Week 13 response

This week’s reading on “Post- Postcolonialism Sensory Infrastructure” by Ravi Sundaram discusses the development of infrastructures with recent years and the resulting problems on a social, political, and environmental level. And the second reading “On the Grid” by Erika Balsom refers to the symbol of the grid and how it offers a new dimensional perspective and elaborates with examples of artworks. I found a really difficult time connecting these two subject, I feel like in ways they contradict themselves. Possibly they explore similar ways in which developmental shifts have affected the modern artistic and political lens. I really enjoy the reading “On the Grid” and valued the ways in which Balsom articulates and elaborates about  “the grid”. Commenting on “the grid” she states, “It remains stubbornly present, persisting in the array of pixels that forms the basis of every digital picture. Perhaps, more importantly, the grid is a trope for thinking about a contemporary habitus, an existence lived at the intersection of technology and power. Beyond the grid of the image is the grid of the network, a virtual rather than geometric space – a space of relations, subjection and maneuver.” I found a lot her ideas resonating with me because I was thinking about the exact same concept of “the grid” while I made a piece for this class that explored the concept of pixels, digital images, and grids. Especially the points she made about how the grid functions as an environment for pixels, this thinking made me consider the ways in which programs are limitless and timeless but occurring on a 2-d dimensional screen. Even now typing these words I ponder on the thought of this space and where it starts and ends.