Shambhavi kaul biography samples

The 11-minute film “Night Noon” spotlights a desert landscape that should be vaguely familiar to plenty of movie fans.

It served as the backdrop for scenes in Star Wars and dozens of other movies. But in Shambhavi Kaul’s short film, the stretch of barren America along Death Valley National Park is the main character -- without any droids or Stormtroopers trailing footprints in the sand.

Kaul’s practice that is grounded in cinema nevertheless includes film, video, photography, installation and writing.

Much of her work focuses on sites: mountains, deserts, oceans but also manmade sites like film sets and airplane interiors. These sites she believes are too often relegated to the background.

“The site itself tends to be taken as a backdrop and we often take it for granted,” Kaul says. “But it is charged with meaning and therefore worth considering.”

A video clip of Death Valley from "High Noon" by Shambhavi Kaul.

Kaul is the newest faculty hire in Duke’s department of Art, Art Shambhavi Kaul - The Movie Database (TMDB) XEX