Metaphygital Souls | Cosmos 3

Mechanicalized Mindlessness
 
In Mechanicalized Mindlessness, Shashank explores the concept of power as a dynamic force, passed from person to person and expressed through actions—particularly through the use of human hands. For Shashank, power is never absolute; it is something earned or inherited, always in motion. His work examines how power operates in society and how its expression often becomes mechanical, especially in ritualistic practices.

The piece critiques the ritual of Sandhyavandhanam, a Hindu practice tied to Brahminical traditions and the use of the sacred thread, or Janivara. This ritual, which Shashank grew up performing in his upper-caste Hindu family, involves repetitive hand gestures and body movements that, in his view, are symbolic performances of privilege. These rituals, often practiced without thought, reflect the historical and social power dynamics rooted in caste oppression.

Shashank reflects on his own experience of being required to participate in these rituals, which he came to see as robotic and empty. He eventually rejected this mechanical performativity, choosing instead to question and break away from these traditions. Through the use of 3D-printed plastic, a material that represents artificiality, Shashank externalizes and disembodies these rituals. The repetitive nature of both the 3D printing process and the rituals themselves becomes a metaphor for mindlessness, serving as a critique and rejection of Brahminical privilege

Prayer Machine:

Prayer is a spiritual act that seeks to activate a rapport with an object of worship through deliberate communication. In traditional Indian vedic practices, a prayer often consists of a step-by-step procedure to please the deity that shall be performed with selflessness, enthusiasm and devotion in order to achieve moksha/enlightenment. Over the ages, such ritualistic practices have reduced to the mechanical act of performing duties rather than comprehending. 

You have the right to perform your actions, 
But you are not entitled to the fruit of the action.

The Prayer Machine brings alive this philosophy by conducting several layers of the act of worship that a priest would perform. The machine begins with various activating bells to create rhythmic wake up calls for the God (unlikely represented with an “aura” or prabhavali only). The machine then does a series of actions like offering milk and flowers, spraying auspicious powders and spices towards the God’s aura creating a gradient of coloured dust layers on the floor, and conducting cyclical loops of fire with two candles. Mechanically and tirelessly performing the duties of men who would manually conduct it. So if the machines perform the rituals of a prayer or ceremony diligently, then will they too gain enlightenment? 

Could Messenger:
 
“The thing about the cloud is that you can only see it from a distance. How did we come to place our faith in a symbol that is so ephemeral—all vapor and crystal?”  

- an excerpt from A Prehistory of the Cloud by Tung-Hui Hu


Derived from the word "clud" or "clod," signifying a hill or a mass of stone, the term "cloud" has undergone a transformation from a corporeal entity laden with water droplets to an ethereal dimension that accommodates our digital personas. In the space between the tangible and intangible existence of a cloud, a symbolic faith has taken root. Clouds often resemble dreams: elusive, symbolic, and residing in the realm of the subconscious, frequently defying conventional comprehension.

The lyrical poem, “Meghadootam” or “Cloud-Messenger” written by Kalidasa in 5th century CE, is a dreamlike philosophical journey of a cloud. The story takes us into the realm of dreams, where a celestial Yaksha finds himself exiled from home and separated from his beloved wife. As the rainy season envelops this ethereal world, the Yaksha implores a passing cloud to serve as a messenger to reach his distant beloved, blurring the lines between reality and the dreamlike. 

Here, the cloud serves as both a tangible, material entity and a powerful symbol, reminding us of the intricate connection between the physical and emotional realms, and the ever-changing, impermanent nature of life and human emotions. It invites us to contemplate the interplay between matter and symbolism, between the tangible and the intangible, and the deeper philosophical questions about existence and the human condition.

The Cloud-Messenger is an abstract vessel of communication, its existence hinging solely on the transmission of data. It embodies the duality of our modern world, manifesting as both a bearer of information and a reflection of our collective consciousness. Moreover, it is a repository of our memories, preserving the traces of our existence in the digital ether. It forces us to ponder the transience of our digital footprints and the implications of this legacy on our understanding of identity and self.

​​The interplay between dreams and the digital cloud raises profound questions about the human experience. How do we invest belief in the transient and the abstract, whether in the form of aspirations in our sleep or the storage of our digital lives? Both elude immediate perception, relying on a form of symbolic faith. Are we mere spectators, passively observing the passing clouds of data and information, or do we, like philosophers, actively shape our own understanding of the world?

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Algorithm

"Here, I teach an AI what the human insides look like by showing it several videos of surgical operations and
dissections. The algorithm is then allowed to produce its own images of imagined dissections, which are
animated to mimic the flow within. By experimenting with the amount of training the algorithm gets, I try to
generate vivid abstract painterly images which recall Shiraga and sometimes de Kooning. There is an ironic
reference to Rembrandt’s early masterpiece in the title- that painting (The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes
Tulp) was produced by Rembrandt in an era of troubled fascination with medical technology- this one is
produced by AI, in an era of troubled excitement about its rise."

This haunting video art piece delves into the insatiable human urge to consume, a reflection on gluttony and the relentless greed that drives us to devour everything around us, even ourselves. The film unfolds through a series of evocative performances by artist Kareena Solanki, who engages in repetitive tasks, consuming invisible entities with an obsessive fervor. As her hunger escalates, she begins to consume her own blood and tears, symbolizing the self-destructive nature of unchecked desire. Yet, her appetite remains unquenched, a metaphor for the void that can never be filled. The film’s atmosphere is further intensified by the unsettling score composed by avant-garde musician Kartik Mishra, known as Colorblind, whose experimental soundscape underscores the theme of endless consumption with eerie precision. It’s been so long since we slowed down / And waited for nothing at all is a visceral exploration of the darker aspects of human nature, questioning the limits of desire and the cost of our relentless pursuit of more.