Sri Lanka was gripped by civil war for decades. Between 1983 and 2009, Tamil Eelam fought for independence using everything at their disposal to claw at liberation: violence, information, the internet. But after years of bloodshed, the uprising was brutally quashed.
The hope for revolution, liberty and independence courses through Christopher Kulendran Thomas’s show at the ICA. In the main gallery, huge figures in hooded ghillie suits stand camouflaged against videos of Sri Lankan jungles, each of them part-monk, part-soldier, mediating in and guarding their ancient lands. The voice of a Tamil revolutionary fills the space alongside ambient pad sounds and rave rhythms. The film installation – combined with generative imagery on opposite screens – is like a sci fi vision of a battle not only for land, but for cultural legacies too.
Upstairs is a series of paintings based on images by AI tech trained on Western art history. The artist is exploring aesthetic histories and how they link with and get twisted by technology. It’s a nice enough idea, but the paintings themselves look like any generic commercial gallery trophy art. I get that that’s the point. But if your intention is to make boring paintings, even as a comment on the nature of art history, don’t be surprised when people find those paintings boring. Plus, the idea of painting based on AI prompts is one of the most overdone tropes in contemporary art right now.
The final film here tracks a journey across Sri Lanka, and eventually you get the feeling that these are two separate shows: one about liberation and independence, the other about AI art, and the links between them are just too flimsy to make a functional, satisfying whole.