at UCLA DMA and an adjunct faculty member in the CalArts EA Department.
Annapurna is an alumni of the Yaddo and Film Farm residencies. Her work has been featured by AQNB, Pitchfork, Dublab, Create Digital Motion, and Edge of Frame, and has shown in festivals including the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Zagreb, The Walker Art Center, London International Animation Festival, Eyeworks, Light Field, GLAS, Experimenta India, and others.
