LULLAMENTS | 2019
Lullaments is the most recent iteration of Thukral & Tagra’s ongoing exploration into the idea of ‘play’ from a cultural, strategic and psychological perspective. This series of works considers the meditative aspects of play, while simultaneously trying to illustrate Hindu mythology through the terminology of Ping-Pong. The idea of narrating mythology through the vocabulary of a sport that challenges the preconceived notions of cultural matter as pedantic knowledge.
Let’s assume the hypothesis/the proposal -The ball is an unsettled being, an individual, a speck in the universe.
-The net is a threshold of consciousness.It stands between the two forces and demarcates the areas of the test.
-The table is the site.
-The game is the lifespan.
-The players on either side are the negative and positive forces.
Lullaments explores the representation of Kalki as noted in the tenth chapter of Dashavataar (10 incarnations of Hindu god). Symbolising the coming of a ‘dark age’, Kalki is anticipated as a central figure who represents the fragility in the idea of existence. In the Dark Ages, anticipating Kalki as a central figure, the idea of existence is addressed through precarity, awareness, desire, and action and is felt in a single moment of time, a way of critiquing the condition we are currently living in.
The exhibition features four works
1. Lullament
The kinetic work is based on a to and fro motion – a push and pull, which develops into a droning rhythmic hum. The repetitive motion alleviates anxiety, suggesting a smooth therapeutic feeling of pleasure. The humming sound can be imagined as a lament or a lullaby, which has a ‘restorative, resounding’ property for the contained self. Lullabies typically soothe people through the waking/sleeping transition and similarly can soothe people through the life/death transition. ‘Lullaments’ sustain the spirit, support psychological structure, and enable resilience during times of vulnerability to the effects of adversity. This continuous wave in time suspends this exercise in a limbo.
2. Monuments of Time
The character of a ball is like an unsettled being: ever moving, ever evolving. Each ball sits tightly with the next, connected to each other through a ‘belief’. Forms made with familiar notions can similarly be interpreted as social structures – glued together with compassion and commitment. You may call them institutions, religious beliefs, families, clusters of thoughts, or merely sets of balls tastefully arranged. Binding the individual units mirror the meditative action of counting prayer beads, with each ball or bead isolating a single moment in time. Striking a balance between belief and consumption, they are installed in a stack of everyday domestic objects, referring to the sustenance of urban life
3. Mythological Induction Mythological Induction depicts the insertion of suggestive metaphors that re-imagines the informational Venn diagrams by transforming the conservative form into a visceral viewing experience. The act is staged on the fragile configuration. The countervail by the push and the pull forces unveil what resides underneath the skin of an unsettled being. In the moment of awareness, the out-turn from the stimuli makes the being traverse through their consciousness where it has the ability to administer all their desires, aspirations, and emotions.
4. 3227 – Reliqua Stone kept over the metal forms tries to play with the oppressive memory of the no-so-distant-past and the intoxicating smell of the future. The time that has not yet gone and the time that has not fully come. They don’t sit very well with each other. This is the conflict that we must live in. The present is not allowed to exist as it gets crushed between the past and the future. – These were made from leftover granite slabs that were used to make our studio 3227 in Gurgaon.