You Can Have More Fun in the Dark...

Before the Sun - Karthik Pandian

You exit the daylight and enter a state of disorientation and noise. There is a desk light to your right and darkness everywhere else, save for a projection on the far, far corner of the gallery. The desk light is illuminating a record player with a magenta record merrily spinning away. There is noise, but it isn't from this record. A scraping noise echos through the space and shivers down your spine. Scraping on rocks, digging, trying to uncover something, scraping, scraping, scraping. There are other noises too, so loud you can't focus on what they are. Your entire being is engulfed in darkness, noise, and the cool, earthy smell of dirt and concrete. As you walk towards the noise you begin to focus on the projection ahead of you.

You pass a wall and there is another projection to your right, playing on the opposite corner from the first one. They are similar enough that you look back and forth between the two a few times before deciding that they aren't the same video. Sunsets, sunrises, walking silhouettes, and that scraping, scraping, scraping. The projectors are in the middle of the room inside tall glass boxes. The bottom sections are mirrors and they throw light and reflections this way and that as you navigate the space, adding yet another element to the confusion.

These boxes are protruding from a mound in the middle of the room. Two large, flat, rectangles fill the floor, a smaller one on top of the larger one and they appear to be made from concrete and then covered with dirt. You walk up the steps and see that in the mirrored boxes, the projectors are sitting in sand and the film is entering and exiting the boxes through the top and streaming towards the ceiling. Your eyes follow the trail of film as it weaves in and out of what looks like pink, plastic twine and then reenters the projectors. The twine is arranged in a grid that covers the span of the platforms. Scrape, scrape, scrape.

Something is happening, and you know that you have the pieces, but the answer is just enough out of reach but still so close that you aren't satisfied with not knowing what the bigger story is. After a lesson with the gallery manager, you begin to understand.

The mounds are made of compacted earth and are a tribute to the Cahokia Mounds in Illinois. The scraping and pink twine arranged in grids resemble the tools and noises of the archaeological digs at the mounds. The videos are of sunsets and sunrises taken from the tops of the mounds and are projected on the western and eastern corners of the gallery. The ribbon of film that is threaded through the grid is slowly being destroyed by the friction and scratches from the constant contact with the dust and twine.

This was a very interesting installation that worked many different senses. It threw the explorer into chaos from the second they walked in the door and then presented clues, like bread crumbs, to find a meaning and a way to make sense of the elements that had been presented. This installation raised an awareness of the largest archaeological dig site in the United States which was really special because it is largely unknown and it is not taught in schools. American history is more than the Mayflower and the Constitution and Karthik reminds us of this in a very exciting and mesmerizing manner.