The 17th-century scientist and philosopher Blaise Pascal observed that whether we are staring out towards the cosmos or examining the realm of microscopic reality, we are “suspended between two infinities”.[2]

The further out we look, the bigger the horizon. The closer we reflect, the more complex the detail. In both directions there is the experience of the boundless. We have a word to express the experience of infinity: sublime. The concept of sublime is the stumbling block of modern philosophy. The experience of the sublime is a recurring starting point in art. These two worlds have never found a neat point of rendezvous. Theory and practice are not so much suspended at opposite ends of infinity, but seem to oscillate between these polarities at a slight remove from each other. With this limitation in mind, I would like to respond to the theme of the cosmopolis in the encounter with Jitish Kallat’s exhibition Circa.[3]

Let us begin with the tantalising sense of beginning a journey. Journeys begin in dreams. However, they also take a sharp twist when you cross a threshold and enter a carriage. The thought of a journey stimulates ambivalent arousal because it is between departure and arrival that there is the possibility of an unexpected encounter. There can be a sadness of leaving and a joy in the discovery. Hence, we would prefer to begin our journey with some kind of assurance. I loathe taking travel insurance but I do feel better when the departure point is solid. The passageways of the Ian Potter Museum of Art in which Circa is installed are all framed by what appears at first sight as the gawky bamboo poles that are used as scaffolding in Indian construction sites. Upon closer inspection, these poles are revealed to be pigmented cast resin and they are held together with steel and rope. The poles also contain elaborately sculpted images of various animals, such as monkeys, snakes and birds. In many instances, these creatures are either violently attacking each other or are in a process of devouring their own tails. They conjure mythological scenes, and we also discover that the reference point from which these images were derived is the sculpted façade of the entrance to the main terminus of the Mumbai railway. I wonder how many of the millions of daily commuters notice this allusion to the precarious nature of their journey. Of course, they already know of what we are now belatedly representing.

Journeys follow or create lines. These lines are almost never straight. Rivers zigzag between the hard and smooth contours of the land. Roads can turn abruptly and railway tracks swerve along a smooth curve. The uneven line is a motif that recurs in this installation. This skinny and sprawling line is a distinct feature of the colonial maps of India on display – the faded and crumpled paper providing an echo to the vain pretence of administrative permanence, the jagged line also appears in the drawings on the vitrines that contain ancient Indian sculptures – generating an illusion of the glass having cracked from pressure. Is the object trying to escape, or the world shattering from external tremors? Finally, the sprawling line is announced in the subtle cracks that surface in tendril-like movement along the pristine plasterwork of the museum’s entrance. These mysterious new cracks are titled Footnote (mirror 1). They are made of acrylic mirrors. They have an alluring effect. Drawing us into a sudden and dark void that disturbs the flat and neutral surface of the museum. Catching the sky and artificial light on its reflective surface they also rebound towards another horizon. The darkness has no bottom, and the light is blindingly open. A footnote is also a belated acknowledgement of what you already know. It traces back the origin of the journey of discovery that you have just completed.

The installation also contains another suite of sculptures that are interspersed across the museum’s polished wooden floorboards. The sculptures are of sleeping dogs. Climbing out of their backs are the sprouts of wheat. Again, the object and its location are in stark tension. The dogs are life-size and life-like. They are more familiar as companions to the homeless than they are as occupants of the contemplative corners of a museum. The sprouting of wheat seeds from within the unfired clay volume of the sculpture is in itself an uncanny experience. How does wheat live and grow from such dead matter?

However, what is most pertinent about these sculptures that are collectively referred to as Prosody of a pulse rate, is their conception in a spherical state of repose. These dogs are in a state of suspension, between exhaustion and rejuvenation. Sleep is a kind of rebirth. The dogs have surrendered into the surface of the earth. We would prefer to imagine that the ground is dusty and warm, rather than shiny and hard. Nevertheless, they surrender their muscular frame to a soft womb-like shape and allow the dynamic tension of the daily trot between hither and thither to realign itself into a rhythmic pattern of in- and exhalation. The image of an animal asleep in spherical union, once prefaced with a title that alerts us to the poetic techniques of harmony, also exposes us to another mystic sign: the function of breath in the cosmic soul.

Finally, I want to turn my attention to Jitish Kallat’s video piece: Forensic Trail of a Grand Banquet. The screens face each other. One contains footage of 700 food items that have been X-rayed. The other screen plays the footage in reverse. Natalie King has perceptively described the effect of viewing this work as pulling us into a “meteoric vortex”. Jitish Kallat has also informed us that:

…the microscopic organisms, nebulae, or underwater formations that you see flying around you, are actually an X-ray of food items like samosas, kachoris, corn, etc., touching upon the need for sustenance, once again. The concept of the banquet uploaded into the cosmos is quite bizarre in itself. It’s how you choose to look at it.[4]

The combination of a forensic and spherical perspective is in my view an affirmation of a new and radical anthropocentric view of the cosmos. It looks into the subtlest of details regarding everyday things such as the food that generates life and not only finds an image of the cosmos, but also demonstrates a companionship between humanity and the widest spheres of our environment. It is one thing to try and make sense of the mystery of cosmic infinity by staring into the most microscopic details and finding a form that makes the incomprehensible slightly more comprehensible. However, beyond this neat and comforting illusion is another level of recognition of responsibility. The energy that is out there is also in here. Food, intelligence and the cosmos may all have a common form. The point of putting two video screens to face each other and for one screen to reverse the footage is not confined to a principle of doubling. It also invites the viewer to stand in the middle and bear witness to the circumambient flows.

It is my general contention that the principle of creativity is intricately interwoven with the affirmative ideas of cosmos. How could I ever prove this? Let us start with this primary capacity for seeing, sensing and imagining the world. When we look out at the world there is the horizon. The land bends away because it is part of a sphere and the skies open like a boundless screen. At no stage is anything like the whole ever visible. One part of the surface of the world hides another and at any point the vast bulk is always beyond our range of vision. The world as a whole is always hidden from any direct view. Our eyes always look up as much as they look out and across. Looking up we gain a vertical view as the cone of vision extends to the infinite depth of the cosmic screen. This gaze exposes us to far more than we can comprehend. This luminous darkness and sparkling murkiness inspires both dreadful awe and uplifting wonder.

In Jitish Kallat’s work we see this anthropocentric act of projection. It begins in the cosmology of small symbols. It conjures the dazzling uncertainty in the line of any journey, finding form in the life-sprouting rhythm of a dog’s sleeping breath. Diogenes the Cynic, who famously rejected Alexander the Great’s offer of wealth and power, and whose name comes from his ambition to live in a state that could match a dog’s cosmic harmony, would be proud to have made such an understatement.