Everything, from the title of the show to the way it is organised is designed to raise your curiosity. H0~E4 is a show where a curator’s ensemble has raised the question, ‘Can art and technology be related?’, and whether or not you receive an answer, you will definitely go back home thinking.
The four curators — Georgina Maddox, Faizal Khan, Premjish Achari and Dhritabrata Bhattacharjya Tato — are working on four vectors for the show — Existential, Experiential, Exploratory and Evolutionary.
“The name of the show is actually an equation,” explains Tato. “At the most basic level, it means that the connection between art and technology is a null theory and that is exactly what we’re trying to show in our work,” he says. So, why would one want to choose a topic that says that the connection between art and technology is null? Tato explains, “Art serves a subjective purpose (more concerned with feelings), whereas technology serves an objective purpose (more concerned with facts). How can one compare the two which serve completely different purposes? Therefore it becomes a null theory.” While Premjish explains, “A lot has been written about the negatives and positives of technology; but we are trying to project the experiential aspect of technology and how it mediates everyday life. We would like to display how technology is experienced today, how the access of technology is varied and how an experiential survey on technology is imminent now.”
Existential: Art by Mohan J.
Existential
“I’ve worked on women’s issues for a long time now and I wanted to see how technology affects women. A few years back people believed that women and technology don’t mix, but now that barrier has been broken. I’ve looked at the work of eight artists who bring out this issue. There are going to be a few interactive media pieces and a few videos as well,” explains Georgina Maddox.
Experiential
“I see this period as a phase of convergence between the digital and the physical. I believe things are slowly vanishing through this. I was trying to create an experiential sphere, where we see what happens to objects when everything gets converted to digital. Objects serve a purpose (people connect emotional memories to them and they also serve a physical purpose). What happens when these objects disappear is what I’m interested in and that’s what 17 artists will be responding to,” says Premjish.
Exploratory: A video installation by artist Vivian Sundaram
Exploratory
“I have found that there is a constant struggle that people face with technology and often we are not able to figure out if it confuses, overwhelms or helps us. This is what the artists and I whose work I am displaying will try to answer,” says Faizal Khan who will be showcasing eight documentaries, shorts, videos and digital cartoons.
Evolutionary: Art work by Pratap Modi
Evolutionary
“We all come from a written tradition. But there was a day when we shifted from manually writing books to the press. A whole lot of people were left jobless when we shifted to a new technology. Even now, books are being converted to the Kindle world; what will happen to the people who work in the press? The society demands that people have a certain skill set, but when a new technology comes in, these skills are devalued. So when people can’t jump to the other side and cope with the new skills, they simply cease to exist, this is what I’m trying to question through this part of the show,” explains Tato, who will be working with eight to nine artists.
