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40 x 15 x 14 cm approx. (L x W x H)
Plexiglass, PVC, Aluminum, Vinyl, Microcontroller, Stepper motor & PIR Sensor.
2022
There are approximately 7.7 billion people on Earth, with at least half of the global population that goes online. The rapid and fast adoption of internet and the Internet of Things is changing our ways of living. Simultaneously, Internet users are physically as well as virtually present, with both dimensions impacting each other. Our real existence is archived online as content; our real emotions are affected by quantifiable activities and interactions; our real insights are formed from the information we consume digitally; and our real relationships find their roots in direct messages and virtual communication. Modern day algorithms are well aware of this – and all the activities and interactions we perform on our screens are used as data points to further direct, influence, market, and engage our online presence. This work explores the element of quantifiable online data, which occurs seemingly in random sequence but points towards a calculated and analytical structure at work. The self-referential analog mechanism that houses this work is a backwards glance onto the technology that existed only a few decades ago and signifies its astoundingly rapid evolution to a modern age of artificial intelligence, Internet of Things and self-evolving algorithms.
Dreams on SALE
Site Specific Installation
24.8540337545196, 67.01542830969038
Single-channel videos on 3x CRT Televisions
2021
The construction of something new requires destruction of something that exists. Karachi’s apathetic urgency for urban planning testifies to this fact more than ever. A city constantly in a state of flux, it experiences an ironic contrast of new developments that promise a better tomorrow and versus the unregulated eradication of the present & past that affirms an unsteady, unsustainable future. In this process, the architectural and environmental legacy of the city is continually degraded. One of the most blatant ironies of this dilemma can be witnessed in glamorized adverts of luxury villas, modern apartment complexes, and prosperous housing societies. They come packed in commercial imagery that mocks itself and bold promises that are difficult to digest. Yet beggars can’t be choosers, so we buy dreams on sale and be thankful for instalment plans.
You Are What You Eat
Toy Fish Game in Water Buckets
Installation – 2020
The romantic notion of the city by the sea makes every Karachiite swell with pride – and why should it not? We never miss a chance to crowd around it, or celebrate it with confetti made from plastic bags, toffee wrappers and tin cans. We treat the sea’s marine inhabitants to new flavors each day and in turn, we delight at the taste of fried fish in the winter. It is with pride I say, we share a sustainable relationship with the sea!
The water crisis in the city is a myth – we live next to a vast body of water! Do these people waiting in line with buckets in hand not know this? The sea is vast. Go straight, take a right, look beyond the blackened beach, no, further, past all the waste and debris and there – you see? That’s the sea.
What you reap is what you sow – what you throw is what you eat. Up to 82% of Pakistan’s fish production is consumed by humans each year. Despite close vicinity to the sea, Karachiites continue to live in the irony of a water crisis.
This work aims to recognize the close relationship we share with the sea by bringing its viewers in close, intimate interaction through play. Our proximity to the sea has led to an indifference towards it. It is time to peer closely again and see what we have done to the sea.
Office [Metamorphose]
Interactive Installation
Dimensions: 148" x 50" x 48"
HTML-5 Video Games on 6X Microcomputers
2020
The gradual shift towards an increasingly digital world which we witnessed in the last three decades has been exponentially accelerated by the events of the COVID-19 pandemic. The world now has no choice but to move to digital platforms which are termed our new reality. What was once a combination of analog and digital experiences has now become a fully digital experience. Outside, the world stands eerily silent. Digitally, the world is a hubbub of noise, interaction, experience, and transaction. Massive public infrastructure has become minimized, while intimate and domestic spaces have become the workplaces. Where homes are becoming cluttered, offices are transforming into abandoned places. Read more
Avoid emm all!
Video game / HTML
2020
This game’s interactivity engages the player into an immersive experience that resembles their current reality. As the pandemic forces us into a lockdown state, it has become a novel experience none of us were trained for. Needs like utilities and groceries right down to the simple need for getting a breath of fresh air are such that one cannot simply shut their doors to the world outside. The objective of this game is to observe the trends and patterns of the threat that Coronavirus poses, and to navigate the route as best as possible. As you play, you become conscious of maintaining your distance from the objects that threaten you. Moving smartly and playing the game with anticipation of achieving essential targets is the only solution. Reality and virtual reality amalgamate into one. The objective and the experience remains the same, whether you navigate the game literally or through the screen.
"In Karachi live birds who fly from trees"
Emerging Artist Prize - Karachi Biennial 19
Dimensions: 11 x 5 x 1.25 cm (each)
(Total 1500 editions)
Medium: HDEP, PVC, Latex & Water, 2019.
With the rise of urbanization, cities like Karachi grow larger, bringing an increase in the interaction between wildlife and urban ecosystems. Often perceived as the antithesis of nature, cities are an existing archive of what was and what is – they themselves are the proof of the damaging impact of their incessant societal demands and their disregard for nature. The horizon of Karachi silently testifies the change it has faced in the past two decades; it is an erratic and disordered horizon interrupted by high rise buildings, tangles of wires, mobile towers, and the backdrop of a polluted environment, where once was an ordered horizon comprised of an urban system existing within nature, with visible trees and the backdrop of a blue sky. Read more
Physical venue of a video game
Interactive Arcade Game Console
Dimensions: 36" x 36" x 40"
Artist`s Proof
Mix Media
2019
In today’s age of smartphones and digital technologies, arcade games are considered obsolete. Available at any moment via apps, computers, and game consoles, there is hardly any need left for arcade game consoles. This has led to the end of video game culture that once was considered the height of entertainment and recreation.
This piece is reminiscent of a culture that has met its end. It evokes nostalgia for those who have experienced this culture firsthand, all the while emphasizing the importance of socially interactive recreational activity like that which arcade gaming once provided. Read more
PONG
Interactive Arcade Game Console
Dimensions: 34 x 28 x 38 inches
1 / 3 Edition
Mix Media
Games are constructed precisely for a reason, to depict the structure of a civilization or a society. It comprises of multiple layers of social values, ethics and fundamental behaviors of human nature. Under the theme of microcosm this work is well-constructed, plotted and symbolic illusion of reality, basically works to sustain the system by fulfilling the wildest desires and prejudices of the viewer.
The work PONG is an exact replica of the 1972 arcade game, ‘Pong’ after which it was named. It followed the same two-dimensional graphics as the original game of table tennis but instead of the typical 1 and 2 numbering for each player, Pakistan and India took its place. Audience members could play the two-player game by inserting two coins and this attracted all age groups. Games are replications of reality in some form or the other; pinning two against each other will obviously raise the competitive levels as their can only by one winner. Similarly, labeling Player 1 and 2 as Pakistan and India, one recalls the constant and sometimes childish dispute between the two countries. Be it cricket matches or denied visas, the hostility between the neighbors is high and evident. It is true that many, especially the youth, have tried to push away prejudice and offer olive branches to the other, but many still exist with blind enmity for the opposing side. I was trying to manage to entertain my audience while bringing to light one of the most prevalent issues, all while using an item iconic to those who’ve experienced the pre-online era.
by Jovita Alvares, ArtNow - Microcosm
Story Box
Interactive Sound Installation
Dimensions: 12" x 18" x 20"
Medium: Iron, Marble. Wood & Sensor
2016
A box which tells a story, but what story does it tell us? A story about storytelling, a story about a box or perhaps a story about something that has nothing to do with a box or story? And what kind of box is it? Is it a box with a lock protecting the story inside? Or is it a box we would find in a mosque, a church or a temple to collect support for people in need? Note by @sundasazfer
This work is an interactive sound piece that operates like a storyteller whenever money is inserted, replicating the act of charity in which the reward is in the form of a cassette story/cassette kahani. It was exhibited at the residence of Dutch ambassador, Ms. H.E. Jeannette Seppen as part of the 'At Home' exhibit curated by Sundus Azfar in 2017, Islamabad.
Absent / Present
Interactive Sound Installation
Dimensions: approx. 20 ft in diameter
Medium: School bags, proximity sensors & speakers
2017
In this sensory installation, Nasir investigates personal stories, and collective recollection of society through memorized rhymes. this includes the combination of ideas such as recalling, and imagination in the formation of personal histories.
According to Nietzsche, while in the world of animals genetic programs guarantee the survival of the species, human must find a means by which to maintain their nature consistently through generations. Verbal memory provides a solution to this, as it generates a collective concept for all the direct experiences and behaviors offered through this interactive structure of cultural memory we share as a society and through such knowledge we obtain societal practices and customs. Read more
100 Dead Fish
Public Art Installation
Dimensions: 800 Yards
Medium: Acrylics & High Density Polymer - Air Blown
2017
The beautiful and restless Karachi has such diversity that at times it seems like the city is in total chaos. But it isn`t. I am interested in the diversity of cultures, lifestyles and towns within this gigantic metropolis. For me, the possibilities to create Social Sculpture can be found in social gatherings and when I think about the largest and most diverse gathering spot in Karachi, I always end up at the sea! The Sea View beach is a focal point where we can witness one of the densest gatherings where people come from all over the country. I see people who have come to witness the mesmerizing face of Mother Nature and the coast becomes a thin borderline between nature and the man made. However if one goes to the sea of Karachi, there isn`t just a realization of the beautiful seascape – there is also the recognition of the immense sacrifices nature has to make to accommodate all the inhabitants of this huge city. We have continuously been dumping the waste of this city into the sea, which has created tragic consequences in the form of death and destruction of aquatic species that live in the ocean. My site to intervene in a social gathering is Sea View as I am interested in in creating a happy yet disturbing picture in a surrealistic visual at this site. Working with both organic and inorganic materials to dig deeper into this concern, I see this possibility to use the shore of the beach as my canvas and people as potential creative individuals who can start a dialogue for awareness about ecological concerns and our behavior towards it. Find more @VASL
Sea Scape
Interactive Work
Dimensions: 11" x 9"
Medium: Transparent film, LED, wood, aluminum & sensor
2014
How many versions did we produce over the period of time of a single remembering which took place in a distant past? It’s like if we produced magic! Because we created a new thing every time or a unique piece of story with least effort in the process of making. This work juxtapose drawings from my childhood upon recent photographs I took of a familiar place, The sea-view. Idea is to visualize the gap between past and present; how childhood memories harden and transform in the process of growing up.
The empty sofa is loaded with history
Duration 8 min, 20 sec.
Medium: Single channel video mounted on frame
2013
Maybe we just aren’t there to witness, but time must exist before and after us. Why bother about something which is ever changing and trans-formative in nature. We aren’t remembered through our versions of reality. We will be seen through others' version of reality after we die. There are two things: one is myself and my self-awareness, which is my version of reality. Second is how we are perceived and communicated through others' perspectives and understandings. These multiple versions of a single identity are far more complex than they seem. Through an installation using single channel video on loop placed on a mounted frame, Nasir investigates how multiple versions of a single identity are far more complex than they seem.
That Yashica reel camera
of yours! 📷
Interactive Work (Diptych)
Dimensions: 32.5" x 26.5"
Medium: Transparent films on vinyl, aluminum, photosensitive sensors & LED.
2013
Thank you dear mother for archiving our day to day happenings of childhood days. What you did will always remain important visual evidence of my self-identity. These pictures of our childhood act as pebbles of remembrance against fading memory creating a narrative which develops into a sense of identity. The sequence of these narratives depends on the act of recalling. One day I was enjoying going through old archives of familial photographs, especially my childhood pictures which my mother used to take very frequently. I realize that the drawing room setting of one of those photographs is still the same, an existing place which is still the same since childhood. Without my mother photographing these moments, my childhood existence would have been a forgotten reality.
This work is an attempt to investigate how technologies of representation and personal memories of time allow self-presentation and function as a productive means of self-knowledge. Thank you Ammi (Mother) for doing all this!
Love letters
Interactive Work (series)
Dimensions: 18 x 25 cm.
Medium: Films & Non tear-able Vinyl, LED circuit and Touch Sensors.
2015
Objects are not blank carriers onto which humans project prior psychic dramas, but rather place crucial importance on the precise materials from which they are made, their social, cultural and historic reasons for being and the way we interact with them through our senses. These things belong to the time when I had that one pen with 4 colors, and tried to push all the buttons at once, went on the Computer just to use Paint... it was the age when we used to think that the moon followed our car, we restart the video game whenever we knew that we were going to lose. These letters are a result of Eid (Festival) greeting card exchange between my siblings and cousins. This series was an attempt to archive those joyful juncture of expressing sentiments.
Stairs
Dimensions: 45 x 67 cm.
Medium: Films & Non tear-able Vinyl, LED circuit and Touch Sensors.
2013
Yeh wo jagah hai jis par kabhi
Khailay thay hum tum
Mil kar sabhi ♥️ Inspired by the lyrics of Bachpan, Kaavish.
True form of ART is in living, engaging. When it gives meaningful expressions, stories, memories and patterns of everyday life.
Rainy Days of Childhood
Dimensions: 26.5 x 17.5 cm
Medium: Digital Print on Non tear-able vinyl, Color Films, LED, Sensor.
2014
A memoir that exists somewhere in the past two decades: photograph of a dry, unused umbrella juxtaposed with childhood drawing of an umbrella let out to dry after rain.
Sky Scape
Dimensions: 45.5 x 25 cm
Medium: Digital Print on Non tear-able vinyl, Color Films, LED, Sensor.
2014
Photograph of an urban landscape juxtposed with childhood drawings of play. Recalling memories of kite flying and how they dotted the sky colorfully.
Surroundings
The things made us who we are today, the Stories we never want to lose. These tales sometimes transcends form a single memory of an individual to the “collective” memory of “individualities” making a social identity we all shares in a society. Without these collective stories which we all share, the culture of a distinct society would lack vivacity, without the cultural context the stories would lack significance. The specific belongings and surroundings which helps us to derive memories, seems to maintain these social contexts to generations.
An Apple Tree
Dimensions: 19 x 25 cm
Medium: Digital Print on Non tear-able vinyl, Color Films, LED, Sensor.
2014
Home Sweet Home
Dimensions: 43 x 25 cm
Medium: Digital Print on Non tear-able vinyl, Color Films, LED, Sensor.
2014
Space Balloon
Dimensions: 35.5 x 25 cm
Medium: Digital Print on Non tear-able vinyl, Color Films, LED, Sensor.
2014
Storeroom
Installation of carton boxes
Dimensions: Variable
Medium: UV poly-carbonate sheet, digital prints on transparent film & vinyl, photosensitive sensors and LED
2013
This installation featured a stack of cartons piled up in a dark setting illuminated via hidden sensors anytime they were approached by viewers. Nasir’s idea was to evoke memory and nostalgia through intimate objects.