How artist duo Thukral and Tagra contrast natural with the digital in their latest show, Arboretum

Thukral and Tagra is a Delhi-based contemporary art duo that aims to always push the boundary of public engagement and art. Previously, the artists  — who have worked in the mediums of sculpture, paintings, interactive games, and videos — have dealt with subjects like social and urban reality, the middle class of India, futurism, and migration in their works.

Arboretum Bougainvillea, a painting from the collection.

The flimsy boundaries between offline and online are blurred in these pieces. “We find our lives are now dependent upon efficient net speeds. We are moving forward to a space where phones are extensions of our bodies. They are governing the way we speak, behave, walk, engage, and how we make relationships. Our behaviour of seeing, contemplating and deep thinking has changed as we have altered our attention patterns,” Thukral explained, talking about how our day-to-day life, especially during the pandemic, inspired their works.

An artwork titled Arboretum 5, Pittosporum Tobira

The works showcased as part of Arboretum — which literally translates to botanical garden — have been created in photorealistic detail, and show bright pink flowers of the bougainvillaea plant, soft green leaves of the Japanese cheesewood, and scattered foliage of the white fig tree. But they are all juxtaposed with pixelated patterns and motifs of glitches.

Tagra stressed, “The technique of painting is photorealism. It’s in response to movements stemming from the ever-increasing and overwhelming abundance of photographic media. It needs high detail and a refined eye to develop the image, just like a photograph. It cannot exist without photographs.”

Ask the duo about their meditative approach to creating art, which is in stark contrast to the fast-paced online boom of content creation, and Thukral said, “The process of painting is a commitment, it takes way more than a click. It’s been our comfort throughout years of studio practice. While we clicked and collected quite a bit of the images, we knew we were leaning towards painting them in some way.”

For their latest show, the duo took inspiration from key pieces of sci-fi literature too, such as AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future, a book by Chen Qiufan and Kai-Fu Lee, Dataism by Steve Lohr and, of course, the Homosapiens by Yuval Noah Harari.

Arboretum Ficus Exasperata

Since the topic of artificial reality plays such a large role in their theme, the current ongoing ethical debates about AI art popped up in our conversation. When asked about the future of AI art, the duo theorised, “It’s happening way too fast, and there is a lot of noise about it. The entire speculation, about AI going to take our positions and eat jobs is probably true, but the fact is we evolve in new ways. It’s gonna get very confusing with human-made vs machine-made. It’s for sure will bring more digital divide in society and further imbalance.”

Arboretum is open for viewing all month at Nature Morte Gallery in New Delhi

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