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