Ashish Avikunthak आशीष अविकुन्तक

Film maker & Anthropologist, PhD @Stanford. Professor of Film/Media @universityofri. Author of "Bureaucratic Archaeology" @CambridgeUP.

[Ashish Avikunthak आशीष अविकुन्तक @AAvikunthak]

Very happy to announce our upcoming book on Ritwik Ghatak, launching at the International Kolkata Book Fair! Published by বৈভাষিক-Boibhashik and edited by Arka Or-Ko, Adway Chowdhuri and myself. #ritwikghatak #ghatak

[Ashish Avikunthak आशीष अविकुन्तक @AAvikunthak]

Official selection at @IFFR.

[Far Out Magazine @FarOutMag]

The latest recipient of the Ground Glass Award... https://t.co/5wopr0z8cC

[Cinema Phenomenology @phenocine]

'Film Comment' Recommends: Kumar Shahani and Ashish Avikunthak at Prismatic Ground https://t.co/Dqm6NUbZtN

[Ashish Avikunthak आशीष अविकुन्तक @AAvikunthak]

@Dreambuster6941 Will announce here if there is a screening or if it's released online.

[Ashish Avikunthak आशीष अविकुन्तक @AAvikunthak]

Astonishing disdain by @ASIGoI. Appalling!

[Rana Safvi رعنا राना @iamrana]

Once upon a time this was one of the riverfront gardens of Agra. It belonged to Mumtaz Mahal and was inherited by Jahanara on her mother's death.
I had visited it some years ago & was appalled at its state of disrepair.
Anyway today it fell down under the weight of its dis neglect.
Photos by heritage explorers Rameen Khan ( left) and Shantanu (right).

[Ashish Avikunthak आशीष अविकुन्तक @AAvikunthak]

Namanush Premer Kothamala | Glossary of Nonhuman Love (DCP, Color, Bengali, 96 minutes, India, 2020).

[Ashish Avikunthak आशीष अविकुन्तक @AAvikunthak]

Two books. Two Interviews.

[Ashish Avikunthak आशीष अविकुन्तक @AAvikunthak]

Kumar Shahani (1940-2024).

[Ashish Avikunthak आशीष अविकुन्तक @AAvikunthak]

'Rummaging for Pasts': an Ashish Avikunthak exhibition https://t.co/ayHYW42dYC

[Ashish Avikunthak आशीष अविकुन्तक @AAvikunthak]

My solo show is opening in Gallery Chatterjee & Lal on Saturday, 30th September in Bombay. I will be in the gallery from 4pm. The exhibition will continue throughout the month of October 2023.

[Ashish Avikunthak आशीष अविकुन्तक @AAvikunthak]

@pseudibasu I really wish this was true.

[Ashish Avikunthak आशीष अविकुन्तक @AAvikunthak]

@archaeojake In this context you might find my book useful. https://t.co/dacdgl4JVx

[Ashish Avikunthak आशीष अविकुन्तक @AAvikunthak]

The man who deciphered the Mayan Script but failed to decipher the Indus Script.

[Historic Vids @historyinmemes]

Yuri Knorozov was a Soviet linguist who deciphered the Mayan script in 1953. He had a habit of listing his Siamese cat Asya as a co-author to many of his works; however, his editors would always remove her. Knorozov would also use this photo with Asya as his official author photo and would get upset whenever his editors would crop her out.

Deciphering the Mayan script was extremely challenging because there was no Rosetta Stone to provide translations into other languages. The only clues that remained were from Mayan stelae (stone monuments) that were scattered throughout several different ruins.

Knorozov worked in isolation in the Soviet Union and was able to make major advancements without ever stepping foot in Central America. His breakthrough was rejecting the notion that the Maya glyphs were based on an alphabet but rather a syllabary (a set of written characters representing syllables).

When Knorozov published his work, he was attacked and dismissed by several prominent academics, most notably, J. Eric S. Thompson, a British scholar who believed that the Mayan script was anti-phonetic and based on ideographic principles. It also did not help that Knorozov published his research during the height of the Cold War when Western scholars were quick to dismiss the works of Soviet scholars as being tainted by Marxist ideology.

It took decades for Knorozov to finally receive the recognition he deserved. One of Knorozov's earliest supporters was an American Anthropology professor at Yale by the name of Michael D. Coe who would later go on to write, "Yuri Knorozov, a man who was far removed from the Western scientific establishment and who, prior to the late 1980s, never saw a Mayan ruin nor touched a real Mayan inscription, had nevertheless, against all odds, made possible the modern decipherment of Maya hieroglyphic writing."

[Ashish Avikunthak आशीष अविकुन्तक @AAvikunthak]

Today in Madrid.

[Experimental Cinema @expcinema]

Screening LAV 016: I was a male Yvonne de Carlo. Films by Ashish Avikunthak, Sarah Pucill, Mara Mattuschka, Ken Jacobs. May 20th, 19:30h - Círculo de Bellas Artes, Madrid https://t.co/d5SOlALVe2

[Ashish Avikunthak आशीष अविकुन्तक @AAvikunthak]

@rahman184 Then really looking forward to reading it!

[Ashish Avikunthak आशीष अविकुन्तक @AAvikunthak]

Finally the destruction of Indian heritage can be undertaken legally. Expect to see bulldozers on archaeological sites now. https://t.co/6mOWg7ViFg

[Ashish Avikunthak आशीष अविकुन्तक @AAvikunthak]

Philosophically radical and structurally complex, Glossary of Non-Human Love is set in a parallel universe where artificial intelligence has usurped humanity’s reign over the planet.

[Far Out Magazine @FarOutMag]

‘Glossary of Non-Human Love’: Ashish Avikunthak and Infra-realist sci-fi https://t.co/RFZLxnnabC