Drawings of a Conversation

Shown at: Project 88, Mumbai(2012)

A set of 4 framed black and white prints on archival paper
31” x 31” each (79x79cms)

In 2011-12, while exploring the interwoven nature of ideas, processes, and dialogues, Raqs invited self-taught computer programmer Suraj Rai to map a snapshot of their collaborative thinking. He plotted the signal traffic between the three Raqs computers as they worked together in their Delhi studio on a single afternoon. What emerged was a speculative meshwork—an intricate pattern tracing the flow of conversations, data, and exchanges, capturing a moment of intellectual and creative synchrony.

Drawings of a Conversation distills this invisible yet dynamic interplay into a series of prints. The networked lines reveal the structure of an ongoing dialogue—an abstract yet precise rendering of thought in motion. Each print becomes a record of presence and exchange, a visual echo of the conversations shaping the collective’s practice.

For ‘The Great Bare Mat and Constellation’ this meshwork of lines became the basis for a drawing for a carpet (Design: Amitabh Kumar). The meshwork enveloped a house in ‘House of Everything and Nothing’ (Outset, New Delhi, 2013), and for ‘The Autodidact’s Transport’, the lines encased a metro carriage (design Mansoor Ali). The meshwork manifested as a video for ‘Diagram for the Last International’ (edited by Rajan Singh and Manas Jyoti Baruah).