Exploring Ancient Ritual Art in Digital Era.
I was reading ‘Religion for atheists’ by Alan de botton and was really struck by his idea of how museum and galleries are new temples, A sacred space for urban population to walk in. Humans need myths and stories to make sense of life. As humankind we are always looking to enhance our experience of life through new narratives. Its interesting to understand how our need for rituals and narratives adapt to modern times.
I remember at my family temple, during festive time there is a puja which happens every evening. The door to idol room is closed for sometime and you can hear the faint sounds of drums and bell from inside the idol room. People are eagerly waiting outside to see the idol and there is a sense of suspense. After some 30 to 40 minutes as the door opens you can see the idol all decorated with lights, flowers and with heavy bell and drum sounds. The room is filled with smoke and you can see the idol through all this staged atmosphere created through sound, smoke, light and decorations.
It is interesting how tribal rituals use fire and drums to create supernatural experiences. When they dance around the flickering bonfire they transform themselves into different reality. We recreate this experience in urban life also. For example rave parties. Again the light, sound, colours, smoke and crowd everything adds to this experience.
We like this drama and exaggerations I guess. Humans have figured out ways to enhance this experience of life from very old days. And we are still playing out our primitive behaviour to enhance our experience of life through science and technology. I am curious how old rituals arts survive science and technological revolutions.
Breaking of fourth wall in VR games and ritual art is another interesting parallel I found in both. Ritual art is not just performance. The audience is an active participant. They give offerings and take blessing from the people and people believe in this person impersonated as god. They act along with them to make this ritual meaningful.
Rituals are performed repeatedly. It’s like video games I guess. We like repeating rituals and practices. There are so many urban rituals we do, for example when people click lift button 10 times even though it need to be pressed only once. It is superstitious belief that repeatedly pressing it make lift come faster. Or for example a War cry before football match. There is so many interpretations of rituals. Obvious once and also hidden ones. In a chaotic world such repetition seems to offer us the illusion of control over.
This artwork was a first step to how visually we can explore the space companying ritual art and technology. I am not sure how to sort of expand this but looks exciting to me. I keep bumping into words like transhumanist, urban rituals, digital shamanism etc. Still trying to understand these.
This artwork was exhibited with other artworks in the event. The main theme of this poster was to imagine an old traditional Indian ritual artform, Theyyam, in a speculative futuristic scenario.
EyeMyth is a media arts festival, unique in its juxtaposition of Indian and global artists and progressive media.
EyeMyth’s 2017 edition, Future As Fiction, traversed multiple locations in Mumbai to create, discover and engage with new elements in the digital space. The festival featured an array of exhibitions, workshops and performances that explored various forms of expression through newmedia.
