"Inside, the light and space of a structure, which feels like Rome's Termini Station crossed with a cathedral, make the spirit soar. The curators — Raqs Media Collective from New Delhi — haven't let a good metaphor escape them; aluminum smelting has become the key to their curation, raising apt images of extraction and residue. What's been extracted from Ex-Alumix isn't just aluminum but labor itself: the labor that once separated metal from rough ore..."
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"Over the last decade in India, intensive urbanisation, with the aid of the mass media,, has unleashed a new culture of fear. Widespread access to TV, text messaging and the Internet have heightened and played upon individuals' anxieties..."
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"Delhi's Raqs Media Collective is just one of the participants in the Mattress Factory's two-part India: New Installations exhibition. Relocating the artists to work in residence at the Gallery in Pittsburgh is a fitting experience for a group of media practitioners who find the expression 'unique Indian quality' meaningless and instead emphasize the agile, nomadic and sometimes volatile nature of contemporary culture ..."
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"On their website Raqs Media Collective, who formed in 1992, explain that Raqs 'is a word in Persian, Arabic and Urdu and means the state that whirling dervishes enter into when they whirl. It is also a word used for dance. At the same time Raqs could be an acronym for 'rarely asked questions'.' Based in Delhi, India, the collective comprises three artists..."
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