THE UNDIVIDED MIND | Part II
Art & Science Residency at Khoj |March 9th – April 11th, 2015
Residency Open Day: April 9th, 2015
Works will remain on view till April 14th, 2015
Screening of BIOFICTION @ NEW DELHI selection of Art – Science short films. The screening will be
followed by a discussion between Professor Deepak Singh, artist Jaden Hastings and film maker Priya
Sen.
About ‘The Undivided Mind’
The Undivided Mind is a 6-week residency program at Khoj, dedicated to exploring the cross- over
between two seemingly unrelated fields of Art and Science. This residency will give opportunities to
individuals whose work already seeks to explore the ways in which scientific processes and discovery
can be coupled with visual art production and vice-versa. The residency also seeks to open up new
platforms for discovery and conversation between individuals and organizations with an interest in
further developing knowledge about the intersections of Science and Art, through its public programs
and outreach activities. Khoj has long supported interdisciplinary art projects through its unconventional
programs with an emphasis on experimentation, ideation and process- and continues to do so with ‘The
Undivided Mind’, the second iteration of an Art & Science program at Khoj.
‘About Khoj’
Khoj began as a proposition: a space for artists, run by artists. From its modest beginnings in 1997 as an
annual workshop, Khoj has established itself as a not- for-profit, contemporary arts organisation based
in Delhi which provides a financial, physical and intellectual space for artists through its various
programs. It has built an international reputation as outstanding alternative arts incubation space. It
plays a central role in the development of experimental, interdisciplinary, and critical contemporary art
practice in India– constantly challenging the established thinking about art.
Through a variety of programmes including workshops, residencies, exhibitions, talks, and community
art projects, Khoj has supported the experimentation of many leading Indian artists well before they
went on to receive international acclaim. While catalysing a vibrant art-community in India, Khoj has
also actively developed the South Asia Network for the Arts (SANA). Khoj has also hosted over 400
international artists from countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Uganda, Kenya, Turkey, Pakistan,
Japan, China, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Thailand, Korea, UK, Germany, France,
Mexico and the US.
With a focus on building such networks, developing alternative pedagogies, and learning through
collaboration and exchange, Khoj programmes have created unconventional synapses between art and
disciplines such as science, architecture and fashion. Khoj facilitates change by encouraging artists and
audiences to engage with vital concerns such as ecology, sustainability and community participation. It is
1
constantly expanding the understanding and development of cutting-edge contemporary art practice in
India, thereby creating a legacy for the future.
RESIDENT ARTISTS:
Jaden Hastings
Lalinthorn Phencharoen
Paribartana Mohanty
Shreyasi Kar & Bidisha Das
Critic-in-Residence: Lleah Smith
Jaden Hasting (Portland, USA)
Biography
J.J. Hastings’ work is primarily focused upon the intersection and interplay of art and science
philosophically, as well as practically, combining scientific and artistic research into a single practice. As
an alumna of New York University, Harvard University and the University of Oxford (New College) with
advanced degrees in both Biology and Bioinformatics, respectively, Ms. Hastings’ career in biomedical
research spans over a decade. In 2014, J.J. completed the MA (Fine Art) in Art & Science at Central Saint
Martins in London, graduating with Distinction. She was selected to be an artist-in-residence for The
Story of Light Festival in Goa, India, and has been invited to spend a period as artist-in-residence at
SymbioticA in 2015.
As an independent researcher (biohacker with her own home lab since 2009) and artist, J.J. continues to
develop new ways to translate academic laboratory methods into outcomes that challenge the norms of
the discipline, moving it into new spaces for exploration.
Concept Note
Within my own hybrid art-science practice, I explore the appropriation of scientific methodologies into
the studio and gallery setting, and proffer scientific experimentation itself as artistic performance. In
2009, after a long career in biomedical research, I began a foray into the burgeoning global biohacking
community, even creating my own home laboratory. Biohacking — a movement that aims to demystify
biotechnology, increase awareness and contextualise it's potential to a wide audience outside of
professional labs – allows the artist, and the common citizen, to not only participate in, but also critically
evaluate, the contemporary state of scientific research.
For ‘The Undivided Mind’ special residency at Khoj Workshop, I would like to not only attempt previous
hacks I have done before (such as decellularisation or holographic projection of scientific data) but also
develop new ones that respond to local resources – to ‘hack’ the residency itself. Moreover, utilising my
extensive experience teaching various workshops in both the University and gallery setting, I would like
to run a workshop of basics of biohacking for the general public, but specifically for artists and
designers. If possible, I would like to connect with and involve colleagues—those with whom I am
already connected, and those whom I have not yet met—both in Delhi and across India who are
beginning to develop biohacking as a common practice.
2
Lalinthorn Phencharoen (Bangkok, Thailand)
Biography
Lalinthorn Phencharoen obtained bachelor of fine arts from King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology
Lardkrabang, and Master of Art Theory at Silpakorn University, Thailand. Since 2012, she has been
worked in dual professions, as an art theory instructor in Silpakorn University and an artist.
Interesting in the relation of art and science, she especially creates artworks with combination of
essences from both sides of the brain, rational and irrational or objective and subjective conditions.
Her artworks are base on conceptual drawings, reflecting negative human behaviors in society.
The drawings are executed with traditional techniques, e.g., ink, silverpoint and graphite on paper,
trying to imitate (appropriate) classic scientific and medical illustrations. Presumably, Lalinthorn
employs Pictorial format of classic illustrations to convey satirical messages of human classic
behaviors, primal instincts that are rarely change nowadays. Lately, Lalinthorn’s works are showed
in selected groups and solo exhibitions in Bangkok.
Concept Note
Lalinthorn is interested in the relationship between art and science. She intentionally
blends the essence of both sides of the brain – the rational and irrational or objective
and subjective conditions — in her artwork. Her practice is based upon conceptual
drawings, documentation for reflecting negative human behaviors in society. Her last
project in the “LALINLAB” is an installation that portrays her ideas and methodologies of
her work through documentation of herself, or her story, simultaneously. In LALINLAB,
she considered the intersection of art and science and their parallels.
Paribartana Mohanty
Biography
Paribartana Mohanty is a New Delhi-based artist, working in multiple mediums of video, performance
and painting. He completed his BFA from Dhauli College of Art and Craft, Bhubaneswar and Masters in
History of Art from National Museum Institute, New Delhi. He is the recipient of FICA Emerging Artist
Award 2010 and 'City as Studio' Sarai-CSDS Media Lab Associate Fellowship for Contemporary Art and
Media Practices. He recently had a solo exhibition ‘Kino is the Name of a Forest’ at Vadehra Art Gallery,
New Delhi. In 2014 he has been selected for international creator residency, Tokyo wonder site, japan.
Mohanty has participated in many curated group exhibitions, residencies and art fairs. He is also works
in the collective WALA that engages in public, community and site-specific art projects and public
performance.
Concept Note
The famous physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer reciting Bhagavad-Gita(1) provokes many discomforts into
action.
The very first is Oppenheimer’s performative action in front of the camera. His body language, gestures
suggest the tension of a confrontation. The video is addressed to the mankind using camera as the
3
medium. It represent J. Robert Oppenheimer as a victim of various political concerns and decisions,
which hobble/gobble up the freedom of science, with the power of knowledge. The scientist is
performing as a victim also carrying guilt,which make it more complex. Sometimes it seems
Oppenheimer searching a way out fromhis trauma by reciting the spiritual text, but simultaneously
defending or justifying the evil atomic experiment and violence on the basis of dharma and karma,
alluding with what lord Krishna suggested to Prince Arjuna.
Bhagwat Gita is complex because all it allows many interpretations and simultaneity, while also
somehow legitimising violence of the righteous. Bhagavad-Gita puts the reader in an outsider’s position
to inculcate an objective view towards the world. The text proposes ‘distance’ as a parameter/ground
for judgement and enlightenment. ‘Distance’ allows different kinds of visibilities. As closely as
Oppenheimer could see and described, “few people are laughing, few people are crying, most people
are silent”. If the physicist knew “the world would not be the same”, who persuaded this change
through violence? He also questions the role of science as knowledge for the development of mankind
as understood previously.
I want to take the video documentation as raw material to think and work further. I want see this video
as a performance, what it exposes, offers or reduces? I am interested in the cinematic mediation of the
speech. Camera’s action of re-takes, repetition and perfection of the image. How the video as a fiction
detached itself from it’s historicity? And What will happen if people asked perform like Oppenheimer in
front of the camera? And what is to read and recite a text like Bhagwat Gita.
I propose to do performances, videos work and text-based installation. The project will focus on
“reciting” as a performative action. The hyper-textuality of Bhagavad-Gita propagates the same
rhetorical relationship of truth with power.
Shreyasi Kar & Bidisha Das (Bangalore, India)
Biographies
Shreyasi Kar is currently research fellow at (Art)ScienceBLR, a collective and public laboratory based in
Srishti school of Art Design and Technology, Bangalore. Her work currently explores building tools for
research into sound art practices at the Indian Sonic research organization. She has previously worked as
a research fellow with the Center for Public History. She was also selected as an Artist in Residence for
ALT-Lab Photography Residency in the year 2011. She graduated from Srishti School of Art Design and
Technology in the year 2011 with the film ‘City Beyond’ as her diploma project.
Bidisha Das is currently research fellow at ArtScienceBlr, a collective and public laboratorybased in
Srishti school of Art Design and Technology, Bangalore. In 2014,She was fellow at the Law,Environment
and Design Laboratory at Srishti. Her work currently explores building tools for research into sound art
practices at the Indian Sonic research organization. She has been a part of a team of student engineers
to redesign human mission to an asteroid at the Jet propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of
Technology. She graduated with a diploma in art and design from the Srishti School of Art, Design and
Technology in 2013 with a film-“Voices from Khandadhar hills”. The film was a participatory
documentary with the Paudi Bhuyan community in Orissa.
4
Concept Note
Science is popularly regarded as a "cognitive" activity – a discipline of the mind. But there is also a more
physical and tactile tradition in science – a tradition in which scientists do not merely measure and
theorize but also construct the instruments (often with striking aesthetic qualities) needed to do so.
For the residency, we would like to re purpose the scientific instrument as a sonic instrument. Through
walks, performances and workshops-we will expand the notion of scientific instruments and use these
probes to an artistic/sonic end. Our current work is inspired by the work of the polymath J.C Bose, we
would like to use Bose's experiments with plants as a starting point for our own experiments. Using
simple electronic devices, which can be built in a community setting, we will construct a public
laboratory in which we will attempt to open a sonic communication channel with plants and later
expand our instruments to include other non-human actors.
Lleah Smith (Sydney, Australia)
Biography
Born and bred on the Sydney Shores, Lleah Smith is an artist, adventurer and colour devotee currently
living and working in Delhi. She walks bare foot globally searching for the colours and smiles that pulsate
in the secret rabbit holes of the world. With an Honours Degree in Fine Arts from the College of Fine
Arts UNSW and a soon to be Masters of Art Administration graduate, she patterns the globe finding
inspiration to fuel her art, writing and historical interests. Her artistic practice aesthetically and
conceptually explores colour and the relationship between humans and animals. She has exhibited
widely both nationally and internationally and her writing has been published independently and also as
a part of the Biennale of Sydney Student Newspaper, ArtWrite 52, Eramboo Arts Festival, Galerie
Mirchandani + Steinruecke Mumbai and Girlosophy. She was featured on the UNSW Dean’s List for
Outstanding Academic Achievement in 2011 and 2012 and was awarded the John Gage Colour Prize in
2013.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
5