The KD Vyas Correspondence: Vol. 1
September 21st-October 15th
Opening: September 20th, 2006, 7 p.m.
Museum für Kommunikation, Frankfurt
Schaumainkai 53
60596 Frankfurt am Main
Tel: 49 (0) 69 60 60-0
Fax: 49 (0) 69 60 60-666
Tues – Fri 9 a.m. 6 p.m.
Sat, Sun and Holidays 11 a.m. 7 p.m.
www.museumsstiftung.de/frankfurt/
KD Vyas Correspondence Vol. 1 by Raqs Media Collective
There is nothing new. Whatever is there is there in the Mahabharata, and whatever is not there in the Mahabharata is not worth the effort. – Raqs Media Collective, 2006
For the first time the installation KD Vyas Correspondence: Vol. 1. by Raqs Media Collective will be exhibited in the Museum für Kommunikation in Frankfurt.
Raqs Media Collective is a group of media practitioners consisting of Monica Narula, Jebeesh Bagchi and Shuddhabrata Sengupta who are based in Delhi. They are concerned with the effects of globalization on urban structures and living conditions. Since their participation in the documenta 11 in Kassel and the Biennale in Venice (2003 2005), they are now known to a larger international audience. They are co-founders of Sarai, a programme for interdisciplinary research and practice on media, city space and urban culture at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies Delhi.
Curated by Monique Behr, their most recent work KD Vyas Correspondence: Vol. 1 is an installation consisting of 18 audio-visual stations. It documents in fragments correspondence between Raqs Media Collective and KD Vyas. KD Vyas is regarded as having dictated the Mahabharata, passed down by word of mouth over the centuries, to the elephant God Ganesha about 2000 years ago. The important epic of Hindu culture delivered in 18 parts is still relevant today. It is arranged in such a way that one story leads to another. In the KD Vyas Correspondence: Vol. 1. this idea of linked authorship plays a fundamental role reflecting at various levels the daily life in a media age.
The exhibition is being shown as part of the Frankfurt Book Fair 2006 – Guest of Honour India.
In collaboration with Raqs Media Collective architects Nikolaus Hirsch and Michel Müller developed a specific space that follows the complex nodal structure of KD Vyas Correspondence: Vol. 1 and operates with its given parameters.
Curator: Monique Behr
Architecture: Nikolaus Hirsch / Michel Müller
CATALOG: Raqs Media Collective. The KD Vyas Correspondence: Vol. 1 ed. by Monique Behr, with a foreword by Monique Behr and contributions by Raqs Media Collective, Cédric Vincent and Nikolaus Hirsch / Michel Müller. German/English, 52 pages, Video Stills, Revolver Books, Frankfurt
ISBN-3-86588-312-5
Press contact:
Regine Meldt
r.meldt@mspt.de
Tel.: 49 (0) 69 60 60 350
Events accompanying the exhibition:
Monday, 18th September, 7 p.m. Raqs Media Collective: Talk
Raqs Media Collective give a summary of their work.
The talk will be held in English.
In cooperation with the Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste – Städelschule.
Venue: Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste – Städelschule, Dürerstr. 10, 60596 Frankfurt
Wednesday, 27th September, 7 p.m. Rimini Protokoll: Call Cutta a mobile phone theatre: Movie screening and discussion
The documentary film Call Cutta – the movie”(2005, 60 Min.) by Anjan Dutt describes the mobile phone theatre-Project of the same name, which the Rimini Protokoll (Haug/ Kaegi/ Wetzel) compiled in Berlin and in Calcutta: the visitors of the movie theatre were handed a mobile phone and guided through Berlin by Call Centre-employees, stationed in Calcutta. They had to guide visitors round a city they have never seen. This paradox situation is intentional, as the artists of the Rimini Protokoll want to bring to life the effects of globalization through this project.
In cooperation with schauspielfrankfurt.
At the end of the showing, Marcel Luxinger (schauspielfrankfurt) will talk with the artists.
The discussion will be in German and English.
