Vishal K. Dar

Alabama, India
Visual
Artist in Residence, 2017
↗ www.vishalkdar.com

Artist Statement

In my practice, I tend to enter domains to reconfigure them, sometimes using “object-light” and at others “texture-light,” as a signal. In the INSECTS (2014) series and NAAG series (2012-2015), I investigate how the insertion of “light” as luminous totems can tantalize us with their siren call to “follow them,” and in my large-scale site specific works—PRAJAPATI (2013) MARUTS (2015)—how to “submit to their time-code” as they light our paths through darkness, but also raise doubts about the wisdom of doing so through their gnomic formal strangeness, their mysterious glow, and the riddle-like oscillations. These sentinels promise us thrilling transformations of the self if we stepped into their ambit. But in the end they are of course revelatory of our unconscious in a new technological order, in a new era of machinic imaginations, a new tech-gnosis of sorts.

While at Headlands

I am starting a new series of projects that will investigate edge-sites around the world as sites of continuous transformation. The first in this series will be the relationship between the northern edge of Sri Lanka and the southern edge of India. During the residency, I will continue working on various other coastlines around the globe, and include the Marin Headlands as one of the “edge-sites.” Since my last work, the Storm Deities (Shanghai Biennale), inside the defunct chimney of the thermal power station, I have felt a need to further understand the world of phenomenon-making. One of the occurrences that I will be studying is the Bay Area fog. This additional layer will be necessary for me to expand on the idea of ephemeral transformations and organic time-codes which look at controlling and regulating “breath” of a site. In addition to my own explorations, I would very much like to connect to the Bay Area artist community for active interlocutions and future collaborations.