Parts Unknown

Set in the high altitude desert of Ladakh at an altitude of 14,500 feet,the Indian Astronomical Observatory (IAO) at Hanle,is one of the world’s highest sites for optical, infrared and gamma-ray telescopes. The latter collect gammarays,one of the most enigmatic and energetic forms of light in the universe, created by celestial events such as supernova explosions, the creation of black holes and the decay of radioactive material in space. Hanle exists today as a site of pilgrimage for astronomers across India, amateurs and professionals alike, drawn as much by the spectacular skies as by the stark landscape. Parts Unknown, a suite of seven videos is a window to a strangely mythic landscape, populated by instruments of both fiction and fact, gazing up   and out, transforming our imagination of remote objects as physical places in the imagination. From machines they are transformed into a species of ‘chimera’. They are one thing, standing in for something else, pushing the limits of the known and the imagined. The piece offers us seven perspectives of new terrains and fictions, created through the layering of video with drawings and satellite images of the Earth. An alternative hybridized world, once familiar and now strange.