Livor mortis, 2019
Materials: Soil, Water, Iron stands, Glass, Papier Mache, Video Projection
Dimension: Variable
Veda Thozhur Kolleri uses drawing, video, photography, writing and found material to access the physical contexts in which she lives and works. Her work is primarily concerned with (our) mortality and her practice manifests as a rehearsal of loss.
Livor mortis is a medical term that describes the fourth stage of death, when blood settles in lower parts of the body, owing to gravity. The amount of time this takes varies depending on how warm or cold the conditions are.
This installation is constructed with water, an element that draws attention to itself through its scarcity in a drought, and its abundance in a flood. It takes the form of a machine, whose components are united by virtue of their inhabiting the same plane. The union of these components produces a singular, fluid, mutable image which emulates the movement of water, the passage of clouds, the weathering of rocks, and the aging of flora, all at once.
Pieces of fabric with soil dried on them were suspended from the ceiling, and traces of these pieces being made were left on the floor. An overhead projector played a highly saturated video of the sea passing forcefully through a vent. This was projected through rectangular pieces of glass that have drawings on them. These images appeared as shadows when the projector passed white light through them.
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Iron stands were made for each of the pieces of glass, some with drawings and others with organic objects stuck to them using papier mache. The drawings were the outline of clouds that passed the studio window over two weeks, and the movement in lines, of water in a high tide over fifteen minutes.
A pump was placed in a glass tank with water and soil sediments. The pump was timed to go on and off at specific durations using Arduino, so as to prevent the sediments from ever settling. A contact microphone, attached to the bottom of the tank, amplified the vibrations of the water hitting the walls of the tank, filling the room with liquid
Credit: www.vedathozhurkolleri.com, vimeo.com