Gallery of Fakes

This illustration was commissioned by World-Information City for the info-paper on Intellectual Property that was published in conjunction with the one-week programme of events addressing global issues of intellectual property and technology in conjunction with changing urban landscapes. Held at Bangalore from November 14 - 20, 2005 , World-Information City was a cooperative project of the Institute of New Culture Technologies/t0 (Vienna), Sarai CSDS (Delhi), Waag Society (Amsterdam), ALF (Bangalore), Mahiti (Bangalore) and local partners.

In connection with the programme at Bangalore, World-Information.Org released an info-paper on intellectual property and the city. The paper, produced with the financial assistance of UNESCO, brings together concise and to-the-point contributions on the politics of intellectual property and urban change.
The info-paper can be downloaded from here.

The illustration, framed as a fragment from a fake anthropological exhibition, started off as a response to ALF’s fascinating archive of Indian newspaper reports on ‘fakes’, increasingly a staple of the crime beat. Apart from the mandatory paranoia about fake CDs and DVDs these reports occasionally warn us about ‘fake nappies’ and ‘fake paint’ as well. So what I attempted here was to open up this space of the quotidian object even further to include some non-objects as well. For example, the fake dentures that are labelled “Fake Accent” is a clear reference to India’s BPO industry and its complex politics of impersonation.