In “Tali/Khali (Empty Beat),” Brandon aka Bunty Singh uses a concept from Hindustani classical music and Sikh music traditions to interrogate the dynamics of live performance and vernacular media practice in the Punjabi and diasporic Sikh community. Khāli means “empty,” and is contrasted with tāli, meaning “clap/beat.” While the latter indicate beats to be emphasized in a rhythmic cycle, the former indicate a lack of a clap, making the beat unemphasized and thus empty. Here, media infrastructures take on the nature of the emphatic, with electricity responsible for the empty ground of possibility, for the transmission of a beat. The conspicuous absence of the performer corresponds to the empty beat: the emphatic presence of the performer surfaces only in the midpoints and endpoints of media transmission processes. The identity of the absent performer also brings up questions of center and periphery in the context of a newly globalizing religious tradition. However the removal of a performer suggests both the moral imperative to diminish ones ego (haumai) within Sikh religious thought, while also critically assessing the agency of mediated transmission in religious performance adjuncted by electronic media. Likewise, removal of the performer’s live presence emphasizes the notion that creative processes are not, as in Sikh religious thought and in process philosophy, the products of individual human agency—they are, rather, inflorescences of the Divine.
The garden. A butterfly alights a flower, flutters and flies away. Bhai Vir Singh speaks to two visitors walking in his garden:
“Dear Disciple of the Guru, having seeing this, what did you see?”
Visitor 1: I saw a butterfly come, sit on a flower, then fly away.
Visitor 2: I saw one beauty kissing another. What did you see, Bhai Sahib?
Bhai Vir Singh: “Godself is delighted with God’s very own Sweet Nectar, God Themself is the Enjoyer of All.”
(As told by Dr. Jaswant Singh Neki in his memoir Asal Vidya (Sakrit Trust, Ludhiana, Punjab, India))
In “Notes from The Fringe” the left projection is set in a butcher’s home in the riverside slum area of Ciliwung, Jakarta, during the 2014 monsoon season – just a few months before a massive forced eviction started as part of a World Bank-funded flood mitigation project. The right projection was recorded immediately after one of the sporadic forced evictions. The graffiti reads: “We might have lost, but one day we will…” with the last word buried in the ruins.
“Artificial Tears” is an artistic research project that explores the aesthetic interface where research protocols, performance reenactment, and genre film intersect in laboratory studies of emotion. Taking the ostensible substance of affect—tears—as a concrete site of symbolic and material investigation, this project seeks to unravel what Bruno Latour has described as the “scenography of empiricism.”
History Lesson, 2018/19, stacks of exercise books, video, and accompanying lecture performance
The highly constructed nature of historiography is willfully ignored as educational and political institutions continue to consider historical narratives more valuable than artistic representations. “History Lesson” proposes an alternative history curriculum for Cyprus based entirely on film productions shot on the island before its division in 1974. The installation was made possible thanks to the support of the Min da de Gunzburg Center for European Studies.
Argyro Nicolaou presents History Lesson, a lecture performance in the Carpenter Center for Visual Art
The installation portion of History Lesson installed in the Sackler ArtLab Annex
“Elsewhere” depicts the floating life of a Uyghur tightrope walker as he performs on the margins of China’s entertainment industry. The precarity of his work points to a broader context in which Uyghurs, a largely Muslim ethnic minority, are continually subjected to discriminatory policies under the Chinese government. This video installation reflects on the relationship between spectacle, surveillance, and mediation in contemporary China.
Elsewhere, installed in the Lightbox Gallery, Harvard Art Museums
A personal atlas to Manhattan in the movies, or streetwalking on a TV map. Drawing inspiration from works by Juan Downey and Thom Andersen that use video to question prevailing (mis-)conceptions of geography, this project restitutes film clips to their shooting locations and, in so doing, detects how the specificities of place bear their imprint across wildly divergent works.
The ‘Italian Council’ is the main program promoted by the Italian Minister of Cultural Heritage and Activities, established in 2017 with the aim of funding the creation of high-budget art projects and increasing the collections of Italian public museums.
Italian artist Emilio Vavarella, currently a PhD candidate in AFVS and CMP at Harvard, is among the winners of the 2019 edition of the Italian Council with a project entitled “rs548049170_1_69869_TT”. The project will benefit from a 178,000.00 euros production budget and revolves around the idea of translating the artist’s genome into a large textile, using commercial genotyping techniques available in Mountain View, California, and a 19th century Jacquard loom (one of the first ‘computing machines’), still active in Southern Italy.
Vavarella’s project aims to conjugate tradition and modernity by intertwining the genetic and cultural histories of the artist and his mother, (who is a tailor), and topics such as the digitalization of biological life, technical reproducibility, and the intersection between artisanal textile manufacturing and contemporary techno-scientific possibilities.
An integral part of the project will be a series of collateral events and initiatives aimed at expanding the project’s theoretical implications and produced with the support of cultural partners in Italy, the United States and China, including: Ramdom, a cultural association in Puglia and leading partner of Vavarella’s project; Arthub Asia, a Shanghai-based platform devoted to contemporary art creation and diffusion; the Film Study Center at Harvard University; and MAMbo, the Museum of Modern Art in Bologna.
Introduction to Critical Media Practice class had a show of its final projects in Vanserg Hall last night, with projects including multichannel video pieces about managed forests in Ontario (GSD), more coming soon.
Check out the CMP Capstone Exhibition in the Harvard Gazette.
It takes countless hours to pull together a traditional doctoral thesis, a cogent case laid out on the page based on reasoned argument primed with examples. But the printed word, Harvard scholars know, is only one way to demonstrate what you’ve learned about the world. Continued…
On April 25, the Critical Media Practice secondary field opened its inaugural Capstone Exhibition entitled “Into Place.” The exhibition, comprised of a cinema program and a group gallery show, presented a range of works from sound projects and short videos to multi-channel installations and performances. This show was the first time graduate students from across the University have collectively exhibited their CMP work, which tackles scholarly inquiry through visual, aural, tactile, performative, and interactive means.
CMP students who participated in the show represented a variety of disciplines including Anthropology, Comparative Literature, Music, and Visual and Environmental Studies. Several alumni of the CMP program were invited to present past projects alongside current students; it was exciting to see the work side-by-side while also creating a dialogue between CMP students and the alumni, who now hold teaching and professional positions and could share advice and experience for the graduating students. We look forward to inviting alumni back to present their work in future exhibitions.
In addition to the experience of creating the capstone projects, CMP Administrative Director Julie Mallozzi highlighted the value of mounting an exhibition from scratch: “It’s a great opportunity for the students to learn how to install the work, to see how the audience interacts with their projects, and to create professional documentation. It is all part of the learning experience.” With a packed opening night, the exhibition also served as a wonderful way to spread the word about the CMP program.
The gallery show of “Into Place” was held in the ArtLab Annex in the Sackler BuildingCMP student Lindsey Lodhie (Visual and Environmental Studies ’20) participated in the gallery show with her installation “Artificial Tears,” which explores the aesthetic interface where research protocols, performance reenactment, and genre film intersect in laboratory studies of emotion. Taking the ostensible substance of affect—tears—as a concrete site of symbolic and material investigation, “Artificial Tears” seeks to unravel what Bruno Latour has described as the “scenography of empiricism.”
Lindsey Lodhie, “Artificial Tears,” 2019, two-channel video, mixed media
Joseph Pomp (Comparative Literature ’20) created a sculptural installation which outlined the city of Manhattan in a personal atlas of the movies. He drew inspiration from works by Juan Downey and Thom Andersen that use video to question prevailing (mis-)conceptions of geography. “Manhattan Video” restitutes film clips to their shooting locations and, in so doing, detects how the specificities of place bear their imprint across wildly divergent works.
Joseph Pomp, “Manhattan Video,” 2019, multi-channel video installation
T. Brandon Evans (Visual and Environmental Studies ’20) presented a perforative installation titled “Tāli/Khāli (Empty Beat.” Brandon aka Bunty Singh uses a concept of rhythm (tāla) from Hindustani classical music and Sikh music traditions as an operation on the dynamics of live performance and vernacular media in the Punjabi and diasporic Sikh community. The conspicuous absence of the performer is articulated in the operation of media transmission. Absence emphasizes the notion that creative processes are not, as in Sikh religious thought and in process philosophy, the products of human agency, but rather inflorescences of the Divine.
T. Brandon Evans, “Tali/Khali (Empty Beat),” 2019, smartphones, 3 video/audio loops (each approx. 10 min.), harmonium, cloth, shoe rack, microphone PA system, doorbell, found objects
Benny Shaffer (Anthropology ’20) presented his 9-channel installation “Elsewhere” in the Lightbox Gallery at the Harvard Art Museums. “Elsewhere,” depicts the floating life of a Uyghur tightrope walker as he performs on the margins of China’s entertainment industry. The precarity of his work points to a broader context in which Uyghurs, a largely Muslim ethnic minority, are continually subjected to discriminatory policies under the Chinese government. This video installation reflects on the relationship between spectacle, surveillance, and mediation in contemporary China.
Benny Shaffer, “Elsewhere,” 2019, video installation
Argyro Nicolaou (Comparative Literature ’18) presented both a performative lecture in the cinema program and a complimentary installation in the gallery show titled “History Lesson.” In “History Lesson” Nicolaou proposes an alternative history curriculum for Cyprus based entirely on film productions shot on the island before its division in 1974.
Argyro Nicolaou, “History Lesson,” 2018/19, stacks of exercise books, video, and accompanying lecture performance
With the success of “Into Place” we look forward to organizing future events, exhibitions, and opportunities for students in Critical Media Practice to share their works with the Harvard community and beyond.
CMP faculty and staff with students and alumni participating in the exhibition at the opening reception on April 26, 2019.
