Raqs Media Collective

For a while now, Raqs has been in conversation with Kate Fowle (and Magali Arriola) about being part of 'The Backroom'. the backroom is a research-oriented project that provides access to source materials which inform and support artists’ practice. Initially accumulated over five months and presented in a temporary space in Culver City, the temporary archive presented objects, videos, magazines, photographs, ephemera, data and written anecdotes from an evolving line-up of artists, filmmakers, writers and architects. From this, a series of presentations and projects have developed. Now its moving also to spaces in Mexico City (See www.ucsi.edu.mx/culturales/celda.htm) and Paris (www.kadist.org). Its a great idea, and this blog entry is quite self-reflexive as the blog is a part of the project, and frankly came into being after discussions with them. We plan to keep posting more.

Raqs Media Collective : 'There Has Been a Change of Plan'
(Selected Works 2002-2006)
Nature Morte Gallery, A 1 Neeti Bagh, New Delhi
August 5 - 26, 2006

Sometimes, adjustments have to be made. Schedules need calibration. There are contingencies, questions, obstinate demands, weak excuses, strong desires. You return to the city you never left. You pause, take stock. Sit still and let a conversation begin. Maybe?

Around you, aeroplanes sit on wooden platforms in a wilderness like widows on a funeral pyre. Clocks measure fatigue, anxiety and modest epiphanies across latitudes. A door to nowhere stands obstinately against the sky. All your cities are a blur.

"Do you like looking at maps?"

Meanwhile, measures are taken, shoes lost and found, ghost stories gather, the city whispers conspiracies to itself, the situation is tense but under control. Someone offers you a postcard.

Now: Let's see what happens.