Living Veda

An interactive nail and rubberband sculpture

2013 April

The vedas are largely static, they have been handed over for generations with minimal changes. The vedas thus become mere marks in the absence of an interpreter. In this work, the audience becomes the agent that brings new life into the vedas.

A computer program grows a digital tree structure using the syllables found within the vedic hymns that invoke Savitur (Sun) and Indra (Rain). The program generates a point-cloud for each branch and prints it on paper. The paper is nailed down to a wooden surface at each point of the point cloud. The paper is then ripped, leaving behind a framework of the vedic digital tree in nails. The nails become the skeleton that hold up an organic skin formed by rubberbands. The artist begins the process of connecting the nails using rubberbands, and the audience continues it. The rubberbands become a skin that continually changes, representing the lives that alter it.