The technique of reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition. By making many reproductions it substitutes a plurality of copies for a unique existence
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Walter Benjamin
Though both are bound in a spiral dance, I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess
The Cyborg Manifesto, Donna Haraway
The Dancing Girl of Mohenjo Daro, an artifact from 2500 BCE excavated in 1926 (in present day Sindh, Pakistan), is reimagined as a potential vessel using various technological processes like AI generated 3D models, 3D printing, and letterpress printing. Through a series of experiments, linguistic and sculptural, The Dancing Girl‘s fragmented narratives are speculated; to visualise her as an agent of independent thought. A reproduction of The Dancing Girl is cast using geopolymerised cement. A material used by ancient Roman and Egyptian civilisation, one that can be understood as a form of technology itself.
Sketch, graphite on paper
AI generated 3D model
AI generated 3D model
The Dancing Girl, sculpture, Geopolymerised cement, limestone, aluminium foil, 2024
AT THE MUSEUM
Agha Shahid Ali
April 1990
But in 2500 B.C. Harappa,
who cast in bronze a servant girl?
No one keeps records
of soldiers and slaves.
The sculptor knew this,
polishing the ache
Off her fingers stiff
from washing the walls
and scrubbing the floors,
from stirring the meat
and the crushed asafoetida
in the bitter gourd.
But I’m grateful she smiled
at the sculptor,
as she smiles at me
in bronze,
a child who had to play woman
to her lord
when the warm June rains
came to Harappa.
AT THE STUDIO
Fired by way of metallurgic desires some four thousand five hundred twenty-four years ago. I am a contemplation of copper and tin, the alchemy of men. They may be long gone but my sculptors have known to flaunt more than an ache. I am held by the weathered hands of artisans and wage workers. Those deemed too trivial for a record but whose spirits sail through time, honored in tradition.
Which blinded explorer can lay claim over my discovery? I have stood unmoored underground when the gods of water changed their course, my feet sedimented with the salt of the earth, buried like a lost name. I am a collector of curiosities, protector of dreams. A child of wonder, who played their mascot and their trophy.
I am contested territory. By ministers and priests alike, and all those who have wielded power in their prime. Which of their lords can claim me? Whose laws can make or unmake me?
I am the spirit of a dancer, a soldier, a warrior. Now as a techno relic I emulate the concrete hues of utopic city skins: a poly silicate constellation of vertices. I contain the residual codes of memory.
Hand-bound letterpressed book, 2024