"Hekh: Detecting Signals and Generating Calls" was performed at SARAI, Center for Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) in New Delhi, India, under the Listening Academy x SARAI collaboration. The lecture performance lasted for 20 minutes, with a panel discussion at the end with Surbhi Mittal and Piyush (Zeropowercut). 

The work introduced the dual inhabitance of simultaneous sensing and signalling that Hekh embodies, through which the paradigm becomes apparent. The session traced Hekh's folk origins in Punjabi folk singing techniques, generating constant dips and surges to form an undying call;  Its guttural origins from our navel,  where the first continuity in our life is broken- the umbilical cord. It being a SONAR, makes the paradigm apparent when the frequency reflects off the socio-political and intellectual terrain makes apparent the contemporaries we inhabit; Contouring the impulses, desiring around Call #1 as a publication and the different textures, intensities and densities it generated through its multi-planar activation; along with hekh's capacity to generate spaces for discourse, dissent and for being in resonant, associative forms of being and churn within the world. Finally, hekh's contour, as a collection of frames, interested in conjuring new epistemic frameworks and interfaces through which we can process contemporary anxieties and historical burdens and trajectories at our own pace at time. 

   Images from "Hekh: Detecting Signals and Generating Calls",  at SARAI, Center for Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), New Delhi, India. 

Hekh is a contemporary arts entity that provides a platform to cultural practitioners from South Asia and beyond, thinking of the resonant forms of thinking and being. Hekh creates spaces for conversation, and discursive settings through curations, publications, gatherings, and other forms. Rahul Juneja ‘detected’ Hekh in 2023. 

Call #1 is the inceptional publication of Hekh, launched on 1st August, 2024, bringing together a unique mapping by 16 young artists, thinking together on how institutions and structures linger within artistic practices, navigating complex socio-cultural formulations and extending new, resonating imaginaries of practices emerging within the Delhi art milieu.

For more: www.hekh.in