Kalanjay Dhir

Kalanjay Dhir is an artist based in Sydney on unceded Dharug Land. He has made work about rivers, games, space technology, sci-fi, myth, social media, Mountain Dew, urban development, progress and time.

Working with sculpture, video and internet objects, Dhir is interested in near-futurism and spirituality through mythological and speculative technologies. In his spare time he enjoys reading manga and imagining what things would look like if they were built with a secular devotion. In 2021, Dhir is developing new video works commissioned by Fairfield City Museum and Gallery and the Sydney Opera House.

Since graduating from Sydney College of the Arts in 2016, Dhir has presented solo exhibitions at Firstdraft, Peacock Gallery and Wentworth Point Community Centre and Library. In 2020, Dhir presented works at Next Wave Festival (online) and was the recipient of the Fauvette Loureiro Emerging Scholarship. Since 2017, Dhir has worked from Parramatta Artists Studios and is a founding co-director of Pari, an artist-run space in Western Sydney. In addition to his work in the visual arts, Dhir has performed at venues and festivals across Australia including Golden Plains 2020 and Soft Centre 2018. Alongside Kilimi, he hosts Wednesday Sunset on FBi Radio as ‘2K’

Kalanjay Dhir's work Stream was shown in Gallery 5 on the ACMI website as part of the Unfinished Camp exhibition (24 Sep – 19 Dec 2021)

About Stream

Stream is a video work and thought experiment in three parts.

Part One is centred around a character named Bagong, who is derived from Javanese shadow puppetry known as Wayang. Presented as a digitally rendered avatar, Bagong is introduced to us in free fall, in the artist’s neighbourhood of Parramatta (Dharug country, Sydney).

Part Two sees Bagong land in Dhir’s family home, and share a papaya with his mother, Sri.

Part Three takes on the format of a Twitch stream hosted by Bagong as a VTuber (virtual streamer). Bouncing between gaming worlds, Bagong and his friends muse on trust, cryptography and futures.

Credits

Original Soundtrack by Neil Cabatingan (Kuya Neil) MUA by Nandini Dhir
Mother played by Sri W. Dhir
Additional footage and production by Chi Tran
Heinzbigred voiced by Max Wee
Zaccyboy101 voiced by Zachary Gough

RTX render by @scarpvfx
Additional gameplay footage of ‘Sonata in b minor for unity’ by Akil Ahamat

Made using: Adobe Suite, Discord, VRoid Studio, VSeeFace, VDraw, OBS Studio, No Man Sky, Overwatch, NoClip.Website, Splice, Unity, Mixamo, YouTube

Stream was made on the unceded land, water and skies of the Dharug peoples.