Murin Murin (Australia, 2021), From the ‘Memory Holes’ Series, 2021 Photochemigram (Digital phot
Natural Washi paper (HSN Code: 97020000) 22.5 x 15.5 inches
In this show the artist employs photochemigrams, cyanotypes, and video to explore the materiality of our digital memory. Lēthē is a nod to the mythical River of Lethe, where all those who drank from it experienced complete forgetfulness. Reappraising this myth, Calia evokes the fluidity of memory and its possible residues, notably through the repeated gesture of diluting through chemicals various types of photographic prints.
The exhibition is structured around two memories from his childhood: the first one depicts a factory sending out plumes of steam, leading him to believe that this was in fact, how clouds were made. Playing on the motif of the natural cloud, Calia examines the infrastructure and materials required to create our contemporary, seemingly invisible, yet undeniably factory produced digital cloud. The metallic and cyanotype prints presented here are based on satellite views of mining sites containing minerals essential to the formation of digital infrastructure. More specifically, it focuses on tailing ponds, where the waste generated from the extraction process of the ore is left behind.
Cloud Atlas (detail), 2022 Digital photographs and map details, Cyanotype prints on Hahnemulhe Plati
(HSN Code: 97020000) 8 x 8 inches each Set of 40
Calia’s usage of pre-existing imagery is a response to the overabundance of images in our current environment. His preoccupation with converting the digital cloud to an analogue format was not an intuitive jump, but rather a dedicated effort to de- mystify its otherwise ethereal network resulting in a body of work that colourfully overlays the material on the digital, the dust on the pixel. He also uses the cyanotype process to imagine a Cloud Atlas, mapping the vast geographical breadth of the physical infrastructure that is essential to the production, storage and circulation of information today. In his video piece, Calia eventually juxtaposes a family photograph from the 1970s with several of his own photographs which he took on the same location decades later, as a framework to speculate on the entropy of memories. The exhibition will be accompanied by a publication with writing by Zeenat Nagree, and will be released towards the end of the exhibition.
About The Artist
Philippe Calia is an artist, photographer and filmmaker, living for the past 16 years between India and France. Informed by an academic background in political science and anthropology, his practice currently engages with objects and institutions of memory, such as the family album or the museum. Often maneuvering at the intersection of the still and moving image, as well as figuration and abstraction, his work incorporates discarded documents and mundane visual material through gestures of quotation, collage or erasure. Manners of perceiving, preserving and commemorating are always central to his approach. His involvement in the visual arts also manifests through editorial and educational endeavours. Since 2013, he has been collaborating with PIX as a photo editor. Between 2015 and 2020, he co-managed BIND, a platform for photography which ran a public photobook library.
Date 30-03-2022
Images Copyright Philippe Calia, 2021/2022