India, April 3 -- I am fascinated with the interplay of something fixed becoming something in motion. In the hands of a clever artist, this can happen without anything actually moving. Delhi-based Susanta Mandal, 61, is that kind of artist.

His kinetic sculptures aren't exactly wind-up dolls or automata. Consider his Magic Lantern series, in which innocuous objects such as technical drawings and portraits are overlaid with moving wires so as to cast changing shadows on the image. In another series, presented under the titles Caged Sacks and It Doesn't Bite, viewers are presented with what seems to be a sack of jute. But wait, why is it twitching? Is someone trapped inside? Mandal achieves the effect with a simple mechanical contraption h...