Let’s Proceed in Parts  I  Instituto Cervantes
2016
Presented by Exhibit 320
Kinetic Mechanism, Motor, Wheels, Wooden Board Cladding

A work within ‘Let’s Proceed in Parts’, a solo presentation at Instituto Cervantes, Delhi and presented by Exhibit 320 in 2016, this site-specific work emerged from my interest in finding poetry within architectural space. The said exhibition took its conceptual departure from the ideas of time, movement, and rupture in the poetry of Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío, especially his poem titled “Vamos Por Partes (or Let’s proceed in parts)” (Abrojos, 1887) and a critical prologue on him depicted in Mexican writer Octavio Paz’s famous volume “Selected Poems by Rubén Darío” (1965). Stemming from these prompts, the exhibition acts as a means towards creating a space accentuating the oscillation of the eternal trap of time, which manifests the amalgamation of cosmic diversity.

Created as a self-moving false column disguised as naturally belonging to the existing architectural space, it was programmed to mechanically move back and forth along the axis of the room at an extremely slow pace, using a motor, wheeler and sensors. Executed in the same space that accompanied a 100 feet long drawing within the same project, the work operated subtly within the viewer’s peripheral awareness, by making the viewer aware of something else in the space while looking at the drawing. During which, one might have noticed that the wooden column had shifted without necessarily having seen it visually move, exploring the relationship between spatial awareness and bodily perception. Making the architecture itself an active and dynamic structure, the work quietly disrupts and ruptures within viewers their inherent knowledge of a constructed space and understanding of the world around.

Link to the project https://parulguptastudio.com/work/solo-project-lets-proceed-in-parts/