Indofuturism

Names

• Indofuturism
• Indofuturisms
• Indo-Futurism
• Indo-Futurisms
• Can overlap with Desifuturism(s)
• Can overlap with South Asian Futurism(s)
• Can overlap with Global South Futurism(s)
• Can overlap with Indigenous Futurisms, Adivasi Futurism, Dalit Futurism, Tamil Futurism and others

Origin

• The term was used as early as 2005 by Pravin Pillay, and was also a forming genre in the decades prior via Indian speculative fiction and cinema. Indian speculative fiction, in particular, has been present since the 1970s. Like many emerging futurisms of this time, it was inspired by Afrofuturism and Indigenous Futurisms, and the larger de-colonial turn in the futurist arena.

• The term made moves forward in the late 2010s and early 2020s thanks to the activity of Antariksha Studio and Elsewhere in India, projects by the group Murthovic & Thiruda. Ryan D'Souza also popularized the term in his 2019 essay, "Imagining a Desi Future".

• The term has also been used to reference musical and sonic projects, and there are many music videos from the 2010s and 2020s which are Indofuturist or which incorporate the visions of Indofuturist artists such as Sam Madhu's collaborations with Raja Kumari.

• The term took off again in the 2020s with the advent of AI, which saw many artists like Prateek Arora and Vimal Chandran creating futurist worlds and scenes within India or Indo-cultural references. This also incorporated 3D imaging, drawing & painting, photo & video, fiction writing and social media, and it began to overlap with larger Desifuturism and South Asian Futurism worlds.

• In 2021 Priyanka Bandodkar wrote an official thesis on Indofuturism for OCAD University.

Artists and Creators

• Amit Aggarwal (IN)
• Kai (Kari) Altmann aka Hitashya (US-IN-UAE-FR-EG)
• Antariskha Studio (Srinivasa Ramanujan and Jayalakshmi Eshwar) (IN)
• Prateek Arora (IN)
• Nag Aswhin (IN)
• Bloni Atelier (Akshat Bansal) (UK-IN)
• Samit Basu
• Priya Sarukkai Chabria (IN)
• Vimal Chandran (IN)
• Sujoy Ghosh (IN)
• Viren Goswamy aka GP.TEE (IN)
• Harshdeep Singh Gill (IN)
• Varun Gupta (IN)
• Alisha Hegde
• Akanskha Jain (IN)
• Karan Kanchan (IN)
• Sarathy Kolwar (IN)
• Sam Madhu (IN-DE)
• Kiran Manral
• Sejal Mehta
• Murthovic & Thiruda (IN)
• Hridaye A Nagpal (IN)
• Vishwa Nirmaan
• The Otolith Group (Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun) (UK)
• Manjula Padmanabhan (IN)
• Bhavya Ramesh (IN)
• Begum Rokeya
• Svetha Yallapragada Rao aka Raja Kumari (US-IN)
• Kinnari Saraiya (UK)
• Vandana Shiva (IN)
• Vandana Singh
• Osheen Siva
• Shilo Shiv Suleman (IN)
• Shweta Taneja
• Shveta Thakrar
• Anurag Tiwari (IN)
• Krishna Udayasankar
• Sukanya Venkatraghavan

Curators, Writers and Theorists

• Priyanka Bandodkar (CAN)
• Priteegandha Naik
• Saddaf Padder (US)
• Pravin Pillay
• Hina Siddiqui

Events

• KALAK, Roundhouse London, March 10-12 2023. Curated by Sarathy Kolwar.

• Elsewhere in India, performed by Murthovic and Thiruda, Roundhouse London, April 7-8 2023. "This immersive XR (Extended Reality) experience, set in post-cyberpunk India, fuses video games with live electronic music in a pioneering blend of both artforms..."

• The Endless Mind, performance by Vyuti Dance Company, G5A, Mumbai, April 11-16 2023.

• COSMOS Residency and Showcase, Goa, India, Nov 2023.

• Elsewhere in India, Audiovisual performance by Murthovic (music producer/DJ) and Thiruda (visual artist/VJ) , ACMI, Melbourne, February 15 2025.

Discussions and Panels

• "Magical Women and the Blossoming of Indian Speculative Fiction", Bangalore International Centre, June 21 2019. Speakers: Sukanya Venkatraghavan, Shreya Ila Anasuya, Samhita Arni, T. Gautham Shenoy.

• "Remixing ancient culture with contemporary futurism", TEDx Talk by Sam Madhu at TEDxSIUHinjewadi, January 2020.

• "South Asian Science Fiction: Tarun K. Saint, Vandana Singh and Manjula Padmanabhan in conversation with Arunava Sinha", Jaipur Lit Fest, Jaipur India, 2022.

• "XLE.LIFE presents XLE.LIVE: #Indofuturism? #Desifuturism?", XLE.LIFE, Online, Mumbai, Zurich, April 2023. Speakers: Kai (Kari) Altmann, Prateek Arora, Naveen Shamsudhin. Curated and Moderated by Kai (Kari) Altmann.

• "Indofuturism as Sonic Resynthesis: Decolonial Approaches to Electronic Music Production", part of CTM Festival 2025, Research Networking Day, Module 2 – »Resynthesising the Traditional«. Held in Berlin at Radialsystem (Saal), February 01 2025. Speaker: Sri Rama Murthy.

Exhibitions & Catalogues

2024

• Fragments of a Panorama by Murthovic and Thiruda, Arebyte Gallery, Java House, London. July 12 to October 13, 2024. Artists: Murthovic and Thiruda. Curated by Kinnari Saraiya. "Fragments of a Panorama is a kaleidoscope of worlds oscillating between a speculative future and an alternative past...Since 2016, Thiruda and Murthovic have taken on the role of archivists, remixing and fragmenting millennia of cultural traditions, sonic and visual heritage, and classical dances of India."

• PhotoINK at India Art Fair 2024, New Delhi, February 01-04, 2024.

2023

• PhotoINK at Art Mumbai 2023, Mumbai. November 16-19, 2023.

• RocketGanj by Prateek Arora, PhotoInk, New Delhi, November 04 - December 02, 2023.

• PhotoINK at India Art Fair 2023, New Delhi. February 09 - February 12, 2023.

Films, Short Films and Series

• Leila, Netflix India, 2019. Based on the book by Prayaag Akbar. Directed by Deepa Mehta. Hindi.
• Renascence, Directed by Harshdeep Singh Gill, 2021. Starring Santoshi Shetty.
• Kalki 2898 AD, Vyjayantha Movies, 2024. Directed by Nag Ashwin. Telugu and Hindi.

Music Videos

• Raja Kumari - "Bindis and Bangles" (Official Video), Creative Direction by Sam Madhu, Released by Sony Music, February 14 2020.

• Guru Randhawa Feat. Nora Fatehi, "Naach Meri Rani" Tanishk Bagchi | Nikhita Gandhi | Bhushan Kumar, Directed by Karthik Palani, Rajkumar Sahani and the Retrophiles Team, T-Series, October 2020.

• Sushin Shyam - "Ray" (Official Video), Directed by Vimal Chandran, 2025. Malayalam.

Publications

Books

• Shiv Ramdas, Domechild, India Penguin, 2013.

• Raminder Kaur, Saif Eqbal, Adventure Comics and Youth Cultures in India, Routledge India, Oct 2018, 240 pp. Publisher.

• Sukanya Venkatraghavan (ed.), Magical Women, Hachette India, April 25 2019, 240pp. English. Works by Asma Kazi, Kiran Manral, Krishna Udayasankar, Nikita Deshpande, Ruchika Roy, Samhita Arni, Sejal Mehta, Shreya Ila Anasuya, Shveta Thakrar, Shweta Taneja , Sujatha S.V., Sukanya Venkatraghavan, Tashan Mehta, Trisha Das.

• Tarun K. Saint (ed.), The Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction, Hachette India, 2019, 424pp. Works by Adrish Bardhan, Anil Menon, Arjun Rajendran, Arunava Sinha, Asif Farrukhi, C.M. Naim, Chandrashekhar Sastry, Clark Prasad, Giti Chandra, Harishankar Parsai, Kaiser Haq, Keki N. Daruwalla, Manjula Padmanabhan, Maya Joshi, Mimi Mondal, Mohammad Salman, Muhammed Zafar Iqbal, Nur Nasreen Ibrahim, Payal Dhar, Premendra Mitra, Priya Sarukkai Chabria, Rahul Sankrityayan, Rimi B. Chatterjee, Rukmini Bhaya Nair, S.B. Divya, Sami Ahmad Khan, Shovon Chowdhury, Somendra Singh Kharola, Sumita Sharma, Syed Saeed Naqvi, Tarun K. Saint, Vandana Singh.

• Tarun K. Saint, Francesco Verso (ed.), Avatar अवतार: Indian Science Fiction, 2020, English and Italian, 312pp. Works by Vandana Singh, S.B. Divya, Anil Menon, Manjula Padmanabhan, Shikhandin, Giti Chandra, Shovon Chowdhury, Priya Sarukkai Chabria.

• Tarun K. Saint (ed.), The Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction Volume 2, Hachette India, Sept 30 2021, 488pp. Works by Manjula Padmanabhan, Tarun K. Saint, Shiv Ramdas, Medha Singh, Tashan Mehta, Muhammad Zafar Iqbal, Vajra Chandrasekera, Senaa Ahmad, Arjun Raj Gaind, Jayaprakash Satyamurthy, Soham Guha, Lavanya Lakshminarayan, Kehkashan Khalid, Bina Shah, Anil Menon, Aparna Ramachandran, Jayant V. Narlikar, Vandana Singh, Gautam Bhatia, Kaiser Haq, Kalsang Yangzom, Gita Chandra, Haris A. Durrani, Usman T. Malik, Salik Shah, Yudhanjaya Wijeratne, Priya Sarukkai Chabria, Sami Ahmad Khan, Shovon Chowdhury, Sukanya Datta, Premee Mohammad, Naveen Weeraratne, Saad Z. Hossain.

• Shweta Khilnani, Ritwick Bhattacharjee (Eds.), Science Fiction in India: Parallel Worlds and Postcolonial Paradigms, Bloomsbury India, May 30 2022.

• Taryne Jade Taylor, Isiah Lavender III, Grace L. Dillon, Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of CoFuturisms, Routledge, Oct 2023, 716 pp. Publisher.

Magazines, Journals, Blogs and Websites

• Sri Aurobindo, Futurism, The Incarnate Word.
• Srinivasa Ramanujan & Jayalakshmi Eshwar, Antariksha Studio, Facebook, 2019-present.
• Srinivasa Ramanujan & Jayalakshmi Eshwar, ElsewhereinIndia, Instagram, 2020-present.
• Priya Bandodkar (ed.), Indofuturism, Wordpress, 2020-2021.
• Prateek Arora (ed.), R/Indofuturism, Reddit, 2022-present.

Videos, Podcasts, Radio

• Priyanka Bandodkar, "Indofuturist Manifesto", Vimeo, 2021.

• "Activating Indofuturism (Transforming Indian Culture with Technology) ft. Priya Bandodkar", XRDI Podcast Hosted by Avi Dwivedi, Youtube.com, August 15, 2021.

• "Artists – 4/x – Vimal Chandran – Indofuturism pioneer", Floorisrising.com, Nov 11, 2021.

• "Indofuturism as Sonic Resynthesis: Decolonial Approaches to Electronic Music Production", part of CTM Festival 2025, Research Networking Day, Module 2 – »Resynthesising the Traditional«. Held in Berlin at Radialsystem (Saal), February 01 2025. Speaker: Sri Rama Murthy.

Essays, Articles, Book Chapters

• Pravin Pillay, "Consciousness as a Site of Subversion: Rupturing Rational Process and Linearity through Indofuturism", 2005.

• Ryan A D'Souza, "Imagining a Desi Future", South Asian Popular Culture, vol. 17, no.1, Apr 2 2019, pp. 47-59.

• TG Shenoy, "SpecFix: Here’s to the fabulous, magical women of Indian sci-fi", Bangalore Mirror, March 6 2020.

• Priteegandha Naik, "Dalit-futurist Feminism: New Alliances through Dalit Feminism and Indian Science Fiction", Journal of International Womens' Studies, Volume 22, Issue 10, Casteing Gender: Intersectional Oppression of Dalit women, Bridgewater State University, Oct 2021.

• Rishi Alwani, "What Is Indo-Futurism and Why It Matters for Indus Battle Royale, India, and even You", Indusgame.com, June 24, 2022.

• Akshay Patel, Robi John, "How SuperGaming is Bringing ‘Indo-Futurism’ to Life with Indus Battle Royale", IGN India, Aug 1, 2022.

• Bhuvana Sekar, "Exploring Indo-futurism through contemporary design culture", Aalto University, Medium, Oct 17, 2022.

• Nida Naeem, "Future Frontiers: AI Artists On The Rise Of Indofuturism", Grazia India, Jan 18, 2023.

• Sarathy Korwar, "Sarathy Korwar about KALAK, Indofuturism and Surrender through Music", 15questions.net, 2023.

• Nyshka Chandran, "An Unapologetically Indian universe", BBC.com, Jan 24, 2023.

• "Exploring the Aesthetics of Indo-Futurism: Blending Tradition and Speculation in the Age of AI", Saashed.com, 2023.

• Hina Siddiqui, "Cultural Futurism: Possibilities, Probabilities and Potential", Art Now Thus, May 29 2023.

• Shilajit Mitra, "‘Kalki 2898 AD’ first glimpse: Prabhas, Deepika Padukone battle a dark dystopia", TheHindu.com, July 21, 2023.

• Srijandeep Das, "Indofuturist Sanctuary: A COSMOS Goa Residency Recap", Le Guess Who, Nov 24, 2023.

• Kai (Kari) Altmann, "XLE.LIFE: New Terms 2024: #Indofuturism(s) and #Desifuturism(s)", XLE.LIFE, March 2024.

• • Kai (Kari) Altmann, "XLE.LIFE: New Terms 2024: #Indofuturism(s) and #Desifuturism(s)", Medium, July 08 2024.

• Uttaran Das Gupta, "Indian sci-fi: weird and wonderful", Hindustan Times, April 9 2024.

• Daisy Rani Doley, "Imagining Alternatives: Exploring Postcolonial Paradigms and Resistance in Indian Science Fiction Narratives", International Journal for Multidisciplinary Research, 2024.

• Ahmed, Awais, Kunalika Gautam, Nihariki Mehrotra, Prachi Shevgaonkar, Nandini Harihar, Ruchira Goyal, Dhruvak Aggarwal, Gunraagh Singh Talwar, Dhairya Nagpal, Saikot Sukla, Radhika Bhajoria, Anoushka Sinha, India in Future Tense: 47 Words for 2047, New Delhi: Council on Energy, Environment and Water in the United Nations, 2024.

• Aiswarya Sethumadhavan, "Indofuturism and Indian Popular Culture", Medium.com, September 24 2024.

• Neeharika Haloi, "Dystopian Mumbai: Futurism in Varun Thomas Mathew’s The Black Dwarves of the Good Little Bay", ETropic: Electronic Journal of Studies in the Tropics, Vol. 24 No. 1 (2025): Tropical Futurisms: Thinking Futures, March 14 2025.

• Budhaditya Chattopadhyay, "A Sonic Indofuturism", Organised Sound 30(1):1-9, Cambridge University Press, April 2025.

• Debarun, "Synthetic media as wish fulfillment: Some notes on Indofuturism, daydreaming and labour folklore", Algofolk: Algorithmic Folklore, Substack, April 2025.

Theses

• Priya Bandodkar, "Activating Indofuturism: Applying a lens adapted from Afro-and-Indigenous Futurism", OCAD University, Toronto, 2021. Masters Thesis.

See Also

Futurisms, Desifuturism, South Asian Futurisms, Indigenous Futurism, Adivasi Futurism, Global South Futurisms, Third Culture, Post Western, Tropical Futurism, Afrofuturism, Africanfuturism, Arab Futurism, Gulf Futurism, Decolonization, AI, Sci-Fi, Speculative Aesthetics, Quantum Culture