Suspended Spaces

Body is central to my artistic exploration. Understanding it and its multiple layers through diverse experiences—whether real, imagined or virtual—is one of the processes of my art practice. It seems to me that the contemporary Indian is situated somewhere between formed systems of knowledge—physical traditions, values, beliefs, rituals and images on the one hand and rapidly changing contemporary life practices and structures on the other. This situation colors how we experience the world. It shapes our imagination and channels our memory.

I try to use the possibilities offered by digital technology in articulating this fragmented and transient existence resulting from an interplay of multiple identities in both geographic and temporal locations. When I think of my work, the picture that often comes to mind is that of several trajectories of energy intersecting and creating images in the process. These energy flows, I would like to imagine, are an abstraction of our sensorial experiences. In other words, trajectories of physical movements, digital projections, lighting and even sonic elements that are informed and influenced by our memories, experience and imagination create a timeline that connects our "real" or "imagined" existence.

Out of these images I try to choose the relevant ones and then mediate and organize them, thus bringing out trajectories of energy flows that I think are relevant and fit with the overall framework of a particular dance piece I am working on. These images come into focus and resonate according to the context within which they are placed. In this process of mapping a sensorial experience for the audience, I am often engaged with digital technology from the very moment of conceptualizing the piece. Sometimes, I work with interactive technology such as Max/MSP. At other times I make use of pre-constructed digital projections on varied surfaces, creating a context for live action and augmenting sensorial experience. It allows live action to be located in imagined and constructed realms or even to intervene in the dramaturgy to suggest possible navigations through the piece. Ultimately, however, the members of the audience navigate the work from their particular perspectives. I, as an artist, can only suggest certain milestones.

Starting with straightforward digital projections creating visual contexts for live action (in my early works) and continuing with more recent telematic performances in which interactive technology was used to trigger/create sonic or visual images, I have always been fascinated with the possibilities of the digital medium in live performance (Fig. 1).

For me the nonlinear attributes of the digital medium are relevant in that they are very close to the way in which contemporary life is fashioned in India, where an ordinary street often exists in several temporal spaces. A ritual, ceremony or festival can transform a street corner and take one back in time. Our particular way of thinking and imagining works in a similar manner; it seems that even Indian epics share a similar structure. I often wonder whether the Indian fascination with the fantastic, as well as an innate Indian affinity with abstraction and even mathematics, has anything to do with my own relationship with digital technology.

Contemporary dance and digital arts are relatively new phenomena in India. I feel that artists of my generation are just beginning to find a voice of their own without having to subscribe to established and accepted modes of expression. I attempt to define spaces in which I can locate some of the energy intersections mentioned above. These spaces are like suspended spaces and do not necessarily relate to any chronological or linear sense of time or geographical location. Digital technology offers several possibilities for me to create work by fading in and out of these suspended spaces, bringing a certain set of images into focus at any given time.

Fig. 1.

Jayachandran Palazhy and Rani Nair, Transavatar, multimedia dance production, 2002. (© Jayachandran Palazhy. Photo © Christian Ziegler.) Choreography: Jayachandran Palazhy. Digital design: Christian Ziegler. Music: Joseph Hyde. Light: Helen Cain. Imaginative lighting is coupled with sensuous movements in an attempt to explore the multiple identities of individuals.