Look and Listen

After our second weekly meeting at Khoj today, I have come to the conclusion that there are two different things going on in this residency:

1) The artists are interacting/communicating with each other – which is to be expected.
2) The artworks are interacting/communicating with each other – which is perhaps a little unexpected...
(More on how Khoj is turning into its very own unique eco-habitat later!)

While much of this is happening unintentionally, for Navin Thomas his primary focus is to make his artworks “speak.”  He explains it to us so:

“I wanted to work with materials closest to me - radio and ecology; it’s not sculpture, it’s not ‘print on canvas,’ it’s not ‘pure object.’  I want to ask: what happens beyond the system of objects?  I try to push that dialogue further.  Seeing as I come from an acoustic background, I pursue the idea of how to make the objects speak.”

And so that brings us to Navin’s first work-in-progress for this residency consisting of steel urinals, which will hopefully emit sub-sonic frequencies recorded at the Yamuna River.  Except there is one problem – not much seems to move in the thick sludge of the Yamuna.

This sacred river is so polluted by our sewage and waste products that when Navin held a ‘hydrophone’ (an instrument used to sense life-forms) into it he was unable to detect any signs of life – except one, some kind of cat-fish, with red-bulging eyes.

Which brings us to his next work, part of a series called “Meet the neighbours” where he will be displaying these supposedly mutated fish in large water-tanks.  He is curious to study its possible mutations but he’s also just curious to see what kind of creature is capable of sustaining itself in such conditions.

And that’s the main makhzat (purpose) of Navin’s works: to observe.  He isn’t particularly interested in highly technological media as he doesn’t want the audience to be distracted by spectacle – he just wants us to observe and for the various structures and animals in his artworks to speak...mostly to each other.

“Ode to Dengue” is also going to be in a similar vain – an architectural structure that will record the effects of lunar and U.V. light on the local bat colony and insects.  This not only looks at the influence of urban architecture on ecology, but asks the question of “how defunct structures can sustain all kinds of ecology.”

When I ask about what inspires Navin, he tells me “I’m not influenced by artists – I go to the flea-market for inspiration.  I think you can tell a lot about a culture by what it throws away.  I observe objects, I try to understand them by bringing them home and making them speak.”

Emergence/Immersion

One of the best parts about being an art critic is interviewing artists.  It’s the one time we get to stop talking and start listening.

As I sit down to interview one of the more ‘emerging artists’ on this residency, Pratik Sagar, he tells me that neither his English, nor his Hindi is very good.  Surprising then, given this supposed communication gap, that over the course of an hour we manage to talk about disciplines diverse as philosophy, politics, biology, religious studies and semiotics – not to mention art history.

Despite being interested in science and almost training to become a Homeopath, Pratik formally trained as an artist.  And despite his extensive knowledge of Religion and his leanings towards spirituality, he doesn’t actually believe in God.  Given these diverse interests, his artworks take on multiple connotations and reach many levels – just as his thought processes do

Pratik first started working with animals and food after a pivotal incident involving the death of a kitten he was trying to save.  This led to an important piece in his developing oeuvre called “Mother’s Milk.”  For this performance-based work, Pratik filled many small bowls with cow’s milk, and arranged them to spell out the words ‘Mother’s milk.’  Puppies came to drink the milk and in the process, destroyed the formation of the lettering.

The irony of the puppies drinking the given milk rather than their mother’s was evident but Pratik was also looking at meaning attributed to particular words and the deconstruction of those words. Similarly he formed the word ‘absent’ out of sugar which duly disappeared when consumed by ants, and the word ‘lust’ out of honey which left just the lettering ‘us’ when eaten by insects.

OK, you could say, so his work incorporates performance, ecology and post-structuralist thinking – that’s interesting but there’s only so far one can go with that, right?  Actually it seems to be the way Pratik uses these elements that continues to fascinate.  Different works take on ritualistic meanings, comment on socio-political changes, bring together communities and simultaneously document wildlife.

In this very Khoj residency, Pratik has taken trips to the Yamuna River at sunrise and fed migratory birds at the shamshaan ghat; an environment usually associated with cremation rituals.  Yet Pratik’s performative act brings together elements of death, ritual, ecology and life; his art practice almost synthesizes new rituals, ones that include the notion of hope.

But there is also despair in his works.  His early experiments at art school were inspired by the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks which included a piece called “You burst or it burst” in which he placed balloons down a staircase, in wait of an unsuspecting public.  He explains how some of those initial installations were about the idea of “self-destruction” and even commented on the inherent corruption and injustice that one often sees in India.

So perhaps Pratik is equally compelled by the worst and the best aspects of humanity?

Regardless of its direction, his message is certainly one of inclusion.  He often uses popular Bollywood music as a soundtrack to his videos in order to increase their appeal.  He once used a couplet from the legendary mystic Kabir’s poetry in an interactive work involving tea saying, “The idea of Kabir attracted people just like the sugar attracted the ants.”  Pratik often calls his works observatories, or ‘gathering spaces’, making sure he installs them at public monuments, inside parks or outside places of worship.

“If it is public art then it has to be for everyone!” he insists.

This is how he believes figures such as Mahatma Gandhi and Kabir effectively spread their ideas of peace, non-violence and forgiveness, widely.  And that is perhaps why his latest work for the Khoj residency is named after one of the most common yet profound words we have – ‘FORGIVE’.  I for one am intrigued to see what it will inspire us to do.

The Whole Package

Spending a Wednesday afternoon punctuated by chai, samosas and cigarettes at the Khoj studios, a privileged group of us sat listening to three dedicated artists and one artists' collective talk about their bodies of work.

Privileged – because anyone who has the opportunity to gain such a valuable insight into an artist’s thinking and development over time has to be so, and dedicated – because artists working on the fringes of art and science, I believe, often have to work harder to validate themselves in both fields. (As one artist aptly said that afternoon, “Making art like this is what keeps me selling furniture as a day-job!”)

And so we come back, once again, to the question of validation.  What validates these artists’ works as fine art rather than ecological research, political activism, performing arts or simply scientific experimentation?

In 2011 the criteria for judging art seems to be hazier than ever before; suffice it to say we live a time where art can simply be ‘classified’ as pluralistic - which leaves the contemporary critic with variegated ways of comprehending, evaluating and of course, translating the art they view.

What struck me at Khoj that afternoon was my personal response to each artist's body of work.  (Postmodernism may have killed the author and given birth to the subject, but I still believe that only by seeing an artist’s inner workings, their previous concepts and structures, can one fully appreciate their current practice – I believe it’s all about context.)  Back to what’s important – the artists:  I was fascinated by Brandon Balengee’s depth of research and presented aesthetic; I was heartened by Pratik Sagar’s intersection of spiritual exploration and performance-based works; I was intrigued by Navin Thomas’s juxtaposition of industrial found-objects with sound-wave monitoring but lastly, I was extremely moved by the profundity of Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey’s large-scale, socio-ecological works.

The impression left on me by this afternoon also made me think of a session we had had back in Dubai at a Bidoun writing workshop (Jan-May 2010).  We discussed many aspects of writing about art in these workshops, but the one in question was about the ‘baggage’ a critic or a writer brings with them when critiquing an exhibition or an artwork; basically their personal bias, whether this be emotional, political or cultural etc.  A certain extent of this personal bias may be inevitable and we came to the conclusion that if it did exist, it should at least be acknowledged.

So, when dealing with a socially/politically/culturally engaging work, is it audience response (in a way, the effectiveness of the works translation) that determines its efficacy? Or should it ultimately be the aesthetic that qualifies the piece as a work of art? Is it in fact its experimental and unclassifiable nature that draws a viewer in and defines it as so abstract as to put it in the frame of being cutting-edge? Or is this area of work just so telling of the zeitgeist, that we are simply placated by the fact that more artists are engaging with environmental issues?

I wonder, what makes this type of art, art? Or even ‘good’ art?

For me, it is the whole package – the pure dedication to this field, the creation of a body ‘alternative research;’ the experimental nature of it, including all the failed experiments; the effect on the local and wider community, the communicative quality of the work; and of course the overall presentation of these very complex ideas into a wondrously formed, visually-engaging aesthetic.

Translators

Critical theorists tells us that interstitial zones between disciplines offer new sites of knowledge production - which is why institutions such as Khoj find themselves exploring interdisciplinary spaces such as art and fashion, art and architecture and art and design. 

But art and science, really? How do these seemingly dichotomous worlds come together? And specifically in the case of ecology, how do you classify one thing as science and another as ecological art?

And so we begin this Khoj residency on art + ecology + science, as with any great investigative process, with questions (new terrian that we hope to traverse) and quotes! (learned concepts that will help us build upon their profundities)

Stacy Levy tells us "We tend to think of nature as something separate and other.  So often we place nature at the opposite end of the spectrum from culture.  Culture is us, nature is other."  Such a view is consistent with Greenbergian philosophy, where a definitve line was drawn between aesthetics and ethics (art and spiritual/social/environmental concerns) - but decades (and several art movements) later, haven't we moved on from such rigid thinking? 

The curators of initiatives such as "Ecovention" (2002) would certainly hope so.  In their eponymous book, Amy Lipton and Sue Spaid set about documenting and defining some of the most prominent land artists of our time.  They talk about the value of ecological intervention or "ecovention" as a contemporary art
tactic and then proceed (in quite a scientfic manner!) to classify the various types of land art = any art that involves nature/activates the land.

So, roughly speaking,
"earthworks" constitute permanent, large-scale, non-natural works (Robert Smithson's "Spiral Jetty" has to be the most famous example of this)
"environmental art" seems to be art that employ nature as a medium in an endeavour to enhance the viewer's awareness of nature and its phenomena and
"ecological art" seems to be more about sustainability, adaptability and biodiversity and is not necessarily transformative.

Although references are always useful when trying to comprehend the unkown, I have a feeling I won't necessarily be using these terms when attempting to critically engage with the artists involved in this residency.  Perhaps that's the nature of understanding the ever-changing world around us, we constantly need new language!

And I guess that is how I see doctors, scientists, artists and writers primarily - we share common ground as translators of the environment around us.  Whether it be our microcosms or macrocosms - the body, ecological systems or the universe - we heal, decode, research, TRANSLATE.

So lastly, to end this initial blog entry, I will leave you with a thought from the book Artful Ecologies (2006) "If Science is a translator of nature's ways then art's real power is to give new ways of telling the story of nature."

In Context:public.art.ecology- II Art+Ecology+Science

01 Mar 2011 - 08 Apr

Opening Remarks:

The In Context:public.art.ecology residency in its second phase will investigate and explore sites of science pursued through its diverse projects ranging from creating living ecosystems for insects, an organic grass photosynthesis photograph, an interactive bird habitat, an insect attracting eco- habitat; all within the broader framework of ecology and science rooted in todays’s cultural and philosophical context.