Masked Reality

Masked Reality, an installation by Indian artist Harshit Agrawal, uses artificial intelligence to explore faces, traditions, gender, and identity in an era when so much is in flux because of technology. Agrawal’s interactive work is inspired by traditional face-painting rituals from South India, and it will be visiting SNF Nostos this summer to transform the faces of visitors into the faces of performers of the Kathakali and Theyyam rituals.

Through his work, Agrawal reminds audiences of the importance of the cultural and social framework of these traditions. The Theyyam dance was a performance by people from the lower social strata of Indian society who did not have the right to enter places of worship and culture. The Kathakali performance was intended for the upper strata, or castes. Despite contemporary progress related to older concepts and traditions, traces of old ways that perpetuate prejudices remain.

Thanks to artificial intelligence, the artist is able to go beyond the limitations of reality and provide visitors to Masked Reality with the opportunity to see themselves simultaneously as both a Theyyam and a Kathakali performer, as both man and woman.

Harshit Agrawal incorporates artificial intelligence and innovative technologies into his art, promoting the machines and algorithms into an indispensable role in the creative process. His piece exists through his audience and bears a message of gender and identity fluidity by changing viewers’ own faces. And through this continuous game, artificial intelligence emerges as an important tool that contributes to both reconnecting with tradition and modernizing it, without the limitations and prohibitions of the past, for the people of the present.

Details of the program are likely to change in accordance with the latest COVID-19 health measures.