No(w) Now
Ravi Avasti
24 May–17 Jun 2023
Imagine that an alarm clock has been turned to face the wall. The electronic digits on the face of the clock shine onto and illuminate the wall. As the time on the clock changes, so then will the light cast onto the wall by the clock. “The Current Time Displayed as the Value of Light From a Seven Segment Display” is an accurate timepiece that gives the time in the form of that light cast onto the wall. As the formation of the clock digits follows an entirely different logic to the sequence of the digits, the time is displayed in a nonlinear manner. The clock is readable with practice, but on occasion we must wait for several minutes to establish what the time was: ‘now’ can only be read with reference to the past.
If Cherry timber is exposed to the sun’s light, the processes of decay will darken it over time. By co-opting this phenomenon to create an image, the act of decay is becomes one of creation, and continued decay through exposure to the sun’s light gradually erases the ephemeral image: ‘now’ can only be read with reference to the future.
* ‘Now’ is a term we use to indicate that we are referring to neither before nor after this current time. However, the point between what has happened and what is yet to happen does not really exist: even if we look very closely, down to time quanta, it becomes clearer that ‘now’ remains a boundary, a moving point between all things that can happen (or all potential) and all things that have happened (or all experience.)
The Current Time Displayed as the Value of Light from a Seven Segment Display
online in real time thecurrenttime.com.au
Artist Talk Thursday 15 June 4–6pm
Ravi Avasti speaks to the origins and development of the work in No(w) Now, his working methods and material explorations. All welcome.
No(w) Now speaks to ‘now’ as an immeasurable and moving boundary between what has been and what is yet to be, between all knowledge and all potential, and invites recontextualization of our assumed realities.
Ravi Avasti is an artist that through the processes of making, unmaking and remaking, Avasti attempts to recontextualise the rhythms and sparkles that he sees, offering opportunity to experience the phenomena from new perspectives. He employs multiple strategies to accomplish this, including the illustration of distinctions and ‘otherness’ via remediation and reformation; the simultaneous use of concealment and revelation; and the privileging of chance. Many works address notions of inclusion and exclusion, whilst containing a strict logic or system and a resultant ritualistic element.
Avasti completed a Master of Contemporary Art at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, 2018. He was selected as one of eleven artists to feature in the Kyneton Contemporary Art Triennial 2022, was shortlisted for the 2019 Keith and Elisabeth Murdoch Travelling Fellowship, and was awarded the 2018 Fiona Myer White Story Residency for his work in the Victorian College of the Arts Masters exhibition. His solo exhibition Little Fleas was held at Grau Projekt, Melbourne, 2019. His work has been included in a number of curatorial projects and group exhibitions. He has received commissions from the Sydney Opera House, and Victoria Police. Ravi lives and works in Kyneton, Victoria.