Gautam Kansara
Biography
Gautam Kansara is an artist and educator formerly based in Brooklyn, New York, and recently relocated to Zürich, Switzerland. Crossing mediums between video, photography, and installation, Kansara’s work is part of prestigious private collections including The Burger Collection, Hong Kong, and The Shreya and Swapan Seth Collection, New Delhi. Since 2002 his works have been featured internationally at the Asia Society Museum (New York), Bronx Museum of the Arts (New York), Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), British Film Institute (London), Shrine Empire Gallery (New Delhi), LMAK Gallery (New York), and Secret Project Robot (Brooklyn). Gautam has been an artist-in-residence at Smack Mellon, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Workspace (2017) and Swing Space (2006), and the Center for Book Arts, all in New York City. Gautam has a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in Studio Arts from the University of California, Santa Cruz, as well as a Master of Arts degree from New York University’s Department of Arts and Arts Professions. Recently Gautam was a finalist for the Swiss Art Awards 2020, and presented his work at Last Tango in Zürich. Most recently Gautam was included in Werkschau 2021 at Haus Konstruktiv, and received a prize for his installation from the Fachstelle Kultur Kanton Zürich.
Statement
Through video, photography, and installation Kansara produces works that draw upon personal history and current events in order to examine the layering of personal and collective memory, family dynamics, and cultural displacement. Kansara uses an arsenal of digital and analog manoeuvres and gestures to alter and obscure documentary based recordings. Documentation and archiving are at the core of Kansara’s work. Recording himself and his family as source material has often been where he’s started. And this practice, this desire to record and then re-watch, re-edit, and re-position is rooted in the question of how to negotiate the experience and the memory with the archive and the documentation.
Bedtime Stories (The Mahabharata), 2022 Video Installation with Sound
Duration: 24 Min 19 Sec Bedtime Stories(The Mahabharata) is the latest in a long-term series of video installations that began over a decade ago. This most recent addition, begun in 2021, takes on the subject of “The Mahabharata”, the ancient Indian epic about a warring family, which serves as an allegory for the perils inherent in world civilization. The work is a collaboration with my mother that takes the form of an audio/visual encyclopedia, drawing on audio lectures performed by my mother which are edited and paired with rapid-fire slideshows and video composites sourced from the top search results of Google, Bing, and YouTube. Hundreds of keywords pulled from the lecture are visualized via these slideshows and video composites of YouTube videos, and Google and Bing images results, providing a collective counterpoint to my mother’s pedagogy. As the viewer listens to my mother’s lecture, the images and videos that appear directly relate to the words she is saying, adding an overwhelming amount of ‘related’ imagery to supplement her vocal content. The overall juxtaposition highlights two vastly divergent learning strategies, one more traditional and lecture based, the other related to the kind of hyper-fast learning utilized by the characters in “The Matrix”, and suggestive of current superficial research methods that draw on internet search engines, Wikipedia, and Docu-Dramas. The comparison of the search algorithms, and how the results of the same keyword shift between Google, Bing, and Youtube is telling and revealing, and serves to expose the inherent biases embedded in these algorithms, which reenforce and instill those associations in people. Big Data is selective and divided, as are the “real” and artificial intelligences it feeds. In my mother’s lecture she references Homer, The Odyssey, and The Illiad, as she speaks about how the Mahabharata dwarfs those poems in its sheer number of verses. The keyword “homer”, pulled from the lecture and visualised, produces a striking comparison. The first Google search image result is an image of the bust of Homer, author of the Illiad, whereas Bing shows us an image of Homer Simpson. Youtube’s top result is a video titled “Everything you need to know to read Homer’s Odyssey”, followed by a best of Homer Simpson video. The top results shift by the minute, as the top 20 or so results jockey for supremacy, but the overall top results remain much longer, and exert as a result a great influence. There is a political slant to various keywords when compared between the algorithms. “Family” for example produces results that could produce heated dinner table arguments. The overarching subject of the work is language, and how language often fails to communicate “correctly”. The failure of language becomes even more apparent when we realise that the associative images search results produce are hardly universal, and in terms of the search algorithms feeding research practices, they promote wildly diverging conclusions. These various outcomes are also inconsistent in different regions, in different parts of the world, which in turn exposes their implicit geopolitical bias. This work, like the iterations that came before is designed to be reproduced every 10 years, as search results shift dramatically. The lecture and keywords will always remain unchanged in subsequent iterations, but the images and videos will naturally deviate based on the production year’s search results, enabling decade long comparisons in terms of the hierarchy of visual imagery within search algorithms. Video Link:
https://cloud.tweaklab.org/index.php/s/ oYxoFDFdJP3XWiC
Bedtime Stories (The Mahabharata), 2022 Video Installation with Sound
Duration: 24 Min 19 Sec
Bedtime Stories(Partition of India)
2021
2-Channel Video Installation
Duration- 21 min 06 sec Bedtime Stories(Partition of India) is the latest in a series of video installations that began in 2011. The work is a collaboration with my mother that expands on the notion of the childhood tradition of storytelling. Taking the form of an audio/visual encyclopedia, the new iteration again draws on an audio lecture performed by my mother, which is then paired with hundreds of videos sourced from the top YouTube search results. Hundreds of keywords pulled from the lecture are visualized via these YouTube videos, providing a collective counterpoint to the intimacy of my mother’s pedagogy. As the viewer listens to my mother’s lecture, the videos that appear directly relate to the words she is saying, adding an overwhelming amount of ‘related’ imagery to supplement her vocal content. By creating a Bash Script program that can download the necessary videos using a config file that provides all the needed parameters (keyword, video format) versions the piece will continue to be generated every 10 years as search results shift. The project as a whole addresses a variety of historical topics that my mother is passionate about, many of which she began researching during her PH.D at the School of Oriental and Asian Studies at the University of London. Our discussion topics to date include The Parsi People (2011 and 2021), The Mughal Empire (2012 and 2022), and The Partition of India (2021). The overall juxtaposition highlights two vastly divergent learning strategies, one more traditional and lecture based, the other related to the kind of hyper-fast learning utilized by the characters in “The Matrix”, and suggestive of current superficial research methods that draw on Google, YouTube, Wikipedia, and Docu-Dramas.
Video Link:
https://cloud.tweaklab.org/index.php/s/ jGXTiikNX3nxg6J
Bedtime Stories(Partition of India)
2021
2-Channel Video Installation
Duration- 21 min 06 sec
More past the better (Part 2)
2020-2021
Video Installation, Sound
59 min 02 sec
More Past the Better (Part 2) is a video installation that draws on familial recordings and current events to create work that negotiates private dramas and traumas alongside collective memory and news. The work speaks to the anxiety that clouds this moment in time, our heightened obsession with the dramatics of the news, as well as the limits of actually being informed while mostly failing to absorb a constant scramble of information. The deteriorating imagery references the temporary nature of stories as they rise and fall within the news cycle, and alludes to the fragility of memory, people’s transient empathy, and the whitewashing of history. The videos are composed of screenshots taken daily from the New York Times iOS app which have been digitally manipulated, layered, and animated. A projection of the artist’s mouth, alternately singing and rapping about current events punctuates the installation sporadically. The work is anchored by the soundtrack, which is generated through the performative recitation of the artist’s family’s WhatsApp chat. Gautam sings, recites, and raps the content of the chat, which is dramatic, provocative, and biting. The chat represents the way the family almost exclusively discusses politics and current events, leaving little room for normal chit-chat. Debating is how the family is intimate together, and the chat is their forum for debate, the place where they foment the family argument. The tone of the singing and spoken word is intended to contribute to the installation’s feeling of being simultaneously soothing and disturbing, a provocation to react, and an intellectual comfort through the dark times.
Video Link: (Single-Channel Version)
https://cloud.tweaklab.org/index.php/s/ MNqXraNa4SmLy2q
More past the better (Part 2)
2020-2021
Video Installation, Sound
59 min 02 sec
(Installed at Haus Konstruktiv, Zürich, Werkschau 2021)
Bedtime Stories(The Parsi People)
2011-2021
3-Channel Video Installation
Duration- 13 min 44 sec Bedtime Stories(The Parsi People) is part of larger series of video installations that began in 2011, and which culminates 10 years later in 2021. The work is a collaboration with my mother that expands on the notion of the childhood tradition of storytelling and considers the longterm transfer of knowledge from mother to son. Taking the form of an audio/visual encyclopedia, the work draws on audio lectures performed by my mother which are edited and paired with rapid-fire slideshows sourced from the top google image results. Bedtime Stories(The Parsi People) was first created in 2011 with the google images that populated the top search results of that year, and then 10 years later recreated with the search results from 2021. Hundreds of keywords pulled from the lecture are visualized via these google image slideshows, providing a collective counterpoint to the intimacy of my mother’s pedagogy. As the viewer listens to my mother’s lecture, the slideshows that appear directly relate to the words she is saying, adding an overwhelming amount of ‘related’ imagery to supplement her vocal content. The lecture and keywords remain unchanged in both iterations, but the images deviate based on the year’s search results, enabling a decade long comparison in terms of the image hierarchy within google’s image search algorithm. While many of images occupying the top positions in the search engine have changed entirely, others are relatable or even the same as in 2011. By creating a Bash Script program that can download the necessary images using a config file that provides all the needed parameters (keyword, amount of images, format) versions the piece will continue to be generated every 10 years as search results shift. The project as a whole addresses a variety of historical topics that my mother is passionate about, many of which she began researching during her PH.D at the School of Oriental and Asian Studies at the University of London. Our discussion topics to date include The Parsi People (2011 and 2021), The Mughal Empire (2012 and 2022), and The Partition of India (2013 and 2023). The overall juxtaposition highlights two vastly divergent learning strategies, one more traditional and lecture based, the other related to the kind of hyper-fast learning utilized by the characters in “The Matrix”, and suggestive of current superficial research methods that draw on YouTube, Wikipedia, and Docu-Dramas. Video Link:
https://cloud.tweaklab.org/index.php/s/ w3289692d8AGjgT
Bedtime Stories(The Parsi People)
2011-2021
3-Channel Video Installation
Duration- 13 min 44 sec
More past the better (Part 1)
2020
Video Installation, Sound, Cyanotype Prints on T-Shirts, Digital Prints on Silk Chiffon
25 min 25 sec
As part of the decentralised format of the Swiss Art Awards 2020, Gautam Kansara presented the work-in-progress More Past the Better(Part 1) a video installation that draws on familial recordings and current events to create work that negotiates private dramas and traumas alongside collective memory and news. A collection of cyanotype image transfers onto T-shirts, featuring front pages of The New York Times, are scattered throughout the space. The T-shirts have been heavily processed through bleaching and toning, weakening the fabric. As a result the imagery has been deteriorated through wearing and washing, a reference to the temporary nature of stories as they rise and fall within the news cycle. The faded wearables mirror the videos morphing, alluding to the fragility of memory, people’s transient empathy, and the whitewashing of history. In addition screenshots taken daily from the New York Times iOS app have been digitally manipulated, layered, and printed on silk chiffon. The work speaks to the anxiety that clouds this moment in time, our heightened obsession with the dramatics of the news, as well as the limits of actually being informed while mostly failing to absorb a constant scramble of information.
Video Link: (Installation Documentation)
https://cloud.tweaklab.org/index.php/s/ 593XftgLM6gRex4
More past the better (Part 1)
2020
Video Installation, Sound, Cyanotype Prints on T-Shirts, Digital Prints on Silk Chiffon
(Installed at Last Tango, Zürich, for the Swiss Art Awards)
Forget the body, think about before
2019
Performance, Video Installation, Live-feed Video, Sound
Duration- 1 hour “Forget the body, think about before” is a performance that uses a combination of video installation, live feed video, and storytelling to engage with family lore and contemporary politics and the way they are consumed, regurgitated, and enmeshed into history. The performance is be anchored by stories about Kansara’s family that reach back to the Quit India Movement in India in the 1930’s and 1940’s to illustrate the mythic nature of Switzerland in the Indian psyche and specifically within Kansara’s family as a land opposite to India, where disease is curable and poverty non-visible. The stories center around the contraction of Tuberculosis by Kansara’s grandmother who was treated at the Wald Sanitorium in Davos in the late 1940’s, against the wishes of her father, the lawyer turned freedom fighter B.N Maheshwari. Kansara’s grandmother spent two years at the Wald Sanitorium in Davos from 1948-1950 while being treated and recovering from a state near death. As old photographs from this time appear, family discussions about capitalism and the legacy of colonialism, fuelled by headlines drawn from the New York Times and the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, situate the family lore within a larger context of how the west continues to feed on the east, who are often all to happy to be consumed. The content fluctuates between global affairs and the private dramas and traumas of a now global family, currently hailing from India, England, the USA, and Switzerland. The performance considers the repeated cycles of information and life documentation that litter news feeds, affecting how such information gets remembered and ultimately recorded. Through video and performance, Kansara interweaves history and storytelling to actively destabilise facts and fictions. Video Link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/ 1PrQrV8MxeZxWvHV76QVyyu_lBQxtMC-r/ view?usp=sharing
Forget the body, think about before
2019
Performance, Video Installation, Live-feed Video, Sound
Duration- 1 hour
The Kansara Show Part 2 2018-2019
6-Channel Video Installation (Video Still)
Duration- 10:54
“The Kansara Show, Part 2” utilises a political conversation between the artist and his parents to reflect on the challenge of piecing things together, of figuring out what happened and what’s happening, what we believe and where we stand, within a world where truth and fact seem interchangeable. Recorded through FaceTime, the conversation inevitably becomes a familiar sparring session where everyone talks over each other while trying to win the argument. The work was produced within a sculptural video environment, where multiple layerings of projection, screen, and live feed video are interacted with by the artist in order to collage and entwine the imagery. Paper fibers from blended editions of the New York Times are used to separate and distinguish the video layers. The process positions the work as a prism for actively forgetting, for re-shaping the narrative as it’s being delivered. Referring to the global climate of constant news and headlines where we must continually forget in order to make room for the next barrage of provocation, in order to keep processing new news.
Video Link: (Single-Channel Version)
https://drive.google.com/open? id=1qGTUGNtk1wLcEF0tI0V2uotxQWd_hTre
The Kansara Show Part 2 2018-2019
6-Channel Video Installation (Video Still)
Duration- 10:54
The Kansara Show Part 1 2017-2018
2-Channel Video Installation (Video Still)
Duration- 11:24
“The Kansara Show, Part 1” utilizes political conversations between the artist and his parents as a starting point for meditations about the need to make sense of things, to negotiate life in the face of absurd circumstances, with private dramas and traumas alongside collective memory, news, and current events. The video focuses on a family discussion, indicative of the regular sparring sessions around the Kansara dinner table, and prompted by New York Times front pages from 2015-2017 which feature large bold face capital headlines. Quote unquote "important news”. The work was produced through a combination of installation and performance, which layers the family interactions with the news that is being discussed utilizing analog processes that involve projecting video onto television screens.
Video Link: (Single-Channel Version)
https://drive.google.com/open? id=1qj90_7v8LBaJ3SAGlIFDRMCJa6atUJC9
The Kansara Show Part 1 2017-2018
2-Channel Video Installation (Video Still)
Duration- 11:24
Wearing Through News
2016-2022 (ongoing)
Unique Cyanotype Prints on T-Shirts
(Installed at Grizzly Grizzly Gallery, Philadelphia, USA)
“Wearing Through News” is a collection of cyanotype image transfers onto shirts made up of ‘important’ headlines from the front pages of The New York Times (as signified by the editorial decision to use bold-faced capital letters.) As Kansara’s daily uniform, the lifespan of the shirts is intentionally shortened by bleaching and toning, weakening the fibers so that the imagery deteriorates through wearing and washing, a reference to the temporary nature of stories as they rise and fall within the confines of the news cycle. As the wearables fade, the stories morph, alluding to the fragility of memory, people’s transient empathy, and the whitewashing of history.
Untitled(Khandwa)
2015-2018
6-Channel Video Installation (Video Still)
Duration- 11:01
“Untitled(Khandwa)” uses a kind of television table-top performance to layer documentary based footage of Kansara’s family. Multiple layerings of projection and screen are interacted with by the artist, who paints and scrapes the video layers to collage and confuse the imagery. The footage shows Kansara and his Mother visiting Khandwa in India where the artist’s great-grandmother lived in a large estate that has now been swallowed by rapid urbanization, and exists today as a supply shop. The footage documents the journey and interactions with family members who have never met before, as a starting point for a another reflection about the challenge of piecing things together, of figuring out where we come from, what that means, and whether it matters.
Video Link: (Single-Channel Version)
https://drive.google.com/open? id=1pMU-6BtvYSyxmhe0fsOv8uv_LsHQ5iDZ
Untitled(Khandwa)
2015-2018
6-Channel Video Installation (Video Still)
Duration- 11:01