Karthik Pandian: Before the Sun - Marina

Karthik Pandian's installation "Before The Sun"
at the Midway Contemporary Art Gallery
September 18-November 6, 2010








First Look: Walking in is almost like turning off all of your senses, just to slowly reawaken them. It is pitch black until your eyes adjust to the films projected in opposite corners of the room. They show the sun rise and set, as people walk across the view. Then you will stumble upon a large platform. Examine it, for it is made of compressed dirt and small white shells. Two glass rectangular structures protrude from the center of the platform. They seem like mirrors, but they are filled with sand that supports projectors. The film is is being fed up above the installation, almost into the rafters. It stretches across the ceiling, being held up by strings.
Thought process: The first thing I think of when I see this installation is, what is this? Then, why would someone make this? The more I think about all the work that would have went in to the installation of the platform (with dirt compressed around glass structures and the film being draped over string in the ceiling to loop around and continue to play) I just wonder if all the effort was worth it. I think of all the time spent shooting the film at the Cahokia Mounds, in St. Louis, IL. Then I think of the end result and I'm disappointed.
The website for the Midway Contemporary Art Gallery explains that "Karthik Pandian has produced a 16mm film installation that addresses the relationship between architecture and archaeology and the solar unconscious that has conditioned the emergence of both disciplines in the Midwest". I do not see this piece as showing the relationship between archeology and architecture. That is not all what I would have gotten from being there. It's possible that it tries to play on the architecture of the room, drawing your eyes up to the rafters with the film. It may try to reference archeology in how the images are being projected from the compressed dirt, but I don't 'get' it. It doesn't leave me wondering about the relationship between architecture and archeology, actually without looking at Midway's website I would have never guessed that was the idea behind the piece. I feel like all the effort that went into this was not worth the end result and it could have been much more compelling.