<de>confine<de>confinemomimsafe.live ran as an active live-stream of the artist’s home studio space in Chicago from March to August 2020, where he spent most of his time during the pandemic. The livestream was accompanied by an interactive virtual printer, which would print messages sent by site visitors in real-time. A compilation of extracts from these messages have also been published on (covid-19) Antidote, a limited-edition artist book. Created with the goal of being “visually and physically accessible” to loved ones, momimsafe evokes new ways to facilitate human relationships in the virtual realm. It addresses the pain of distance and separation created by the pandemic, and imagines technological gestures that might recreate the warmth of physical proximity. At a time when digital tools are often used to create division, momimsafe charts a different course, generating empathy and affection through the same devices.
Note: The video used as a background below is on loop and is an archived version.
Amay Kataria (India), in conversation with the co-curator, Khayal, will discuss his practice, situated at a convergence of physical and digital materiality, deconstructs temporality and considers new models of human empathy by repurposing existing technologies. The video of the conversation will be posted here on Nov 21, 17h30. The same will be streamed live on Facebook accounts of Alliance Française in India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
Our lived experience is primarily event based – a phenomenon that occurs within the bounds of space and time. We perceive the space around us in a three dimensional way, which is visualized using length, width, and depth. With Amay Kataria, using AR tools, 7 participants deconstructed the visual and spatial properties of a tesseract; an object from the fourth dimensional space into three dimensional space. Here is the video documentation.
Amay Kataria is a Chicago based artist, deriving interests from philosophy, history of control, and cybernetic theory. His art practice is a platform to think, elaborate on ideas, experiment, play and meditate on externalizing the internal affairs of his body’s interaction with our society. His creative acts create a bridge between the biotic (human) and abiotic (machine) in an attempt to pause and pay attention to the aesthetic possibilities of systems. His works have been showcased around the world, including at Art Center Nabi, Ars Electronica, TIFA etc.
