Commenting on the war and the New Media’s role in it

Nature Morte Berlin presents ‘The Land’, the first solo show of works by T V Santhosh in the city of Berlin. It takes place in collaboration with The Guild Gallery, Mumbai.

Today, the media, to quite a large extent, defines and drives the pattern of our relationship with the world. News updates serve as our extended visions, which ultimately become part of our daily experiences. The News Media’s role and relation to the nature of war and conflict has been dramatically shifting especially in the context of the current Middle East turmoil.

The conflict is unique in many different ways. It’s an internally generated event largely independent of those usual tools of hate, war and the politics of fear. Instead and it’s driven by a democratic choice the people of these regions in the world have found for themselves within and despite the oppressive systems that govern them. This changes the nature of this conflict considerably to an internal from an external enemy and to an economic & individually driven motivation from a political motivation.

Also, the international media is struggling to get a cohesive perspective of these events, in a way muddled with official versions of the foreign policies. The role of alternative media and social network sites has emerged as tools to mobilize the pent-up energies of those who are oppressed. Anthony Shadid, wrote in the New York Times: “No one really seems to know as what to call this conflict - a revolution, a civil war or - in a translation of what some call it in Arabic - ‘the events’, a shorthand for confusing violence."

The new series of new works by artist T V Santhosh is an intense outcome of preoccupation with the of war images – its on-going and changing nature, memory and perception. These are powerful works that set us thinking about the global scenario and our perception of it.