it’s our pleasure to welcome Gaurav Patekar to the MediaArt Salzburg residency in September 2024!
The jury recommends Gaurav Patekar for the MediaART Salzburg residency in 2024. His proposal shows a poetic approach to urgent socio-ecological challenges we all are facing. We are curious to see the results of Gaurav Patekar’s engagements with the natural botanical elements that are present in Salzburg, and their combination with digitally fabricated mechanisms in kinetic sculptures.
Gaurav Patekar about his project „Feeling Climate Crisis“:
Climate crisis is one of the biggest issues we are facing as a species. For us to better our relationship with the environment, we need to understand and be able to talk about the changing climate more effectively. Communication of climate crisis currently ranges from complex scientific publications emphasizing the nuances of climate change to evocative visuals that appeal to our emotions.
Art interventions can create avenues for us to experience and understand climate crisis in ways that are not typically accessible through the traditional means of science communication and journalism.
Over the last two years, I have been making kinetic data sculptures by juxtaposing natural botanical elements with digitally fabricated mechanisms. These sculptures are based on climate change data. They communicate this data through movement. The objective of this work is to allow audiences to feel the climate crisis as an alternative to reading or looking at charts.
The natural objects I use include dry leaves, twigs, and driftwood I find on long walks near my place of residence. I find this approach of using natural organic materials with industrial materials, poetically resonating with the tension between ecology and industrialized society in the age of the Anthropocene.
At MediaART residency, I will continue this work by accommodating the natural objects I find in the area near the residency and natural landscape in and around Salzburg. The geographical setting of Salzburg will allow me to experiment with natural elements in the urban setting in and around the city.
Gaurav Patekar is a new media artist. He creates media art, particularly kinetic artworks that take inspiration from movements in nature. He is deeply interested in understanding our relationship with ecology and technology and how it informs behavior. His work often mixes curiosity, playfulness, and whimsy. He uses digital fabrication tools such as 3D printing and laser cutting alongside traditional building techniques. He has a background in media art, new media design, and mechanical engineering. He has studied at the MIT Media Lab, Cambridge, USA, and the National Institute of Design, India. He currently works out of his studio in Bangalore, India.
More Gauravpatekar
Picturecredit: Gaurav Patekar – Feeling Climate Crisis
subnetAIR25 will be calling this summer and deadlining on October 31st 2024.
subnetAIR Exhibitions:
2022 Medien.Kunst.Realitäten – Katalog
2018 possible bodies – Katalog
2015 Klanghypothesen – Katalog
subnetAIR 2016 -2022:
# Jana De Troyer – documentation
# Martina Fröschl – documentation
# Scarlett Yang
# Corrie Francis Parks (MediaART Stadt Salzburg) – documentation
# Chun Shao – documentation
# Katsuki Nogami – documentation
# Margarethe Maierhofer-Lischka – documentation
# Nora Jacobs (MediaART Stadt Salzburg) – documentation
# Lukas Gwechenberger – documentation
# Stefan Tiefengraber – documentation
# Stefano Mori – documentation
# Simon Whetham – documentation
# Silvia Rosani and Tom Jacques – documentation
# Vera Sebert – documentation
# Michaela Schwentner – documentation
# Mac Krebernik – documentation
subnetAIR Ausstellung: possible bodies (2018) – Katalog
# Lale Rodgarkia-Dara – documentation
# Simon Faulhaber
# Georg Scherlin – documentation
# Iulia Radu
# Nicolò Cervello
# Robert B. Lisek – documentation
# Kanari Shirao – documentation
# Laura Splan documentation
#Antoni Raijekov – documentation
# Young Suk Lee – documentation
# Danny Bracken
# Lucie Strecker
2015subnetAIR Ausstellung: Klanghypothesen (2015) – Katalog
# Myriam Bleau
# Robert Praxmarer – documentation
# Nikolas Psaroudakis – documentation