|
The Emerging Sequences of World
Baiju Parthan |
Baiju Parthan looks relaxed after his major solo ‘Liquid Memory+Rant’ at New Delhi’s Vadehra Art Gallery. He is happy for his new but secret academic achievement. In conversation with JohnyML, Baiju Parthan talks about the thoughts that he put into the creation of the LM+R works. Excerpts:
JohnyML: Liquid Memory+ Rant. In your exhibition promotional materials I find the sign Plus printed bigger than the usual font type. I try to read it as a grid that divides the space into four; as a symbol of heart or as a symbol of brain’s further division into four chambers, where memories are liquefied and raging is compressed. Am I becoming too imaginative?
Baiju Parthan: It is wonderful that you are so imaginative. I intended the plus sign to bridge together a very emotional and visceral outburst with some deep ontological pondering. But then as the works in the show emerged the plus sign became a marker hinting some kind of absolution. A neutral location for me to stand and Rant about what is happening around me and also ponder about the volatility brought in by communication technology.
JML: Why liquid memories? Why the memories are liquefied?
BP: No ! It is ‘Memory’ not ‘memories’. I am not speaking about specific memories that belong to me and their liquefaction.
I am referring to the extremely volatile computer memory and how it is becoming an extension and a substitute for our own memory and history. I am definitely referring to the pervasive presence and use of search engines to trawl this simulated composite memory which is a repository of information and also the tracks we leave as we gather information .. Just think about it- Google, currently the most powerful and influential corporate entity in the world is actually a search engine!
JML: When I look at the images in the Liquid Memory series, I see many of the images coming from your early paintings and digital works. So are you considering those works of the yester years as selected information stocks stored in external hard drives?
BP: I rework a lot of my images. When I return to an earlier image which I have used once before, it is as though one is reinitiating a disrupted conversation with someone you know very well. This comfort of familiarity provides me some extra space to explore possibilities that were not apparent during my initial engagement. Also as an artist one is interested in possibilities rather than the image per se and if an earlier image from my oeuvre suggests a new possibility I would definitely use it. Though I have not consciously used them here to refer to material from works of the yester years existing as information on a computer hard drive, I do not mind such an interpretation because it is valid.
JML: In the Rant series, I see conventionally done paintings with references to history, superimposed by graffiti, deconstructed into color patches. Do they represent the artist’s scream at the history?
BP: A major chunk of the paintings (eight of them) came into being because I spent quite some time reading papers on Ethics / Moral Philosophy as part of a university course I was doing. At the same time I came across a very significant essay by Samuel Huntington on the battle of civilizations, and the way identities are going to be defined in the post cold war world. From that position I wanted to look at the individual as a soldier, and also the individual soldier caught in a vice grip of this historical moment. Let us say I am ranting against the kind of ethical quagmire we are gradually but steadily sinking into.
JML: The mixed media works in the same section carry a title ‘Caput Mortum’. What are these images? For me they look like scientific, engineering, archeological drawings with a constant reminder of death. Could you please explain?
BP: Caput Mortum – is the residue or the substance that is left over in alchemy after the process of sublimation has taken place. I have placed the individual soldier against a backdrop of cosmographical diagrams from various cultures that illustrate their world-views. I have been collecting these diagrams for many years and I felt this was a good occasion to use them. I am referring to the battle of civilizations or the battle of world-views which is one and the same thing. Now, are the spent world-views caput mortum, or humanity itself the caput mortum is the big question. Incidentally this title was suggested by Ranjit Hoskote during a studio visit, and I loved it.
JML: Death, violence, tools of hegemony and a pacifist icon of Mahatma Gandhi are the predominant images in Rant section. Do you intended at an anti-imperialist narrative?
BP: I did not intend to present the image of Mahatma Gandhi as an anti-imperialist narrative. But death, violence, and the tools of hegemony are exactly the precipitates that surface when world-views clash. Along with the works that speak about the battle of civilizations, there is a smaller body of works under the caption ‘Archeology’ which is about the new economy, the software driven Indian economy and the transformation it is ushering in. So I have these iconic images of Mahatma Gandhi etc. overrun by graffiti of computer code. The interesting thing is that the code graffiti is sourced from the lump of code generated when the source image is deconstructed with an ASCII editor (A computer program that can break down images, text and even sounds into basic machine code).
JML: This previous question of mine comes from the awareness that you have always qualified yourself as a person working from the peripheries. Is it a guerrilla war with graffiti as weapon?
BP: That is really interesting! I like that image. Though I must admit I am more of a closet rebel than a guerrilla!
JML: In the Liquid Memory series too, in the videos I feel there is not only the reference to the externalization of memories but also there is a strong indication of death and decay; the flux of matter, nothing holds type. (I am reminded of a work of art seen at Tate Modern (forgot the name of the artist), where a video screen shows the decaying of a bunch of fruits). Death, violence, imperialism, hegemony etc spill over from Rant to Liquid Memory. What do you think?
BP: Yes, I have seen that work which employs time lapse photography sequence to show the gradual decomposition of a still life arrangement. I think in certain ways I am following a similar direction, but my work Liquid Memory is more about dematerialization than decay. I am pondering upon the ontological fallout of surviving (in) a world that is being gradually but steadily dematerialized by the new technologies.
JML: You have studied comparative mythology. Now there is mythology built around you and your works. A left wing romantic who left home and academics for pursuing his heart’s calling, becoming one amongst the flower children of seventies, leaving painting for illustration, then again becoming a painter, a shaman, a wizard of digital imaging, a man who lives with Vidya Kamat, additional hard drives, Bob Dylan music, dusty CDs etc. How much do you enjoy this reality ossified into mythology? How much does it drive your art?
BP: We all know that myths are not the absolute truth. In fact there is no absolute truth, so I am not complaining J To be frank I am not aware of such a myth, and if true only I am to be blamed for providing the fodder. Yes, I am still enamored by a naïve optimism that one can will into existence a better tomorrow which was the hallmark of the flower power generation. I think that is what makes me continue as an artist in the midst of all the contradictions and conflicts and conundrums one has to deal with as a living self-aware entity.
JML: As usual I overheard a person talking to you, ‘Rant is within my reach but Liquid Memory is beyond my comprehension’. Do you think that this problem of understanding digital art vis-à-vis the works on paper and canvas is something that is to be addressed by the artist?
BP: No, I think it is all about exposure. Once our audience/viewers are exposed enough to the new mediums/media they would have no problem at all. The best example is installation art. Some time ago the Indian art lover was baffled by installations, but not anymore. And this change happened because artists and galleries kept on exhibiting installation art.
JML: You and Paulo Coelho have initiated me into the notion of ‘Butterfly effect’. One wave produced somewhere for some purpose comes, touches and moves you in a different context. Like you and Maria (in Coelho’s Eleven Minutes) I too am touched by some waves from your painting. Are you a cause or an effect of this butterfly effect?
BP: That is synchronicity at work I must say! I am at the moment going through a very intimate interview given by Paulo Coelho and I discovered that he was very much a part of the flower power movement and also drawn to the works of Carlos Castaneda, which could be common ground, I must say for any one who was ardently seeking answers during a historical juncture. But I found the similarity quite enjoyable. But speaking about the butterfly effect, yes I do believe that the world is an emergent phenomenon. Simple things/causes can iterate into complex effects/results. I think the world is such a complex linked chain of emerging sequences that we all are simultaneously the cause as well as the effect. Thanks! |
