Aminder Virdee

Artist, Creator, Writer, Art and Creative Justice Facilitator, Community Organiser, and Founder

KaleidoSkeleton Ti : The Desi Cyborg (2020 - 21)

This project is a multi-dimensional activist art piece that traverses radically inclusive politics and articulates lifelong experiences of both pain and joy. Its aim is to subvert the intersectional discrimination I face - including racism, ethnicism, ableism, sexism, lookism, ageism, and classism - not only within the field of medical sciences but also throughout society as a whole.

Exhibited At

1. Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival 2021
(view documentation)
2. Remote Access: GlitchRealm, Culture Hub, New York / Online 2021
(view documentation)
3. European Film Festival 2021
(view documentation)
4. Waterman’s Gallery with Creative People and Places Hounslow 2021
(view documentation No.1)
(view documentation No.2)

Published In

1. BFI’s Official Sound and Sight ‘Winter Special’ Magazine for Films of the Year 2021-22 (Vol 32, Issue 1), buy here.
2. BFI website, ‘KaleidoSkeleton Ti: Desi Cyborg’ as a part of ‘the best of 2021 in experimental cinema.’ View here.
3. Able Zine, Issue 2, Disabled Artists Interview on Cyborgs and working with Art and Technology alongside world-renowned Black and Brown Disability Justice Organisers and pioneers of the Disability Justice Movement.
4. Sisters of Frida, Disabled Woman’s Collective E-Zine
5. Imperial College London’s Art and Science Magazine ‘I, Science’, Issue 50 Special on ‘Spectrum’, pg. 16.

Moving Image Description

The moving-images showcase a vibrant and transformative kaleidoscopic vortex. The colours used derive from data visualisation techniques and have been modified to align with the vivid colours associated with South Asian symbolism, including golden yellow, cyan, lime green, magenta, red, white, and dark blue. The mirrored movements of kaleidoscopic patterns evoke the beauty of ancient Indian mandalas, resembling the aerial view of an unfurling flower. In contrast, penetrating the vivid colours are long white lines with "teeth"; these are the original visual representations of the artist's internal titanium body implants and prostheses, sourced from their personal X-rays.

Sound Art Description

A pitch-shifting, cerebral, cosmic soundscape with a futuristic mechanistic ambience, curated from data sonification, overlaid with a resonant chime from a singing bowl, performed by the artist.

KaleidoSkeleton Ti: The Desi Cyborg (2020-21) is the third artwork from my ‘Kaleidoskeleton’ series (2020-22). It is a colour-subversive, X-ray generated, audio-visual embodied 'stim' cultivated through transmedial programming, computational and code art, and by embracing neurodivergent *stimming behaviours as a tool for creative play through digital embodiment.

KaleidoSkeleton Ti: The Desi Cyborg disrupts dominant ableist narratives, the clinical gaze, and the social enactment of the diagnostic gaze. It particularly challenges the notion that science and technology serve to 'cure', 'fix', 'restore', 'eliminate', and 'normalise' the disabled body to conform to able-bodiedness, westernised beauty ideals, and normative performativity. I accomplish this by dismantling the diagnostic gaze, which aims to reduce me to a mere spectacle and object of curiosity.

In this work, I reclaim and subvert the objectification inherent in my lifelong exposure to medical imaging. By repurposing medically-quantified biodata and image archives (such as X-rays, MRIs, and other clinical records), intersectional discrimination, and lived experiences, I create a biodigital and audiovisual embodiment that centres on autonomy and celebrates disabled BIPOC joy. This process challenges countless systems of power and confronts the gazes that persistently strive to erase my identity, including the clinical, diagnostic, racial, ableist, ageist, neurotypical, xenophobic, colonial, Western, capitalist, institutional, white, sexist, patriarchal, and male gazes.

'KaleidoSkeleton Ti: The Desi Cyborg' also elevates my race and ethnicity, fostering ancestral healing as a child of the diaspora through the reclamation of my Indian Punjabi heritage. By decoding and transforming X-rays into vivid, opaque colours synonymous with Indian symbolism—as seen across politics, fashion, religion, culture, rituals, rites of passage, celebrations, festivals, and traditions—I confront the erasure of my race and ethnicity and the associated oppressions within medical environments. Simultaneously, I challenge the ableism within the South Asian community.

Click on the stills below for larger images. All stills can be purchased as a print. Contact Aminder for more information.

Stills from the European Film Festival Palic 2021

Program Booklet

Catalogue

Journal / Magazine

*Stimming is the act of self-stimulatory, repetitive, sensory and bodily behaviours. For the artist, it is a tool that enhances reassurance, heightens concentration and can assist in grounding distress. Almost everybody stims; however, for neurodivergent people, it can be more pronounced.