Interested in various social issues related to globalized, pluralized contemporary society, Shilpa Gupta delves into the realms of desire and religion, freedom and security, anxiety and prejudice, psychology, and imaginary borders. Her artistic practice has involved various media, including interactive video, Web sites, objects, photography, sound, and performance. Reflecting the new media technology omnipresent in our environment, Gupta’s work explores the way in which these new media affect our understanding of the world.
In the While I Sleep project at Le Laboratoire in 2009, Gupta collaborated with Mahzarin Banaji, a professor in psychology at Harvard University, to investigate the cognitive process of perceiving images underlying individual and collective unconsciousness. Singing Cloud, the outcome of this project, is a sound installation composed of microphones that emit singing sounds. Suspended in the air, the sculpture resembles an amorphous creature or part of cloud and is covered with thousands of microphones. The multiple voices permeating, crisscrossing, and flowing into one another take us to the place where historical conflicts, deep desires, and unsolved memories emerge and disappear.
Untitled consists of a flip board on which letters keep changing to display new phrases, reminiscent of a schedule board in a station where people wait to depart. This installation conjures up a visual, psychological play as numbers keep changing into times of day, years, and distances, with each phrase appearing for a few seconds and then turning into the next one. As if evoking chaotic memories, Gupta’s flip board in action invites us into a strange yet familiar time and space.
