“You have 3 unread messages” “catsofinstagram posted a video” “dosaplanet invited you to a dosa festival”.
Even before you reach for that glass of water in the morning, your phone has already begun speaking to you. Notifications arrive with uncanny precision, anticipating desires you may not have consciously expressed. In a world dictated by algorithms, data trials and predictive technologies, where exactly does the human voice end and the digital begin?
These are some of the questions at the centre of Mimesis, a new exhibition by artists Thukral & Tagra (Jiten Thukral and Sumir Tagra) for Ashvita’s new space at Ozone Premia, Mylapore. The newly inaugurated flagship gallery has been envisioned as a hybrid between a gallery and a home, offering visitors an immersive space where art can be both experienced and imagined in a living environment. “When somebody comes here, they get to see a museum-quality show and an extremely well put together space in which art can live,” says Ashvin E Rajagopalan, director, Ashvita’s.
On view till July 17, the exhibition is an extension of Thukral & Tagra’s long-running project Arboreum (visual exploration of the rapidly shrinking gap between the natural, physical environment and our hyper-digital lives) , but shifts focus from living ecosystems to digital ones, exploring how our lives are now defined by pixels, codes, databases and digital shadows.
Jiten Thukral and Sumir Tagra | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
For the artists, the project began with an observation that many of us would recognise. When we wake up, two lights shape our day: “One is the yellow light, the natural light of the sun and the other is the white light of the phone screen. We move constantly between these online and offline worlds,” says Sumir.
The exhibition stems from a five-year-long conceptual diary titled Coded Gaze that examines how technology is so seamlessly embedded into our everyday life that distinguishing between reality and its mediated versions is increasingly difficult. “It is like I am so used to seeing someone’s digital life on Instagram and thinking that it is real life, but often it is just a coded, pixelated, version of that person,” says Sumir.
Across the gallery, the paintings are composed of geometric forms resembling enlarged pixels, data and digital interfaces. The forms of the artworks echo familiar technological symbols, including the ubiquitous power button. “There’s a lot of anxiety in the exhibition. It may not seem obvious at first, but once you begin unpacking it, the questions emerge: Who am I giving my passwords to? Who owns my data? These are powerful entities operating within a capitalist system,” says Sumir.
But for the artists, art thrives on slowness. “There is a slowness in painting in the speed of technology that we are trying to hold on to,” adds Sumir.
Feral Shadows artwork by Thukral & Tagra | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
The exhibition starts with Feral Shadows, made with acrylic on canvas, the artpiece asks questions like, “How do we trust the data we generate? We leave digital footprints constantly, yet how often do we stop to visualise our own searches, preferences, and compulsions?”
The shadow here, Sumir explains, is “somebody can have an image of me through what I am putting out there.” For instance, platforms like Amazon have all the data from what we ordered to what we want, helping them create a “digital avatar” of their customers, which can be translated to an entire life size body.
In another work, Mutation 2, the piece explores how, “millions of data-driven projects access our private lives, and we have practically no control over what is collected, retained, or shared.”
“We’re constantly asking ChatGPT things like how to make a date night successful basic human questions we’ve started outsourcing to machines. What we rarely think about is the infrastructure behind it. Every prompt has a physical cost. Tons of water are used to cool down these data centres,” says Sumir.
The centrepiece named ECHO - Dataset 1, talks about the digital version of loved ones. “We all have lost our loved ones during the pandemic, whose digital lives remain somewhere and become a way of holding on,” says Sumir. Echo is made up of 96 canvases, conceived as fragments of a lifetime. Today, an entire industry has emerged out of digital footprints, which ultimately raises the unsettling questions about memory, grief, and performance.
The last work, Parallel Selves, talks about the multiple forms we inhabit in our day-to-day life, especially online. A troll can also be a next-door neighbour, while your secret desires and insecurities “all remain archived in histories and databases”. “It’s a search engine thinking through that is constantly evolving with time and with the darkness within you,” says Sumir.
Ultimately, Mimesis is less interested in providing answers than in provoking reflection. As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly woven into daily life, the exhibition asks viewers to reconsider their relationship with technology and question what is gained and what is lost in the process.
Mimesis is on at Ashvita’s Ozone Premia, Mylapore, till July 17, from 4pm to 7pm by prior appointment only. Contact 9840094412 to schedule a visit.
Published - June 10, 2026 03:55 pm IST
Source: The Hindu
