Across the face of the clock

A multimedia exhibition raises questions about the nature and different dimensions of time

Artists have tried to interpret and reinterpret the ephemeral nature of time throughout history. The most iconic of these interpretations is believed to be Salvador Dali's Persistence of Memory. The image of a melting pocket watch is meant to represent the artist's perception of time as "soft" or "hard". And now Raqs Media Collective has carried forth this artistic investigation of the plurality of time with its latest exhibition "Asamayavali/The Untimely Calendar".

To be exhibited at the National Gallery of Modern Art, or NGMA, in New Delhi, a set of 40 artworks takes the viewer through different dimensions - from a heartbeat or an intake of breath to the eras of human history. The trio of Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula and Shuddhabrata Sengupta who form the collective have enjoyed playing multi-roles in the art scene for the past two decades - appearing as artists, curators and philosophical agent provocateurs.

In a note about the exhibition, Rajeev Lochan, director, NGMA, says it is a turning point in the gallery's engagement with a new set of creative idioms in contemporary art. "Raqs Media Collective is one of the most significant artist practices working in our times… . What shines through all their work is a commitment to an artistic sensibility that is thoughtful, questioning and sensitive to the most delicate nuances and dichotomies of our times," he writes. Those at NGMA who have seen the exhibition being put together believe the collective has approached the questions of time not just with artistic insight but with humour and philosophical depth.

"Through these works, we are attempting to create an image that shows an intimate, historical, cosmological idea of time, instead of the linear way in which we look at it," says Bagchi. According to members of the collective, the exhibition is titled "The Untimely Calendar" as a lot of things on display might not join together in a normal way. "Some are from the distant future and some from the past," says Bagchi.

Some of the works to be displayed are new while others date back to earlier years. One of the new works is a huge 24-hour clock with devanagari script on it. Then there is an installation that shows a robot - half animal, half machine, half human - reading 22 years of newspapers. "It shows different histories locked into our own time. Re-run, which we did in Shanghai last year, has not been shown much," says Bagchi. It is inspired by Henri Cartier-Bresson's photo of a run on a bank in Shanghai in 1948. "It is a six-minute re-enactment of the photo with 48 actors. One can say that it is relationship between stillness of an image and the way an image stays within you," explains Bagchi.

In addition, there is a sound and video installation by ISh S for their artwork Strikes in Time. It is a sound design of experiences of the internal landscape of the mind and the external landscape. The video works with the night sounds of the city accompanied by text from a worker's diary which has been rewritten by CyberMohalla ensemble. "The text is from Hira Prasad's diary - an ordinary man who would look for the extraordinary in his daily routine," says Shamsher Ali, member of the ensemble.

The trio is hopeful that through this exhibition, people will experience something that seems familiar and yet is not. "We are asking them to relook their notions of time," says Bagchi.

"Asamayavali/The Untimely Calendar" will be on display at the National Gallery of Modern Art, December 18 onwards