Contemporary artists’ passionate embrace of new media arts challenges conventional viewer perceptions calling into play alternate modes of seeing and thinking. Addressing prevalent issues through use of commonplace objects, elements or features new generation artists are not just evolving a new vocabulary but also unusual methodologies to create artworks.

The current ‘Miniature Matters’ exhibition of works by Aamir Habib and Taqi Shaheen at the VM Gallery, Karachi, is yet another new media show where novel use of art and technology has been brought into play to enunciate critical commentary.

The title, ‘Miniature Matters’ refers primarily to the minor or small subtleties of everyday encounters, objects or matters that often go unnoticed or whose presence is taken for granted — it accesses the miniature genre per se, only as a subtext.

Habib’s sculptural installation, a fibre glass figure of Osama bin Laden mimicking a Greek philosopher’s statue stands in front of an open, upright, Lasani board coffin fitted with LED lights. Aptly titled, ‘The ghost’, the figure in a darkened space appears as a sanctified apparition stepping out of a coffin. Conceptually the idea lends credence to the conspiracy theories surrounding Osama ‘s death. His followers have fabricated a myth around his presence to keep his ideology alive in order to conscript new recruits and keep the movement active.

This installation is an oblique commentary on propagandist motives and how gullible young minds continue to be mesmerised by this mythical manifestation. Similarly the, ‘Vision is scary’, another installation by Habib refers to zealots rousing minds with lofty ideals in order to achieve nefarious gains. This installation centralises on a taxidermied coyote wearing oversized binoculars. It is looking at twin circular images (c-print) of sublime, idyllic landscapes. Fanatical propagation of martyrdom and sacrifice with promises of paradise as a heavenly garden creates a credible context to this otherwise bizarre artwork.

The second artist in the show, Shaheen, reconfigures an inconsequential element like electronic noise into intriguing art vocabulary. Noise, referent to video and television, is a random dot pattern of static displayed when no transmission signal is obtained by the antenna receiver of television set. Visible as a random flicker of ‘dots’ or ‘snow’, it is the result of electronic noise and radiated electromagnetic noise accidentally picked up by the antenna.

One impression of the ‘snow’ is of fast-flickering black bugs on a cool white background. Shaheen capitalises on the dotted ‘no signal’ or disruption effect to create his series of dichotomies, contradictions and conflicts. In his single channel video, ‘Noise-sense’, he upholds and ridicules the television simultaneously as a transmitter of information and as an idiot box that overwhelms the viewer with excessive and unnecessary data.

The imagery in his prints on archival paper, be it photographs or painted subjects, is partially concealed or censored with superimposition of slabs of electronic noise or fields of dots. Images of classical miniature paintings are irregularly blocked out with bands of ‘static’ to emphasise the polarity between the old and current versions of the genre and the discord between tradition and modernity.

A black and white archive photograph of Jinnah and Gandhi, partially screened or camouflaged, alludes to the schism between the dream and reality surrounding the story of Pakistan. The video, ‘Fishy matters’ centralises on distorted imagery of goldfish swimming in water. Street vendors hawking water-filled polythene bags containing small goldfish is a common sight.

This video focusing on these transparent bags also captures varied reflections of the street’s hustle bustle. The ordinary public passing by appears as harried and distraught as the fish swimming to and fro in the small water bags. Shaheen strikes a note of optimism in this video which establishes that existence in abnormal environments is difficult but not impossible.

A previous exhibition in Sept 2012 at Koel Gallery, Karachi, and the current show has manifested Shaheen and Habib’s considerable ingenuity and resourcefulness. The current generation of artists succeeding the trailblazers and pioneers of new art is free from the trauma of deconstructing or discarding tradition to create contemporary art. They are taking their cues from already resolved models.

Moreover growing, practising and developing in an age of unusual chaos and turmoil young artists here critique disorder not with alarm and despair but with a cool rationale often tweaked with biting humour.

Hardy and resilient they have the aplomb and inventiveness to explore new directions to address their concerns. Seeking practical solutions to complex problems they are able to view things that other people are inclined to take for granted as inherently questionable.