THINK-A-LONG SONG!

In my eyes, these pieces by Nandan Ghiya provide an amazing illustration of modern Orientalism by glitching typical fantasies of Indian life, and instead pushing the mind to question their authenticity and dream up alternative realities. Think-a-long the following string of quotes:

Interesting mixed media pieces which address the effects digital technology has on indigenous cultures and personal identities. The series, entitled “deFacebook” looks at the endless array of imagery and information the constantly bombards us; the advertisements, agendas, deals, offers, etc. Ghiya feels that todays internet age has desensitized us to the point of disillusion. -Juxtapoz on Nandan Ghiya

AKA imagery surrounding indigenous people is all over the internet (and elsewehere)

Hyperreality is used in semiotics and postmodern philosophy to describe a hypothetical inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from fantasy, especially in technologically advanced postmodern cultures.

AKA We are far away and on our computers, so its hard for us to know if our ideas about indegenous people is real or constructed by all the imagery we get on the net.

Deconstructionsim: postmodern critical approach that “constructs” new meanings of old texts by subverting (or “deconstructing”) them.

AKA we can mess with that imagery, really break it down, and see if we get anything new out of it.

According to Derrida, readings of texts are best carried out when working with classical narrative structures. Any architectural deconstructivism requires the existence of a particular archetypal construction, a strongly-established conventional expectation to play flexibly against.^[7] The design of Frank Gehry’s own Santa Monica residence, (from 1978), has been cited as a prototypical deconstructivist building. His starting point was a prototypical suburban house embodied with a typical set of intended social meanings. Gehry altered its massing, spatial envelopes, planes and other expectations in a playful subversion, an act of “de”construction”/p>

AKA we can do this by taking a stereotype and then breaking the expectation (like the punchline of a good joke, for example!).

Conclusion: In their rendering of expected imagery as broken displays, Ghiya’s pieces can be seen as a deconstructivist tool to expose hyperreality of Orientalism. (Note: this isn’t the expressed intention of the work, but just what they mean to me.)

Tonia out.