Founded by Sonal Jain (b. Shillong) and Mriganka Madhukaillya (b.Jorhat) in 2004. They employ film, video, sound, photography, space and multimedia installation in their works. Assuming their name and theoretical disposition from Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, a seminal text from 1972 by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze and psychoanalyst Félix Guattari, Desire Machine Collective seeks to disrupt the neurotic symptoms that arise from constricting capitalist structures with healthier, schizophrenic cultural flows of desire and information.
One of their most revered works includes Periferry an ongoing project which functions as a sort of laboratory which brings together artistic, scientific and technological practices. The aim of this ongoing project is to encourage experimentation and exploring new forms of public space. It is located on a ferry on the river Bhramaputra docked in Guwahati. Project Periferry was nominated for Visible award (2015). Their work has been featured in group exhibitions at New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; Solomon Guggenheim Museum, New York; MAC Muséed’ Art Contemporain de Lyon, Lyon; MAXXI Museo Nazionaledelle Arti del XXI Secolo, Rome; Deutsche Guggenheim Museum, Berlin; Indian Pavilion, 2011 Venice Biennale, Venice; 3rd edition of La Triennale, Palais de Tokyo, Paris and recently in 2015 at Queens Museum and Grey Art Gallery at New York University both in New York City. In 2014, they had a solo show Noise Life at Galerie Max Mueller, Mumbai and Project 88, Mumbai. They were appointed as a juror in the field of visual arts by the jury chairman in the Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany for the year 2015-2017 to prepare, examine and follow up the application documents. They participated at the Eight Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art in Brisbane (Australia) held in November 2015. Desire Machine Collective designed the media and visual concept for CUT THE SKY (2015) which had its world premier at the Perth International Arts Festival (Australia) 2015. Noise Life I (2014) was exhibited at After Midnight: Indian Modernism to Contemporary India 1947/1997 at New York in 2015. INVOCATION (2016) exhibited at Krishna in the Garden of Assam: The Cultural Context of an Indian textile at the British Museum, London in 2016.