lo. mo. playing with the Holga 120N

These images were taken with The Holga 120N.I attended a workshop today on Holga photography and developing film with Annu Matthew, an artist and professor at the university of Rhode Island, usa.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holga

http://www.annumatthew.com/

collaboration -Bangalore meets Providence

in the next phase, i will be collaborating with a friend of mine, Christiano Penso, who is studying at the URI in the US.
together we are aiming to have a dialogue revolving around the idea of memory and collaborate on a project together which will be exhibited in both geographical locations.
We have begun to converse over skype and facebook, and i will be posting our progress and our dialogues on the blog.
Excited to see what comes out of this!

On the Uses and Abuses of History for Life - Nietzsche (first reflection)

I started reading this essay today and i have only managed to go through a little less than half of the text, but i think the text has enough ideas to begin a reflection on it, and hence, i am dividing my reflection on the article into two or three of posts. so heres the first one.

i will start by quoting him from the text.

"for the health of a single individual, a people, and a culture the unhistorical and the historical are equally essential"

The text introduces two ways of perceiving the world around, which he terms, a historical way of looking and the other, its opposite. According to him a historical being perceives the events of the world with his/her footing in the past. events of the past define the being's identity and to a large extent, define how he/she responds and reacts 

to the present moment,While an ahistorical being, like a baby, or beasts, react purely to the present with no baggage from the past or no premonitions about the future.

Im confused about this myself and am only beginning to grasp what nietzsche is implying with his text.

on one hand i feel that a person is not an isolated being, he is social and historically tied to his past.i can talk of this from my personal experience to some extent. during the teenage years, it came naturally to me to reject all the ideals, the methods of working that my ancestry tried to instill in me, and i tried to run away and move in tangential directions to where they wanted me to go and how they saw me growing up.little did i realise, that even in my attempt at moving away, i was still very much connected to my past, even if seemingly i was running away from it.only now is when im realising that this history that i seemed to perceive as a heavy weight always trying to drag me down was nothing but a great pool of things for me to draw from. only now is when i realise its my unique history and upbringing unlike anyone elses and a slight sense of attachement has begun to grow.

Im not saying that change is bad and there is a need to cling unhealthily to the past, but definitely if history helps you grow and move forward and enlivens your actions, its definitely a good thing.

on the other hand living historically might at times seem like a burden which prevents you from the experience of the present moment. 

Nothing lives which would be worthy

of your striving, and the earth deserves not a sigh.

Pain and boredom is our being and the world is excrement,

                                                                              —nothing else.

               Calm yourself.*

So i agree which nietzche when he says that both a mix of historical and unhistorical perceptions are needed for the life of a healthy human.

Moment by Carol Gloor

Moment 

At the moment of my mother’s death

I am rinsing frozen chicken.

No vision, no rending

of the temple curtain, only

the soft give of meat.

I had not seen her in four days.

I thought her better,

and the hospital did not call,

so I am fresh from

an office Christmas party,

scotch on my breath

as I answer the phone.

And in one moment all my past acts

become irrevocable.

Carol Gloor

Although i found it only now, this piece of writing connects me back to the piece i did on my grandfather's funeral.Now that i think about it, it got too personal and maybe didnt allow for different entry points for the viewers and the viewers felt confused and taken aback. But thats just how it goes. will keep that in mind for the future.

Charging Batteries

The second movement of the memory lab is over and was marked by a fairly successful exhibition at Jaaga.
Now that i dont have to worry about putting up a good exhibition soon, im taking it as a nice break to ponder over what has happened till now and what's to come.Im looking up inspiring work, some of which you can see on the blog. Its also a time to go back and see where we all started, The article by Susan Sontag, against interpretation, and ideas like punctum and dictum which have been there at the back of my mind, but might have gotten lost somewhere with the rush of the exhibition.To keep those things in mind is essential to me, as those ideas really resonated with me and i would like to think in those terms when trying to work.

Also, whats happened is that im beginning to see some direction in whats happening. Earlier every movement of the course, to some extent, was feeling isolated but in terms of my work im beginning to see a direction.
In my last project, i worked with an old transistor, and now old technology has been on my mind ever since.
Even if not now, this will definetely show up in my work at some point of time.

In the next phase we are collaborating with students from the U.S.Im really looking forward to that so let see how that goes.

For now ill keep putting up inspirations that i find on the internet.