DakshinaChitra
Museum partnership · Chennai, India
Everyday objects. Extraordinary knowledge.
More than 50 objects from DakshinaChitra were researched and digitised for the game, including carved doors, containers and ceremonial objects.
Research & development / Living heritage
How a world
comes to life.
The art is in the making.
Cultural research shapes every part of the game: the fold of a costume, the movement of a hand, the sound of an instrument.
Selected studies from our Epic MegaGrants-supported research.
Research and prototype documentation from 2021; not final gameplay.
Decolonising
video games.
A studio talk on cultural representation, living heritage and making games from our own histories.
Watch on YouTubeOverlooked heritage.
New encounters.
Digital heritage case studies with museums, archives and living practices.
V&A collections
Self-initiated research · UK
From painting to presence.
Indian artworks in the V&A’s digital collection inspire 3D characters, augmented reality and printed sculptures. These studies explore how game-making tools can bring audiences into an archive.
British Film Institute
Archive collaboration · UK
An archive can become a performance.
Films from the BFI’s digital collection are reinterpreted for live performance and immersive media, bringing historical images into conversation with contemporary sound and place.
AGNSW + UNSW
Ongoing case study · Australia
Breathing life into visual art archives.
Paintings from the Art Gallery of New South Wales become virtual characters and hand-painted 3D sculptures. The collaboration explores immersive work at UNSW’s iCinema, an installation at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, and a video-game art simulator.
Musical instruments
Self-initiated research
A collection you can listen to.
Instrument models develop alongside original recording sessions. Their construction, material and sound inform ANTARA’s interactive music and imagined machines.
A practice of translation
Carried in bodies.
Character & costume
Biographical characters.
Jayalakshmi Eshwar’s practice guides movement, gesture and expression. Character studies explore likeness, Indian features and the construction of classical dance costume.
Movement & gesture
Cultural nuances.
Body and finger capture sessions follow Bharatanatyam’s gestures and expressions, with remote guidance from teachers and peers.
Museum & field research
Everyday heritage.
At DakshinaChitra in Chennai, field photography, collection research and photogrammetry document South Indian architecture and everyday objects.
Architecture & materials
Logic of craft.
Pillars, doors and tiles carry the logic of their making. Studies of construction, ornament and material become reusable digital components.
Sound & musical systems
Listening is research.
Recording sessions in Hyderabad and Chennai connect classical and temple music with electronic composition. Instruments shape the game’s atmosphere, musical machines and puzzles.
Prototype spaces
Testing the world through interaction.
Prototypes test how gestures, movement and changing environments can become play, alongside exploration, evasion and musical puzzles.
Culture, collections & commissions
The archive
becomes a meeting place.
Digital heritage can reconnect collections with the people and practices that give them meaning.
Research draws on collections at the V&A, AGNSW and DakshinaChitra Museum.
We commission practitioners, including sign painter Rajeev in Madurai, to contribute to the visual world.
We welcome collaborations on collection-based artworks, installations and public encounters with digital heritage.
Experiments in motion.
Visual research journal.
Selected studies in character, costume, craft, recording and worldbuilding.
Commissions & partnerships
Make new work
with living heritage.
For museums, galleries, festivals and cultural supporters: let’s discuss collection-based commissions, artistic research and new public encounters with ANTARA.
avinash@quicksand.co.in