Text, Illumination and Surface Modification of an Abandoned House

24 Jor Bagh, Delhi (2013)

The House of Everything and Nothing is an exploration of the infinity of worlds that Raqs Media Collective inhabit.

In 2013, Raqs asked a software programmer to come up with an algorithm that could help render the pattern generated data harvested from the “conversation traffic” between the their three personal computers in their studio in Shahpur Jat, New Delhi and the world. This pattern is the way in which they inhabit the world. It is the house that their work lives in, the tent it pitches as it makes its way through this time, here, now.

In The House of Everything and Nothing, Raqs translate this pattern into a texture that clads the surface for the Gujral house in Jor Bagh, New Delhi. The pattern is etched and incised into the plaster surface of the outer walls of the house. The grooves so created are filled with illuminated LED wires. Once lit, the house looks as if it were tattooed by a swirling circuit of light, as if it were the conduit for messages that had to cross its surface before they made their way into the world.