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PhD RESEARCH . IIT JODHPUR

Research
How visual meaning transforms when sacred art moves from the temple wall to the screen.

My research examines the digital mediation of Kerala mural paintings. Rather than treating digitisation as neutral reproduction, I approach digital formats as active mediators — restructuring how visual heritage is seen, navigated, and understood. This work is grounded in visual and media studies, engaging with remediation theory (Bolter and Grusin), the politics of the image (W.J.T. Mitchell), and debates around aura and reproducibility extending from Benjamin into digital cultural heritage.

Theoretical Frameworks

ORIGINAL FRAMEWORK

Interface Performance

Digital interfaces do not simply display sacred images — they perform the conditions of encounter. Interface performance names this active restructuring: the way navigation, scale, sequencing, and interaction protocols reshape meaning-making for objects originally designed for embodied, spatial engagement.

ORIGINAL FRAMEWORK

Algorithmic sacredness

When temple murals circulate on platforms like Instagram, algorithmic curation — feed logic, hashtag structures, engagement metrics — becomes a secondary layer of mediation that reshapes their cultural and devotional meaning. Algorithmic sacredness examines how platform architecture inflects the reception of sacred visual art.

PhD THESIS

Murals and Digitality: An Exploration of the Digital Remediation of Kerala Mural Paintings

Objective One

To develop a prototype digital archive for Kerala mural paintings that foregrounds multilingualism, cultural context, and sustainable access — examining how digital platforms can preserve artistic and symbolic richness while broadening reach.

Objective Two

To examine the shifting dynamics of viewership as murals transition from site-specific contexts to digitally mediated environments — analysing how audience perception, emotional engagement, and interpretive depth are shaped by digital remediation.

Research Interests & Collaboration

The next phase of this research will extend the audience engagement methodology across more temple sites, with a view toward building scalable tools for community-accessible heritage documentation. I am particularly interested in questions of non-Western interface design for heritage, multilingual archival access, and participatory documentation practices.

I welcome conversations with researchers and institutions working at the intersection of digital heritage, visual studies, and South Asian cultural history. 

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