Before the Sun

Before the Sun by Karthik Pandian is both literally and figuratively captivating. As you begin to enter the Midway Contemporary Art building where his instillation is located the first thing you will notice is...nothing. There is no light except for flickering images projected on opposite walls coming from two 16mm cameras. This is pretty exciting at first, because you have no idea what's going on because you can't see anything, and there are plenty of places to trip and fall on your face. As your eyes adjust, everything begins to fall into place.

Pandian has created an entrancing piece of artwork focusing mainly on archeology and architecture. It is based and filmed from the top of a Native American "Cohokia Mound," which are massive pre-Coloumbus era mounds created by laboriously and repetitively transferring dirt in baskets located near modern day St Louis. The installment consists of a large four-sided platform made of a mixture of sand, clay, and seashells. Mounted on the top are the two 16mm cameras facing back to back from each other. Each camera container is filled with earth, which in turn helps hold the whole glass camera container together.

The whole thing could just as easily be mistakenly called "After the Sun" as "Before the Sun," because one camera is looping film clips of the sun rising (which is actually facing east), and the other is looping clips of the sun setting (facing west). As you watch you can see clips of people running, walking, and biking by on top of these mounds. Sound effects which at first seem a bit creepy and random but soon make sense when explained are also spliced in. The most prominent of these are the scraping noise of an archaeologist searching through the dirt for ancient treasures and a loud crack from a firecracker.

What really helps pull the whole atmosphere of the piece together is the quality of the film loops. The rolls of film are supported (and are probably even being continually damaged a little) by a suspended network of red twine, giving it an old-timey feel. This twine is made in the exact fashion of many archaeological digs, which hints at the connection between past and present people and structural forms.

Karthic Pandian is a contemporary artist working and living in Los Angeles, California. He has had work featured all over the United States, and holds a MFA and a BA.