Alwar Balasubramaniam: Art of substance and absence

26,860 views ・ 2010-09-08

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Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:16
The moment I say "school,"
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so many memories come back to me.
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It's like after every exam, when I walk out,
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the teacher would say, "Hey, come.
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How did you do?"
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I would say with a great smile, "I will definitely pass."
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And I didn't understand why,
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in one hand they say, "Speak the truth,"
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in the other hand, when you say the truth, they hated you.
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So it went on like that,
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and I didn't know where else to find myself.
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So I remember those nights
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I used to go to sleep
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with asking help from [the] Unknown
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because, for some reason,
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I couldn't believe what my father and mother
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hanged in the Puja room as a god,
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because my friend's family
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had something else as a god.
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So I thought, "I guess I'll pray to [the] Unknown
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and ask help,"
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and started getting help from everywhere,
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each and every corner of my life at that time.
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My brothers started giving me a few tips about drawing and painting.
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Then, when I was in eighth standard
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around 13 years old,
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I started working in a part-time job
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in one of the signboard artists called Putu.
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And then school also started supporting me.
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"Oh, he's bad at studies,
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but let him send to the drawing competitions."
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So it was good to survive with that little tool
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that I found to find my own place in school.
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And one of those competitions,
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I just won a small, little transistor Philips radio.
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And I didn't have the patience to wait
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until I reached home.
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So I just switched on in the train, loudly.
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If you travel in Indian trains,
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you can see people listening to radio
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and, you know, even from their mobiles.
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So at that time -- and I was 13 --
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and I was listening to just radio,
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and someone happened to sit next to me,
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like these three people are sitting here.
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You know, like just adjacent to me.
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He just started asking, "Where did you buy the radio? How much is it?"
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I said, "It's a prize from [an] art competition."
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And he said, "Oh, I teach at a college of arts.
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I think
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you should study in a school of art.
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You just quit school and come there."
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So, why I'm telling you this,
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you know, maybe, you know,
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whoever is sitting next to you can change your whole life -- it's possible.
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It is that we need we need to be open and fine-tuned.
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So that's what made me enter
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[the] college of arts after three attempts
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and just continue to inquire
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what I really want to do with art work, or art
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and finally I'm here in front of you.
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When I look back, you know,
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on what happened between that time
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and now here --
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the last 10/15 years --
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I can see that most of the works
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revolve around three subjects,
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but it was not intentional.
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And I just start out with a trace because I was thinking,
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"What really makes us?" -- you know,
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it's actually [the] past, what makes a person.
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So I was thinking,
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but when you look at the past,
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the way to understand the past
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is only by the traces available,
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because we cannot go back [to] the past.
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It can be ruins, or it can be music,
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or it can be painting or drawing or writing, whatever it is.
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But it is just a kind of trace of that time.
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And that fascinated me,
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to explore that territory.
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So I was working on the line,
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but instead of working about traces,
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I started capturing traces.
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So here are some of the works I would like to show you.
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So this is called "Self In Progress."
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It's just a trace of being in this body.
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So here, what happened then,
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you know -- what I really enjoyed the most
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is that this sculpture
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is nothing but a trace of myself.
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It's almost like a 3D photograph.
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So there is an element of performance,
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and there is an element of sculpture,
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and there is an element of feeling one's self, so close to one's self.
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So it's almost like fossils for the future.
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And then moved slowly
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to explore the other possibilities of capturing traces.
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So this is what I was talking about, while molding,
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it's such a great experience,
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because we have freedom of like walking,
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or moving my hand or, moving around in the space,
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but the moment this becomes solid,
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when you cannot move even an inch,
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because this is plaster of Paris, so the moment you pour it it's like liquid;
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but after 20 minutes, it's almost like a hard stone.
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So this is capturing the trace of a thumbprint
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because, knowingly or unknowingly,
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whatever we do, you know, we leave our traces here.
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So I just thought, "I'm going to capture
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thumbprint, footprint,
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or whatever traces we leave as humans."
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This is the trace of fire,
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this is the trace of sun.
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Because when I was capturing traces, you know,
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this thought comes to me always:
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is it, only when the object touches the thing and it leaves the trace,
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or is there other ways to capture it?"
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So this work is nothing but like --
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because of the focal length of the lens,
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it just shows what is on the other side.
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So I just put the paper on the focal length,
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which was an etching print,
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then I got the portrait of [the] sun from sunlight.
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This is called "Dawn to Dawn."
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What I did here, I just put like 10 feet [of] paper
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then put a coconut rope,
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and just burnt it.
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So it took about 24 hours to get this line.
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So wherever the fire is eating the paper,
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that's what becomes the work --
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detail.
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Even though we have traces
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when we try to understand them,
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the perception and context
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play a major role to understand it.
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So do we really understand what it is,
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or are we trying to get
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what we think it is?
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Then move towards questioning the perception
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because, even though there are traces,
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when you try to understand them, you know you play a major role.
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So like let's say even a simple act.
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How many of you saw a cow crossing in India
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while you were coming from Bangalore to Mysore?
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Can you just raise the hand?
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If you just ask an opinion
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of how, everyone can interpret it.
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Like, let's say, if a schoolteacher says,
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she'll simply say, "To get to the other side."
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Why the cow was crossing the road, you know.
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The answer can be so different if Potter said it.
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He would say, "For the greater good."
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Martin Luther King would say,
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"I imagine a world where all cows will be free
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to cross the road,
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without having their motives called into question."
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(Laughter)
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Imagine Moses comes now, and he sees
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the same cow walking around the street.
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He would definitely say,
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"God came down from heaven,
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and he said unto the cow,
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'Thou shalt cross the road.'
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And cow crossed the road,
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and there was much rejoicing as a holy cow."
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(Laughter)
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Freud would say,
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"The fact that you're at all concerned
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reveals your underlying sexual insecurity."
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(Laughter)
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If we ask Einstein,
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he would say, "Whether the cow crossed the road,
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or the road moved underneath the cow,
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depends on your frame of reference."
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(Laughter)
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Or Buddha --
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if he saw the same cow, he would say,
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"Asking this question denies your own nature [as a] cow."
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(Laughter)
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So, what we see
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is just what we think often,
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and most of the time, we don't see what it is.
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It just all depends on one's perception.
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And context, what is really context?
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You know, I could just show you this little piece of paper.
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Because I always think meaning doesn't really exist.
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The meaning of what we create in this world doesn't exist.
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It's just created by the mind.
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If you look at this piece of paper,
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this is the breadth
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and this is called length.
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This is how we've been taught in school.
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But if you tear it in the middle --
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now, I didn't touch this breadth,
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but still, the meaning of this changes.
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So what we conceive as a meaning
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is always not there;
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it's on the other side,
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even when we say dark, light,
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good, bad, tall, short --
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all meaning it doesn't exist in reality.
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It's just that being a human,
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the way we train to perceive the reality
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creates this meaning.
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So this work from this period
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is mostly like --
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you know, this is a work called "Light Makes Dark."
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It's just captured through from the lamp.
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So the lamp is not just giving a light, it's also giving a darkness.
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So this is a work of art, which is just trying to explore that.
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This is called "Limit Out."
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This shows how limited our eye or hearing sense or touch --
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do we really see?
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This is an exact negative.
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It's about six inches deep in the wall,
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but it just appears like it's coming out of the wall.
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You know the wall is almost like --
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this is the first skin, and this is the second,
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and there's a third, and each creates a meaning.
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And we're just pulling the wall off the gallery.
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Again, "Inward Out."
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It's a full-figure cast from myself.
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It's about eight inches deep.
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When I was doing that, I always wondered since I've worked with creators --
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and now you know, I've moved to questioning the perception --
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whenever I see the bird flying in the sky,
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it just makes me feel like:
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is there anything behind, are there any traces up there,
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which as a human, we don't see them?
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Is there any way to capture the thought
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into visual art?
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I couldn't find it.
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But a solution arrived
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after being quiet and not working for about six, seven months,
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in the restroom,
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when I was changing the air freshener
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that goes from solid substance to vapor.
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It's called Odonil.
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This is the work I made out of that material.
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The process to get to make the sculpture was interesting,
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because I wrote to Balsara,
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who produces that air freshener called Odonil,
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saying, "Dear Sir, I am an artist. This is my catalogue.
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Will you help me to make this sculpture?"
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They never wrote back to me.
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Then I thought, "I will go to the Small Scale Industries
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Facilitating Unit and ask help."
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So I told them, "I'd like to start an air freshener company."
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They said, "Of course.
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This is the fee for the project report,
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and we will give you all the details," and they gave.
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Finally, I went back to them and said,
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"It's not for starting the company, it's just to make my own work.
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Please come for the show."
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And they did.
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And this work is in the Devi Art Foundation in Delhi.
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In India, nobody really talks about works of art;
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they always talk about the appreciation of art.
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You buy this for 3,000 rupees,
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it'll become 30,000 in two months.
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This is the craft that was going on,
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but there are a few collectors
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who also collect art which can depreciate.
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And this was collected by Anupam --
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which is like, finally in the end, he will not have anything,
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because it will evaporate.
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So this is after a few weeks,
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this is after a few months.
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It's just all about questioning the preconceptions.
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So if someone says, "Oh, I see the portrait,"
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it may not be the portrait after a few months.
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And if they say it's solid,
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it will not be solid, it will evaporate.
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And if they say they don't get it,
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that's also not true,
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because it's in the air.
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It's in the same gallery or in the same museum.
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So they inhaled it,
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but they are not aware of it.
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While I was doing that work,
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my mom and my dad,
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they were looking at it and they said,
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"Why do you deal with negative subjects all the time?"
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And I was like, "What do you mean?"
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"Light makes dark and now evaporating self.
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Don't you think it remained something about death," they said.
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"Of course not. For me," I'm thinking,
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"this is tucked in some small solid,
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but the moment it evaporates,
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it's merged with the whole."
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But she said, "No. Still, I don't like it.
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Can you make something from nothing
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as a sculptor?"
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I said, "No, mom. It can't be.
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Because we can create
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a sculpture
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by gathering dust together,
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or we can break the sculpture and get the dust,
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but there is nowhere that we can bring dust into the universe."
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So, I did this work for her.
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It's called "Emerging Angel."
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This is the first day --
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it just gives the appearance
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that one is becoming the other.
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So, the same sculpture
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after a few days.
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This is after 15/20 days.
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Through that small little slit
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between the glass box and the wood,
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the air goes underneath the sculpture and creates the other one.
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This gave me a greater faith.
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That evaporating sculpture gave me a greater faith
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that maybe there is many more possibilities
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to capture [the] invisible.
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So what you see now
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is called "Shadow Foreshadow."
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And what I'd like to tell you
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is we don't see shadow, and we don't see light too;
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we see the source of the light.
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We see where it's bouncing, but we don't see [them] as they exist.
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You know, that's why the night sky, we see the sky as dark,
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but it's filled with light all the time.
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When it's bounced on the moon, we see it.
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The same thing in the darkroom.
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The little dust particle will again, reflect the light,
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and we realize the existence of light.
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So we don't see dark, we don't see light,
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we don't see gravity, we don't see electricity.
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So, I just started doing this work
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to inquire further
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about how to sculpt
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the space between this object and there.
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Because, as a visual artist, if I'm seeing this and I'm seeing that --
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but how to sculpt this, you know?
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If we sculpt this, this has two reference points.
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The skin of this is also representing this.
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And skin at the other end also represents the floor.
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I did this as an experiment
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of casting the shadow.
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So this is a corrugated box and its shadow.
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Then the second one --
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the moment you bring any invisible into the visible world
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it will have all the characteristics of the visible existence.
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So that produced a shadow.
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Then I thought, okay, let me sculpt that.
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Then, again, that becomes an object.
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Again, throwing light, then the third one.
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So what you see is nothing but shadow
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of a shadow of a shadow.
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And then again, at that point, there is no shadow.
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I thought, "Oh, good. Work is finished."
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You can see the detail.
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This is called "Gravity."
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It's called "Breath." It's just two holes on the gallery wall.
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It's a false wall, which contains
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like 110 cubic feet.
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So that hole actually
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makes the air come out and go in.
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So where it's happening, we can see,
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but what is happening will remain invisible only.
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This is from the show called "Invisible," at Talwar Gallery.
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This is called "Kaayam."
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Detail.
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And what I'd like to tell you,
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our senses are so limited --
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we cannot hear everything, we cannot see everything.
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We don't feel, "I am touching the air,"
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but if the breeze is a little more faster, then I can feel it.
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So all of our construction of reality
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is through these limited senses.
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So my request was like,
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is there any way to use all this
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as just a symbol or a sign?
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16:21
And to really get to the point,
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we should move beyond, you know,
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go to the other side of the wall, like illogic,
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like are invisible.
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Because when we see someone walks, we see the footprint.
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But if we're just cutting that footprint from the whole thing and trying to analyze it,
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you will miss the point
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because the actual journey happens between those footprints,
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and the footprints are nothing but passing time.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)
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