Artist: Dominique Savitri Bonarjee

Exhibition: MIXED BAG, James Hatcham Church, Goldsmiths University of London

In the ancient imaginal of India, transmitted through the Vedic texts, the movement of manifestation, decreation and evolution of matter and consciousness happens through two interpenetrating forces, Purusa and Prakriti. The third aspect that activates this flux is the Pranic breath. At the origin of this perpetual movement is the vibration of AUM.

E=H2O is an installation as a poem to aliveness, with each component being a ‘word’, so that all the parts form a harmony of rhythm, meter and sound. The components are living combinations of the four elements – water, air, earth, fire – which take form as aquatic, vegetal and animal matter, and includes the effects of weathering in the form of dessication, mold, and other traces of material impermanence.

The title is borrowed from water-scientist Gerald Pollack. In this poem it speaks to the energy of change and the possiblity of regeneration. The installation is conceived as a circuit of organic sculptures combined with reclaimed conductive copper parts from electrical and electronic gadgets.

The installation is activated through realtime sound synthesis, light sculptures, dance and a communal experience of touch that reimagines the ecstatic states of rave culture through the brain entraining experience of sound, tonality and frequency.

E=H2O was activated through a live event on Friday 25 February 2022. The MIND RAVE experiments with the theory of rasa in Indian aesthetics. Rasa denotes an ‘art situation’ that triggers an oceanic nondual experience for the witness, emerging from an augmented quality of listening for the more-than-human. The Mind Rave combines sound, light, movement and swaying to invoke the rasa effect.

“The Mind Rave is an immersive experience created through dance, a live electronic soundscape, public participation and the interaction of various objects in space. The sound is live-generated through sensors and circuits that are activated via the performers’ body movements, touch, sweat and direct contact with substances or materials that act as performative agents. The public is compelled to partake in the Mind Rave through objects that can be activated during the performance, such as cymbals (to be played as one desires), cylindrical head pieces (to be carefully worn as ‘attention cocoons’), turquoise scented jelly (to be held in a handful) and broken mirrors (used to direct the light onto the performance stage). The experience generates a ritualistic and meditative space where the participants lose themselves in time through repetition, micro-movements and looped sounds. Its impermanent installation galvanises a space of heightened yet soft haptic sensoriality, which can never be repeated a second time: each experience is unique to the specific Mind Rave iteration.”

Giulia Casalini, independent curator

Link to fabrication of the Crochet Resistance Suit with Kobakant >>

Tales of Fabrication film screened at Tate Exchange, 2019