VIDEO

Dhūnī-tap – Wherever There is Fire There is The Name Info

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Title:
Dhūnī-tap – Wherever There is Fire There is The Name
Creator:
Prema Goet
Date Created:
2026-02-23
Description:
The moving-picture work “Dhūnī-tap - Wherever There is Fire There is The Name” was filmed in Allahabad and Mathura, India, between January 2025 and March 2026. The work explores aspects of the visual culture surrounding the materiality of the ascetic practice of dhūnī tap, from which it derives its title. Structured in two parts, the film first attends to the material and performative dimensions of the saṃkalpa ritual before turning to the practice of dhūnī tap as undertaken by members of the Rāmānandī community. The film was deliberately shot on a 1971 Beaulieu 4008 ZM II moving-picture camera using Kodak Ektachrome 100 dia-positive colour film stock. This technical and aesthetic choice positions the work in formal contrast to the 35mm black-and-white photographic material presented throughout the Dhun-Dhūnī: The Fires of the Name exhibition. The film’s chromatic progression – moving from faded and underexposed imagery toward increasingly saturated colour – may be read as a visual counterpart to the conceptual and affective concerns articulated within the exhibition’s “Dhun” section. The soundtrack consists of a composite arrangement of field recordings produced between 2015 and 2026. Bringing together five discrete sonic segments, the composition seeks to evoke aspects of the auditory environments associated with spaces inhabited by the Rāmānandī community. In this respect, the work attempts to approximate the immersive acoustic conditions characteristic of such settings. Three of the five sonic segments are made available as part of the exhibition and are accessible on this website as individual audio files. One segment – the synth component – constitutes a deliberate compositional intervention introduced by the artist and does not derive from documentary field-recorded material.
Subjects:
dhūni tap tapasyā Beaulieu 4008 ZMII dhūnī
Location:
Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India
Latitude:
25.27
Longitude:
81.52
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.57754/FDAT.jm0b4-e6x67
Attribution
Citation:
"Dhūnī-tap – Wherever There is Fire There is The Name", OMnibus of MANTRAMS, MANTRAMS - Mantras in Religion, Media, and Society in Global Southern Asia, https://omnibus.mantrams.eu/items/dhuni-dhuni-tap.html
Rights
Standardized Rights:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/