It was the beginning of a quiet partnership between new media artist Mehdi Saajid, creative technologist, Tanvir Nagore and technophile, Trilok Chander — and it was a creative boon for all three. Goethe-Zentrum, the existing avatar of the German Cultural Centre in the city, will glow not by the twinkling of lights but by nature’s swirling and harmonic interweaving, depicted by a trio of artists. The upcoming exhibition titled Synchronised Spectrum will spotlight the blend of scientific insight, cultural symbolism and existential worldview into a consonance of humankind and the ecosystem. For the trio, being open to technology is contemporising it.
They realise the need to keep pace with the agile world. The earmark of the digital showcase, or what one can expect to be a new media interactive session with How Bees See Flowers, will interpret the binary between a bee’s vision versus the human eye. Executed through interactive booths emitting an interplay of light and silhouette, the display seeks to underscore how bees look at flowers. A year ago, when Trilok met Tanvir, the two decided to infuse art into technology — as if to reproduce sci-fi films — Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, The Matrix Trilogy and the like. The two films beautifully deconstruct and simplify memory erasure and a dystopian future. Likewise, Synchronised Spectrum eradicates scientific jargon and untangles the symbiosis between humanity and the planet.
Things move much faster in the show — like an immersive motion of a bee. “The metaphorical meaning underneath the show is simple,” Trilok tells us, adding, “To make one understand that new media art is an experience as much as the classical tradition of paintings and sculptures.” Tanvir elaborates, “Art, be it any medium, is a form of expression. But I have noticed that audiences have a passive relationship with it. I want to break that passivity and co-create art with the audience.” Mehdi, Trilok and Tanvir’s impetus is overt — they have always loved science and are enamoured of art’s power at simplifying it — its use, abuse, nightmares and beauty. New media art — a more suitable language, stringing their love for art and science in illustrative expressions — seeks to explore humanity, its harmony with nature and how we are playing along the biosphere.
The exhibit will remind one of natural calamities like the Kerala floods, and how we are interconnected with one another while breaking down why bees majorly represent the environment. Be it beeswax — for making candles and being used as an ingredient in artists’ materials and in leather and wood polishes, or a dietary supplement — they are one of the crucial contributors to the food chain. “Our purpose is to present an educative and visually integrative experience decoding how pollinators communicate with the environment,” Mehdi says.
Free entry. August 17 to 20. 10 am to 6 pm. At Goethe-Zentrum, Banjara Hills. — chokita@newindianexpress. com @PaulChokita