Coming to You Live

February 2024

3D animation

1920 x 1080 px, ​0:45

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Coming to You Live is a 3D animation featuring Character Self, who is now renamed as Someone Hilariously Everlasting (S.H.E.)​​

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What does it mean to recontextualize societal frameworks from Bollywood into another narrative to reflect on societal issues at a broader level? As a diasporic Gujarati Indian woman, Goswami considers how patriarchal norms as well as cultural and societal expectations often are a challenge most Indian women have to face and navigate. It's intriguing to see to what extent those aforementioned as well as overall societal issues are reflected on through films made particularly in Bollywood, which are very much still often made through the male gaze.

 

The way the romantic, dance song "Akhiyan Gulaab" by Mitraz is utilized in the Maddock Films production, Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya, is reinterpreted through this animation to show how messed up the love story between the male robotics engineer, Aryan Agnihotri, and the AI female robot, SIFRA, truly was. SIFRA was expected to live a certain way, and it was only through the way Aryan wanted her to exist. The Hindi song title can be translated into English as "your eyes look like roses," alluding that the whole relationship is initially seen from a rose-tinted perspective.

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This animation reinterprets the robot and the engineer as S.H.E. and H.I.M., respectively. S.H.E. is an avatar that moves within the television frame with roses for her eyes. She is programmed to go through the motions of existing to satisfy H.I.M., the Hedonistic Individual Master (H.I.M.), or the programmer. In a way, S.H.E. is subject to a suffocating, controlling form of care from H.I.M. How long can S.H.E. go through the motions for H.I.M.?

 

Wavering between both character's perspectives, Goswami's approach in creating the animation loop conveys that the cycle programmed by H.I.M. must not remain permanent, for S.H.E. must gain control of her narrative.