Mold to Modulation: Dusting the Fingerprints |  presentation by Karthik K G

9 August, 2017 | 6 PM
Vadehra Art Gallery, D-53, Defence Colony, New Delhi

As a culmination of the research carried out under the aegis of the FICA Inlaks Goldsmiths Scholarship 2015, Karthik K G made a presentation titled 'Mold to Modulations: Dusting the Fingerprints'. Some aspects of the project are on display as part of the ongoing FICA Homepage 2017 exhibition.

Over the recent years, the urgency and need to become part of the identification system such as UID/Aadhaar -- the project from the Indian government -- is increasingly felt and their presence is gaining a significant role in our everyday activities. The data driven epistemology of our information age has made it possible to conceive such identity projects by co-adapting the technique of identification which makes use of the bodily traces or biometrics. Such national ID projects have raised concerns at various levels from technical feasibility to the issues regarding security & privacy of individual’s data.

How do we make sense of being implicated within the identification system? What happens to the truth claims of biometrics -- the unique heart of Aadhaar -- when it becomes a tool to map the entire population?  What are the impacts of the mnemonic-ecology produced by the distributed digital storage of the UID system? The research enquires into these aspects weaving together various materials that involve recent debates on biometrics and UID, including the multi-layered historical references to fictional iterations.
 

Karthik KG completed his M.Res. in Curatorial/Knowledge from Goldsmiths, University of London as a FICA Inlaks Goldsmiths Scholar [2015-16] and holds M.A. in Visual Arts from the Ambedkar University, New Delhi [2014] and B.E. in Electrical and Electronics from KLN College of Engineering, Anna University, Madurai [2005]. He worked as System Analyst and Team Coordinator at Tata Consultancy Services, Chennai [2005-2011]. Participation include collaborative proposal exhibited as part of INSERT2014, IGNCA, New Delhi [2014],  Group show Identity Control, at Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi [2014], Pepper House Residency Show, Kochi Muziris Biennale [2014]. Karthik has co-curated, with three other artists (Aruna, Aryan, Shivangi) as juggleheads exhibitions like stutter in your eloquence, at BC Gallery, Mattenchery, Kochi [2014] and stutter in your eloquence (2), at Ambedkar University, Delhi [2015]. He has also participated in live Sound acts on a few occasions like Disquiet, at Bakheda, New Delhi [2015].

Shuddhabrata Sengupta is an artist and writer, and member of Raqs Media Collective, a group that combines research, historical and philosophical inquiry, textual explorations of aesthetics, surveillance, cyberculture and contemporary art. In 2002 Sengupta co-initiated Sarai, a platform for discursive partnerships between theorists, researchers, practitioners, and artists engaged in reflecting on contemporary urban spaces and cultures in South Asia at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi. Sengupta also co-edits the Sarai Reader Series. Raqs has exhibited widely, including at Documenta, and the Venice, Istanbul, Taipei, Liverpool, Shanghai, Sydney, and Sao Paulo Biennales. In 2016, Raqs curated the 11th Shanghai Biennale.