BackStep and mess art
Step and mess art
PremiumMinor glitch: A work by Amitabh Kumar at Glitch Frame Lollipop. Priyanka Parashar/Mint
It’s not every day that an artist goads you to step on to his artwork. One of the works at Latitude 28’s new show Glitch Frame Lollipop—which utilizes the idea of a “glitch" in the artistic process—is meaningful only if you step on it.
The exhibition is in two parts: the main exhibition, where three friends and artists, Siddhartha Kararwal, Amitabh Kumar and Prayas Abhinav, articulate their thoughts on glitching and contemporary art; and the second, The Glitch Forum Project, which focuses entirely on glitching.
“Glitch is a common idea, with a place in common parlance. It means an error that is minor, not a total dysfunction, and yet intended," says Abhinav, an artist-writer who teaches at the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore. “We wanted to take the idea of a glitch and see what it does in the broader art space which expects certain things. When there’s a glitch, you see something contrary to your expectation," says Abhinav.
The Glitch ForumProject, which is housed on the second level of the gallery, came out of a Facebook group discussion in July. “It was a brainstorming session to ideate on how to represent and make glitch in art. People came up with suggestions like ‘let a teething puppy into an art space’, etc.," says Hemant Sareen, whose photography installation (Polaroid: 2009-2012) is on display. It’s a series of Polaroids, each a product of an accident or a glitch, and not something Sareen could have achieved with intention. “Beginning with Louise Daguerre and Claude Niepce, who figured out the right chemical—mercury spilt in their chemical cabinet—to create the images we take for granted now, photographic accidents have been as feared as they have been welcome. With so many variables to control, things are bound to get out of hand," he says. “In the same spirit, I nominate these photographs manqué, as works of art where glitch has been the author, an autonomous, creative agent," he says. One of the photographs in this series, for example, looks bleached, with just a semblance of a figure visible.
Not all the artworks in the exhibition are about glitching. One of the pieces is a new video by Abhinav, coupled with a sculpture by Kararwal. A tiny figure projected on the screen is constantly trying to sit on a chair; both entities keep changing position. “This looks at the recursive process of desire, and how the chase is more interesting," says Abhinav.
Glitch Frame Lollipop is on till 17 September at Latitude 28, F-208, Lado Sarai, Delhi.
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