Self-Loathing Flashmob

Hardeep Pandhal created a new installation in the institutional environs of Kelvin Hall’s foyer and dancehall.

The work of Pandhal carried a satirical and acerbic cartoonish drawing style, employed across different media including sculpture and animation. He often drew upon his background as a second generation British Sikh raised in the industrial West Midlands city of Birmingham to reflect on the psychological and material effects of assimilation in broader society.

Surrounded by a motley crew of schizoid figures that block and ‘guide’ us with their dissimulating voices, a speculative vision presented on old and new monitors formed a large sculptural monolith. Here, digital drawings defaced and reinterpreted fragments of video footage shot by Pandhal in a university lecture theatre during its occupation by student protestors in response to the 2010 UK governmental cuts to education.

With this large-scale work, stretching across two floors, he presented an upturned world suggesting that whilst technology might mutate, evolve and eventually slip into obsolescence, the sociopathic tendencies of the ‘totalising eye’ remain dangerously consistent.

Commissioned by Glasgow International. Supported by Glasgow Museums.