from 'The Scorpion Gesture' series, a suite of five digital animations commissioned by the Rubin Museum of Art.

"Adventures of the White Beryl is inspired by the multi-leaf manuscript in the adjacent room, and it follows the encounters of a shape-shifting protagonist who appears as woman, shadow, universe, animal, and machine at different points in the story. The piece has a nonlinear, cyclical narrative form and draws on the endless permutations of conflict, rebirth, and transformation alluded to in the White Beryl’s elemental divination texts. I was particularly struck by how the manuscript characterizes one’s life trajectory as a highly contingent series of bodily changes, physical challenges, and natural calamities, which seem both inevitable and avoidable. I sought to play with the signifiers such as zodiac animals and natural and bodily elements, as well as the visual language of the White Beryl itself. Early stop-motion animation, such as the work of Harry Smith, was an equally important point of reference. The resulting animation overlaps significantly with the aesthetics of vintage comics and early video games, using sequential action and game board–like sequences as a visual framework for navigating life’s dangers and dream-like paths."

- Chitra Ganesh, 2018