‘Smarter Digital Realities’ is an online residency program designed and mapped out by Sandbox Collective, in collaboration with Goethe Institut, Bangalore, curated by Padmini Ray Murray.

The hybrid residency invites 21 artists across Pune, Dhaka, Mumbai and Bangalore, spending time online and offline reflecting upon how cities have grown to be mediated by the digital, translating their views and experiences into art.

Residency Facilitators

Trishla Talera | Pune TIFA Working Studios Najmun Nahar Keya | Dhaka

Freelancing Visual Artist

Michaela Talwar | Mumbai Harkat Studios Padmini Ray Murray | Bangalore Design Beku

Anokhi Shah | India Imagine a playful, interactive space, where you can walk, run or jump around turn and corners, find hidden objects, touch the sky or sit by a lake.

An immersive representation of a virtual city, set with iconic buildings from Bangalore, Dhaka, Pune and Mumbai which becomes a gateway into different parts of the online exhibition - a space where you can teleport yourself through an artist directory to look at different works. Yogesh Ramkrishna | India Brahm “Brahm”- The future which has no name...

"The work attempts to articulate the concept of the ‘Smart City’ as mythmaking. It undergoes various aspects and understandings of the word “Smart” with respect to the socio-political conditions of the current society. Through the work, I am looking at the smart city project by considering it as the creation of a futuristic delusion called “Brahm”. This creation initiates with a dream...which has been seen by the power holding seats for the common working-class people for their beneficial future.

In the beginning, these Smart city Brahms are being implanted in the minds of people through various means of advertising and promises by the Government that provides me a space to interact and involve in smaller aspects of Smart city life.

By taking on road monumental statues as an example, I am trying to provide a vision or act of forming delusion about the city's futures in the minds of residents.

By taking roadside monumental status as a platform to engage, inform, entertain, and realise the actual truth of the present. Work stands as the possible evolution of these chowk Statues into a smarter digital way." Ria Rajan | India Drifting through the Cityverse

Inspired by the practices of The Situationist International and the construction of situations, and building on prior experiments done by urban explorers interested in the subject of psychogeography, Drifting through the Cityverse is a virtual sculptural intervention located within this specific multi-city verse, based on chance encounters with the sculptures while drifting through the space.

These objects - part treasure, part oracles, hold prompts that could change the course of your wanderings, carrying elements of surprise and discovery into this newly imagined metaverse. Debangshu Moulik | India "Right after the Bal Gandharva bridge is an area in Pune filled with tiny printing shops where one can meet most of their printing needs. I have been frequenting this area for the last seven years to print most of my artworks. One can catch a glimpse of all the flyers and flexes pasted around the city, being prepared and cut here.

While waiting for my prints, I would usually strike up a conversation with the people working there. Ever since, I have always wanted to make a story revolving around these conversations.

I made this fictional short film based on the people who print and put up the flyers which form such an integral part of the visual identity of any city. I hope this film helps you revisit and observe your surroundings in a new light."