Vipaśyanā
Experimental video performance 499mins 44secs, Prague 2020
Twenty days experiment on detachment from society and fluctuating between being present and obsessively attached to making impressions of discarded memories, objects which surrounded me. At each moment what do we hold onto or choose to sacrifice?
Seeing clearly through darkness is as much an act of faith as living in today's hyperconnected society. Why do we feel disconnected even though the world has shrunk due to connectivity? Do we isolate ourselves (un)knowingly? Defining the intention to renounce society has been prominent in certain cultures and assigned positive and negative connotations. Through Vedic times the idea of vipaśyanā and sányasā where a person renounces all materialistic possessions or familial bonds has a favourable disposition. While the isolation by people following Hikikomori in current Japanese culture has a direct correlation to suicide and is labelled as taboo. This duality of detachment and presence is further explored and contrasted with the constant play of negative to positive (thoughts) inside a darkroom. It is paradoxical that we start seeing clearly in the dark(room), while being in complete isolation from all social interactions.
This experiment of voluntarily locked within the confines of a photographic darkroom for ten days to analyze what (or who) comes out, is divided in two parts. The first part deals with detachment from society while being obsessively attached to making a mental image from negative to positive. The second part explores the concept of being present with my own thoughts in its most basic form; portraying a contrast between self exploration vis à vis self exploitation.
The disciplinary form of society of our past versus the contemporary achievement led society; leads to an involuntary form of self exploitation and pursuit of happiness. As a result instead of identifying and acknowledging the existence of a dynamic range of emotions, we often end up alienating ourselves. Even the loose usage of categorizing people as “they” is one form of manifesting subconscious verbal distancing. If being in competition with our own self is something to strive towards, then the hyper in ‘hyperconnection’ becomes a step towards prevailing form of hectic nervousness; while ‘hyperactivity’ represents massification of positivity. Such grey shades of our lives will hopefully come to light through ten day voluntary darkroom experiments.
The chosen medium of expression is paper since it is uniquely positioned in our constructed value system. It is a material that is discarded without a second thought while simultaneously being revered. Making impressions of discarded memories and objects which surrounded me through this experiment is meant to personify paper as an entity that is chronicler of knowledge. The image(s) formed by projection as a metaphor for construction of identities through the influence of environment, thoughts, people, possessions, consumption and actions. At each present moment what do we hold onto and what do we choose to sacrifice?
