long live the new flesh

Navin Thomas describes his works as explorations of “electro-acoustic ecology, the system of things and how you and I coexist within it”. According to Thomas, what is classified as architecture —an intrusion on nature with its connotations of purity and fragility— is a vital aspect of the idea of ecology, coexisting with such things as trees and meadows.

A chronicler of what he calls the ‘private life of electronic appliances’, he is an avid collector of electronic junk. It is out of them that Thomas fashions installations and sculptures that act as intersections where the energy fields of things —the electro-acoustic ecologies— interact with and alter biological circuits. One such work is My love is an icy cold fever (2011), an installation composed of a steel frame fitted with ultraviolet lights which, when lit up at night, sets off the frenzied behaviour of insects and other nocturnal animals. In these and other works, the artist engages with the ways in which biological systems respond to the data-rich, technology-saturated ‘sonic-magnetic environments' they inhabit.

Thomas’s installation at Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2014, long live the new flesh (2014), is composed of two archery targets connected by an invisible, reverberating wave of sound. According to the artist, the installation is modelled on the idea of two lighthouses communicating with each other. It creates an abstract symphony made of the sound of arrows being shot which, when echoed by the walls of the gallery, creates a sonic architecture of combat that forces viewers into an arena of invisible crossfire and conflicting energies.