Encroachments.
Encroachments (2019) is an immersive virtual reality (VR) experience – an oblique view of Pakistani-US relations since partition. Central to the project is the ill-fated Neutra building – once intended as the US embassy in Karachi – designed by architect Richard Neutra in the 1950s. The building now exists in a state of limbo. On a VR journey to – and onward from – the “embassy ”, viewers pass through various parallel environments such as Ferozsons, a renowned colonial-era bookshop established in 1894, in Lahore; a secret passage into the 1980s and the Cold War endgame played out under Ronald Reagan; and a video-games arcade replete with anti-Soviet propaganda. Each stylistically distinct scene recalls a gaming genre and has a soundtrack of Pakistani niche music from the 1960s – made by Muslim and Christian musicians, inspired by Indian ragas, Phil Spector and Brian Wilson. See Portfolio Booklet for documentation of research dimensions.
- Submitting institution
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The University of Westminster
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- v4012
- Type
- L - Artefact
- Location
- Sharjah Biennial 14: Leaving the Echo Chamber, March 7– June 10, 2019; Shezad Dawood Encroachments, solo exhibition at New Art Exchange, Nottingham, January 18–March 15, 2020; further details in portfolio.
- Open access status
- -
- Month of production
- March
- Year of production
- 2019
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Dawood explores ideas of sovereignty, private property and the politics of space in Pakistan’s two largest cities, Lahore and Karachi. His research registers tumultuous shifts in the 20th-century political history of South Asia in entanglement with its architectural modernism, whilst playfully exploring and questioning situated knowledge and embodiment. Drawing on and integrating his earlier exploration of modern architecture through VR, Dawood mobilises the immersive characteristics of VR, and its capacity to intensify the visceral qualities of narrative through 3-D immersion, to propose a new artistic form for exploring the intertwining of 20th century architectural, political, personal and micro-histories.
Encroachments was exhibited at Sharjah Biennial (2019), where it was awarded a Sharjah Art Foundation Special Mention prize, and other venues. It was co-commissioned by New Art Exchange, and funded by Sharjah Art Foundation and others.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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