Technology exists in the world as its own being, much like water, trees, insects, bricks, or hammers. While its constitutive parts can be analyzed and broken down, technology exerts its own force—both creative and destructive—shaping and being shaped by the beings it interacts with. This idea aligns with Heidegger’s view that technology is not merely a collection of tools but a mode of revealing, shaping how we encounter and understand the world. My work explores this entanglement, rejecting a narrow view of technology as merely computational or digital. Instead, I consider an expanded definition that includes everyday tools, mechanical
systems, and infrastructural networks.
My practice is both conceptually driven and aesthetically grounded. While my work engages with theoretical and philosophical questions around technology, it remains rooted in materiality, form, and embodied experience. I employ minimal and formalist aesthetic strategies, using sculpture and media art to reveal the rhythms, textures, and agency of technological systems. Rather than treating technology as purely instrumental, I approach it through a lens informed by Jugaad, the Indian practice of improvisation and frugal innovation. In my practice, I resist efficiency and utility, instead embracing technology’s uselessness, its capacity for drift, play, and breakdown.
Currently, I am developing Ambient Automation, a body of work that explores slow, subtle interactions with technology. While contemporary discourse around art and technology often gravitates toward immersion, simulation, and high-definition spectacle, I am drawn to ambient, ephemeral gestures—works that function on the periphery of perception. This approach is influenced by Yuk Hui’s concept of cosmotechnics, which critiques the universalist notion of technology and instead emphasizes its embeddedness in specific cultural and philosophical traditions. Drawing from Eastern thought, including Sufism and Hindu asceticism, I create works
that encourage stillness and attentiveness, revealing the quieter dimensions of technological experience.
Through my practice, I seek to cultivate an alternative discourse around technology—one that moves beyond control and productivity toward an open-ended engagement with its presence in the world.
Bio
I was born in New Delhi, India, and currently reside in Ypsilanti, MI. My work has been exhibited at various national and international venues, including Science Gallery Detroit, Speculum Artium Media Festival in Slovenia, New Media Caucus (NMC), Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, The Boulder Public Library, The Boulder Creative Collective Warehouse, The Hyde Park Art Center, Sector 2337 Art Gallery & Printing Press, Tangible Embedded Interaction (TEI), International Symposium of Electronic Arts (ISEA), and Infosys Pathfinders Institute.
I am also a member of Wetware Instruments, a performance duo creating work at the intersection of sound art, performance, chemistry, biology, and digital technology.
CV
Email: abnarula@umich.edu
MFA Studio Art - Stamps School of Art and Design, University of Michigan
MS/BS Electrical Engineering - Georgia Institute of Technology