HAPPENINGS
For Karachi Biennale 2022 (KB III), artists, designers, technologists, engineers, and researchers collaborated and sought engagement with technology by galvanizing dialogue, awareness, critique and a sense of possibility.
Harnessing the transformative power of technology, time, arts and the imagination, KB III presented innovative ideas, projects and practices that articulate and visualize new connections between the real, the physical and the virtual world.
This year, 26 projects by 45 artists from 13 countries have been exhibited at Hamid Market, NJV High School, Jamshed Memorial Hall, NED University (City Campus), Sambara Art Gallery, VM Art Gallery, IBA (City Campus), IVS Gallery and Alliance Francaise. The KB III will continue till Nov 13.
Here are some art projects displayed at NJV High School and NED University ...
Microtonal
Microtonal takes the form of an interactive data driven sound sculpture created from 200 Borindos made by Allahjurrio and Faqir Zulfiqar in Badin. The Borindo is an instrument that can be dated back 5000 years and was resurrected by the Faqir’s father and Allahjurrio. Through sound, the work uses this deep cultural and personal history with the objects to explore the encoded symbolism held within this instrument.
About the artist: Allahjurrio is a 90-year-old potter based in Badin. He is one of the few known craftsmen who create the Borindo.
Faqir Zufiqar is a Sindhi folk musician. He plays the Borindo and is largely responsible for preserving this musical instrument from cultural extinction.
Memory room
Memory Room is the artist’s attempt to maintain a ‘wholeness of the self’. Amin Gulgee’s ‘witnesses of the past’, his friends, are the objects that surround him in his home. In this room, each one becomes a mark of emotion and experience that the artist has had. Research has shown that memories of smell can last as long as a year. Eye movements will be manipulated in this darkened room using changing coloured lights. This installation overlaps with two performances: ‘The Un-Remembering’ and ‘The Forgotten March’, where Gulgee co-creates an imagined pre-history with a fashion designer.
About the artist: Amin Gulgee is an artist-curator living and working in Karachi. Gulgee works with sculpture, installation, and performance. His practice looks at unlikely connections to uncover different narratives in relation of South Asian spirituality and gender.
Air Rider
Air Rider allows users to experience data on air pollution through a live performance. Here, tech meets society, culture, and livability. In real-time, the user connects with streaming live-data and interacts with the Air Rider, making their way on district geographic routes throughout the city.
About the artist: Yasir Darya (Karachi-based), founder of Darya Lab and Green Pakistan Coalition, a nature advocacy network, is a multi-disciplinary artist, activist, and futurist. Many of his artworks are based on Karachi’s ecology.
Audio Placebo Plaza
Audio Placebo Plaza is a participatory work that invites everyone to take appointments to discuss how an audio placebo could help improve their lives. Daily issues that people may struggle with can be brought to the table. Through this, a variety of audio techniques are developed to provide care.
About the artists: Audio Placebo Plaza (APP) with Erin Gee, Julie E. Dyck, and Vivian Li is a trio of woman-identified and non-gender conforming artists based in Montreal. They center intersectional feminism by expressing ways of caring for labour, and making community through collaborative performace and sound art.
It Lies Beyond
It Lies Beyond challenges viewer’s perception of what is inside and outside, close and distant, within and without, real and fictional while bridging and dismantling these binaries simultaneously, opening questions of the ‘nature versus man-made’. An ominous, serene seascape that, on a closer inspection, reveals the heaps of garbage that it is composed of. This matrix of garbage also contains within it the illustrations and painting of sailing ships. Through these metaphors, this installation refers to the post-renaissance materialist inquiry, the explorations of and expansions to the other worlds, sea-trade, colonization, industrial revolution, consumerism followed by global climate change resulting in various natural calamities like recent floods – all unfolding as various chapters of a saga that begins and ends with water bodies.
About the artist: Rashid Rana is known for his pioneering works in new media art from Pakistan. Notable for conceptual innovation and dramatic visual strategies, Rana depicts themes such as identity, space-time and duality. He is the recipient of the 2017 Asia Art Award by the Asia Society (NYC).
Simurgh App
The supernatural has always been a source of interest amongst artists. What if a mythical figure was to appear and guide the visitor to experience a 200-year-old book? The 200-year-old illustrated copy of Firdousi’s Shahnama in the NJV School library is brought to life through augmented reality. The artist, Dennis Rudolph uses his ‘3D’ paintings through the Simurgh App to create a new ‘virtual’ way of connecting to one of the largest epic Persian poems, the Shahnamah (977 – 1010 CE). AR drawings meet the mythical history of Persia’s golden days.
About the artist: Dennis Rudolph is a conceptual artist working in augmented reality, virtual reality and painting. His artistic practice looks at history, culture, and 3D visuals.
