KhirkeeYaan (khirkee: “window”; yaan: “vehicle”) was an exploration of an open-circuit TV system as a local area network, autonomous micro-media generation and feedback device. Consumer CCTV and CATV equipment was laid out to form temporary communication loops for the “use” of the community. TVs and electricity, consent, collaboration and participation were all sourced on location. Four sets of cameras, TVs and mikes were planted within a 200-metre range of each other. The cameras sat on top of the TVs. The quadrant, comprising sound and image from all four locations, was fed back to the TVs, allowing instant four-way communication.

The quad interface, eye-level communication and “televisation” produced conversations, performance and rapidly-evolving subjectivities, all happening in “local” time and within a 200-metre radius.

In this project, the “filmmaking” was automatic, made possible through a local network of mirror views, eye-level communication and the absence of a “cameraman” and editor. Through a visible process, video becomes the site and the space becomes media, complicating or temporarily shifting the micro-politics of the sites on which they occur. Seven “episodes” were enabled over seven sets of installations in and around Khirkee Extension, New Delhi.