Materiality of the Immaterial (2019-present)
is an ongoing project which finds expression
through various interlinked components
across writing and research, video, sound and installation.
Through a cross-over of mediums,
it looks to areas, problematics and crises
of a neoliberal techno-capitalism to try articulate
the materialities, structures and failings of this particular type
of globalised capitalism that now seems to be unraveling
in this time of Covid-19,
or what Tabish Khair has called “The Neoliberal Virus”
whose “...transmission has followed the flightpaths of global capitalism”.
Covid-19 has made a number of these underlying materialities,
structures, and failings more tangible than ever,
and this is the departure point for this particular body of work–
each component focusing on various interlinked dimensions
of these materialities, structures and failings.
What the Covid-19 pandemic has made concrete
is how globalisation has indeed been modeled
in the image of computer network topologies
– sets of interdependent and hyperconnected nodes–
which of course, are susceptible and facilitate the spread of viruses
across entire networks even when the malfunction
doesn’t come from the most important node.
But globalisation, operating from a seemingly perfect market logic,
never thought itself vulnerable to viruses, ironically.
“Society conceived as a network isn’t about aggregates or averages,
but is a complex system through which trends,
behaviours, memes, information and infections travel
[between interdependent nodes or ‘nations’]”, William Davies writes,
“The micro and macro are brought together in a new unpredictable intimacy…
networks can be completely overhauled
by minor events that begin on their fringes.”
Covid-19 has made material the fragility
of this hyperconnected interdependent network
through its wild-fire global transmission, and the disproportionate blows
to countries geographically far removed from the origin.
What is unique about this pandemic is how the virus has been spread,
amplified and facilitated
through (the initially digital) network topologies
that underlie the globalised world.
Sam Kriss writes “The virus can feel like a wordless critique of modernity.
Just look at how it spreads:
air travel, tourism, the globalised economy.
Like so many of our commodities, it’s put together in China,
where it inflicts mostly-invisible misery,
before circulating in the churn and frenzy of global trade.”



