Workshop with Anna Fox -3rd Sept'12

Beyond the assignment, that I earlier mentioned, it was the workshop with Anna Fox that kept me occupied.

Briefly, the workshop was the summary about the technicality of photography to the context of one's work to all the intricacies involved behind publishing a photo.

What Anna has introduced to us is to look at how photographers work and how to finish a project. Starting from looking through the lens to analyzing and sorting, then weaving a narrative to finally getting them printed. Looking at her enthusiasm she would have got us to do an exhibition and funding for a large scale project had she stayed longer.

Personally I had stopped photography 2 years back when my digi camera stopped working. Looking back at it now, I think it has helped me get over the phase where the compositions were very regular with the same angle and not much thought behind the content. I was focusing more on the visual aspect, which I think is in a way good. But after picking up the aesthetics, it is also essential to think about the context and its relation to us. I was earlier more interested in colours and a certain way of looking at things. Also I never really worked hard enough to go beyond the obvious, meaning I use to visit the Old Delhi as it offered me people who were already used to being photographed.

For the first time I have actually started to ask people before shooting them. I think it is also ethical given the fact that these people might never even get to see their own photographs again. So before taking a shot I ask for their permission and after a shot I choose to show them. But what I am interested is to see them in their environment. And I am sure that there would be so many other ways to explore, so I can’t wait to grab my camera and go. 

I think photography has a certain advantage that no other medium offers. It is spontaneous. Even the idea of staging has some degree of spontaneity to it. My interest lies in interacting environment, and photography might be something that will help approach my practice. At least to the extent I have explored, it has brought certain subjects, its relation to the surrounding and a way to look and ponder at. With naked eyes we often tend to miss out the details. So even if we look from different angles, we don’t question what is it that we are ‘seeing’ and why. Camera acts as a space that lets us the time to delve.

Images from MIne the CIty -3rd September

Mine the City -3rd Sept'12

The first assignment of this semester just got over. Called Mine the City, I delved into the place called Basavanagudi. Lying South of Bangalore, this is the place whose history began before Bangalore began as a city. But one look at it now and you may mistake it for any other place. Modern buildings and same ubiquitous markets surround the place. The place built around the temples. They attract tourist from world over. But beyond that nothing is here looks really that old.

The brief was to express the essence of the place by using text. It tried to understand what text is beyond the written words. Text as I found out is:  

 ‘A book or other written or printed work, regarded in terms of its content rather than its physical form’.

The challenge was to embrace the place, feel it and then reflect on it. So I started to explore the area from various perspectives to bring forth the values and character. For the longest time I was unable to associate anything with history to this place. The only thing which made sense was the temple and the mythology associated with it.

I kept going back to the place, scraped through books, interviewed people till I found out about D V Gundappa.

DVG in short, he is a Kannadiga poet, whose works and thoughts are both diverse and articulate. The next step was scrolling through his poetry. 

One day while strolling through the flower market, hearing the gossips of the people around me I was reminded of a prose from Gundappa’s poetry book, called Nivedana. The poem is called the ‘traveller’s guide’. It’s a beautiful, ethereal poem dealing with the concept of life, time and thought. The text reflected the phenomenon of time and the way space changes over time.

To execute the assignment, I chose the road called Dr. DVG Road. It is a busy commercial road parallel to the Gandhi Bazaar road. To make sure that people don't pester for writing the text on the road, I chose to do the assignment early morning. I used chalk, which is an ephemeral material, and wrote the text on the main road and then recorded over time as the text disappeared, as natural and human actions took precedence. The entire change was recorded, the reactions of the passerby documented and finally it was made into a short video.

Thinking of it now, if I had got more time, I would refined the idea a lot more. It needs to be pointed out that the assignment was to be of a very short duration, so it was not feasible to stretch it for too long.

It would made sense to retain certain elements like the element of time, space, interactivity. But on another level I found it’s too simple. I could have layered the text with materials relevant to the area and enriched the meaning. So that was all about the assignment.

As I start working on other assignments, I realize how wonderful my current project has been. Not only have I got to meet few really good professionals but also managed to resume certain interest which lied dormant previously

Workshop activities -27th August'12

The excitement of being in a place and being occupied by so many things are still exciting but I but I rue the fact that I don’t get to paint these days.

Few days back I was actually contemplating the various steps I took before joining Srishti… from the years doing painting to the time I spent in travelling, and later working with the start-up… how much has life changed so far? Sometime back I was thinking on how life would be if the concept of failure is erased…how will we define success then? Will it even exist?

Anyways moving away from philosophy, I will share all the stuff that is going on in class. I will begin with few of the workshops I have attended. The first is the creativity workshop by Pandrang, we call him Pandy. Two days of fun, brainstorming and conversations. He is an advertisement guy, so our conversation veered from films, music, books to food…it was almost like someone waking up us from sleep. Among few of the stuff he shared, I liked the concept of a T-shaped learning. Yes! You heard it right. It means that like the horizontal bar of a T, you should learn about all kinds of stuff but like the vertical long line in T, you should know one thing well, very well. The discussion started with creativity, exercises to channelize it. I can’t talk for others, but I was rather surprised how inactive I have become. It helped me know where I am going in the Mine the City project.

The other project which is nearing completion is the Qualitative Research class. We are now left with getting everything together and make a final presentation at the school. After spending just one and a half months with this course, I feel that time has been a constrain. A course with more time and proper follow-up through regular feedback is more useful than just getting stuffed with new ideas. One needs an execution ground after a point.

Anyways the next and also the most exciting workshop is the one I had with Anna Fox. She is very vibrant and her works has a strong colour sense. What makes her particularly stand out is her interest in all the mundane stuff around her, her witty take and the power of story-telling through her photographs. I will be brief on this workshop right now. I will dedicate a separate post on her.

Other than meeting new people, attending workshops, right now I am anticipating the September workshop with John Matthew. There is always something new to learn and new to do. And though the lessons are short, it is the effective delivery of the modules that makes me happy. It is only after the day gets over, that you realize that what you take might be just the beginning to a new interest and they can be implemented on a much larger, with a bit more time.

Reading list 1- 3rd August'12

Reading list_1

Reading is one thing I treasure. And thankfully I have managed to pick on some good reads. Some are part of the syllabus while others I borrowed from various sources.

To begin with, I am reading this book called the pattern on the stone-the simple ideas that make computers work by Daniel Hillis (published by Perseus Books Group, published on 1998, sourced from Srishti library). I am still on the first chapter, but I have got excited enough to read it through. The book takes one through how a computer works and tries to explain its workings in a very lucid manner. Personally I find this book as a beginning to not just how a computer works, but also understand its very concept, the reason behind why we use computers and its basic working philosophy.

The next is a book called Against Space Place Movement Knowledge by Tim Ingold (Pdf forwarded by Prayas Abhinav). A beautiful text on the idea of space. It is something that one will want to go back to again and again. The text is rich with the concept of travelling and movement and what it means and the various viewpoints.

The third one is a book I am yet to read fully. It is called the Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard (Published by Beacon Press, Boston on 1994 and referred by Rakhi Peswani). As of now I have read the introduction and a chapter titled Shells. The book looks at the various ways dealing with the idea of space, from physics to metaphysics. 

The first thing that I picked up as a kid to ‘read’ was the newspaper. I am one of those persons who still carries a dictionary. That said, I was not really getting much time to indulge in this passion. But Srishti helped me reinforce this habit and I am glad that it did.

First class on Artistic Research- 25th July'12

Being away from the artistic scenes and locked up in the outskirts of Bangalore makes me a little distraught. So when I met Rakhi Peswani, I was quite relieved. The difficult part here is to ensure that you are walking in the right path, while you create your own road-maps for the next two-years. The hardship lies in the fact that time is too short and mistakes can be pretty expensive in that sense.

Rakhi’s class has been a stress buster. I go through literally so many ideas every time we meet. Today while sitting in the class, we started discussing on sketch books and drawings. Going through an old sketchbook is like reading an old map. Often time you look at an image and wonder how you ever even came up with the idea. It is soothing to know that I can finally discuss my work with someone.

What I plan to do this semester is to get the ideas onto something more tangible. So I am not talking of paper but computer generated drawings, something like processing.

There are few broad areas that I am interested in, like space/architecture/environment/ interactivity. The question is how I develop these ideas furthur and be more focused. I think drawing will play a critical role here. Coding is one way I want to proceed, then making small prototypes to get a clearer picture on what I mean by the above keywords. The reason behind emphasizing on coding is that it would give me an idea on how to play with space.

Coming to the course structure, I feel that certain modules are missing that can otherwise help me in building the skill sets. Agreed that this is a research course, but during interdisciplinary studies an integral component for a researcher is all to expand the skill set, whether it is by understanding another domain or simply practicing. So it now remains on how pro-active I can be. Another issue is that the assessment is extremely vague. I think that it’s a course that is still developing and in a sense that is good. But on the flip side, experimentation can be detrimental to the output of students at times.

Getting back to the point of action, I have started to take help from various sources to help me get initiate into coding. Talking of which I started reading on Processing from today. My initial impression has been pretty good. I went through the basic tutorials and I found it quite simple in execution.

As I get back to finish an old painting, I would like to end the post with a note I found from Paul Valery’s comment on the writing exercise he would engage in the morning hours and his take on that:

 ‘Having dedicated these hours to the life of the mind, I thereby earn the right to be stupid for the rest of the day.’

And that sums it all.

New beginnings -24th July'12

Bangalore has been a new lease of life. It is a mix of great weather, living alone, new people and a brand new environment of Srishti.

Last week was our first class on artistic research. I will share my experiences with her in the next post. Plus we had the seminar with sound artist Rune Sochting and finally started to work on Mine the City with Kumkum.

Coming to introspect my first week here. Overall it has been pretty hectic. I am picking up new stuff, learning to more persistent, all that and yet trying to keep that enthusiastic face.

Coming to Srishti, things have been pretty hectic. We initially had an array of courses and projects to choose from but later it dawned that our scheduled has already been pre-defined. Not good news for starter. Then started few more rounds of discussions and negotiations for a particular project I loved, called ‘Mine the City’. To briefly explain it, it’s our explorations and engagements with at different level. For the first immersion, I chose Basavanagudi, South of Bangalore. I am pretty excited to see how it will unfold. So I have my fingers crossed for now. But with all these happening I also need to be extremely pro-active and criss-cross many projects simultaneously. And multitasking is not something I have excelled at.

Coming to the point of negotiation, I think I have come to a point where the awareness of oneself and the need to lead is imminent. Realizing how much I am putting into my studies currently mentally, emotionally, physically and financially, I feel it’s a good to have a certain idea on what I intend to do. But the challenge remains in letting ourselves be flexible as well. The process of filtration is possibly the toughest thing to do. It broadly revolves around introspection, dedication and rectification on a regular basis. And all these require the courage to face up to all the mistakes one makes in the process. It’s akin to walking on a thin thread of rope and trying to keep your calm throughout. But then to look at it the other way it’s time we learn to face our own demons and experiment without letting the fear in. After all life is all about learning.

 

With so much happening I am pretty excited to see how life unfolds in the next two years. Making new friends, doing stuff as I wanted to, learning to challenge myself and achieving small and significant goals- all are part of this new experience. So as I doze off, I hope to have my faith intact and face the challenges for tomorrow, and I hope to gain something as the journey unfolds.

Hello Srishti!

This blog would encapsulate my journey over the next two years at Srishti.

This is where I would observe, think and reflect on my works. Like a sketchbook, the blog would be an online accompaniment to my works here at Srishti.