Subaltern Mutations for the Algorithmic Age

Over the last 2 years, I’ve been engaged in developing a theoretical and critical framework that serves as the longterm narrative arc for my practice. It draws from social justice principles, critical race theory & anti-caste literature to ask if artistic practice can be ‘pedagogical’ to communities of colour that are excluded from regular access to critical discourse around contemporary art & technology. The current state of this research examines the conditions that cause marginalisation & subalternity across multiple spaces; the physical geographies of our inhabitation as well as digital spaces that we share.

Vishal Kumaraswamy / Bangalore, India — Jun 16, 2021

The web residency will allow me to extrapolate from this research, to let unfold upon the surface of the web, a bi-lingual experimental work that seeks to draw from the rich histories of the lower-caste communities in India. The work will be brough to fruition as a collaboration between me and artists with whom I share this heritage as the complexities of our lives are not merely limited to ‘writing about’ and I instead wish to ‘write from within’ and mutate the current state of contemporary art discourse.