The KD Vyas Correspondence, Vol. 1, 2006
Raqs Media Collective

Installation view: Shooting Back, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna, Austria, 2007
Photo: Michael Strasser | © Bildrecht, Vienna, 2020 | TBA21
Collection

18-channel video installation on monitors, color, nine-channel sound
Videos with varying durations (from 30 min 12 sec to 4 hrs 52 min)
Overall dimensions variable


The KD Vyas Correspondence: Vol. 1  is a collection of a set of eighteen letters, a correspondence between Raqs Media Collective and a person or entity identified as KD Vyas, occasional editor of the Mahabharata. The installation puzzles over eighteen video riddles, which although much briefer and more contemporary, bear a great resemblance to the eighteen cantos of the Mahabharata - one of Hinduisms' most significant mythological writings. The work is dense with encrypted messages, notes on the letters themselves, or memories of places and times where they may have been read. The eighteen floating fragments that constitute the installation serve as clues connected to Raqs' investigation-in-progress on the theme of the regression of time based on the protocols of the production and transmission of narratives and irritating questions as to provability.


Jeebesh Bagchi: *1965 in New Delhi, India 
Monica Narula: *1969 in New Delhi, India 
Shuddhabrata Sengupta: *1968 in New Delhi, India
​Living and working in New Delhi, India