Written Commission: pinch/zoom/scroll/hoverNithya Nagarajan and Vishal Kumaraswamy

pinch/zoom/scroll/hover gestures at notions of sensation (embodied/internal) and perception (external/expressed) through a range of exchanges between Nithya (based in Sydney) and Vishal (based in Bengaluru). It is a piece of networked writing reflecting the conditions of the collaboration itself, across text, audio (voice notes) and videos/gifs. Fractured, asynchronous, simultaneous and stretched across time/space/internet bandwidth, the writing draws from a lineage of net.art and hypertext.

Through portals of subtext and context, we traverse themes of personal rituals of mourning, sonic and visual witnessing of communal rites, and the post-ritualistic affect of memory and remembrance. We invite you, the reader, to talk back to the works in BLEED – editing, annotating, unpacking, delving – as you collide with the artists’ ideas through your senses. By offering tactile zones on the webpage we hope to counter the solitary practice of online navigation and invite you to revisit, to ritualise your engagement with art itself.