family picture

tried to work on a collage of a family picture. interesting results i think.

final reflections

The memory lab has come to an end for now, and i have tried to answer these questions for a lot of you who might be wondering what the heck is happening over here. I didnt arrive at concrete conclusions, but it was a journey for me that has given me some direction and things for me to think about.

heres a link to blogs of others part of the lab-http://thememorylab.blogspot.in/2012/09/link-to-personal-blogs.html 

1. PROJECTS TITLES: Why did you choose these projects and what was involved in the decision making process? (Refer to the three projects you have done)

The process differed while working on each project. For the first project, I tried to start with the strongest memory I had at that time, the death of my grandfather and worked on a way to give form to how I felt about choosing not to attend his funeral. For the next two projects, the process differed.I got inspired by objects, like the old radio and began playing around with them, and this play triggered memories and feelings in me which would inturn, influence the form. Similarly,for the third project, I was inspired by miniature painting styles and many narratives within one image, I didnt realise then, but coincidentally I was reading orhan pamuk’s my name is read which has a strong underlying narrative about the miniature artists of the Islamic world. These thoughts and the idea of the collaboration somehow came together for the final project.

2. SUBJECT: Reflect on the subject matter of your chosen projects and the breadth of research that you have conducted on these subjects?

The first project, I have to admit, lacked the research element. Im not talking about the internet kind of research here, Im saying I should have delved more into how I felt at the death of my grandfather,it was not only anger and confusion as the final piece portrayed, but a strange complex emotion that I still haven’t wrapped my head around. The first work was about the anger of a person, but it would have been richer If I had made it about my anger and not just any anger, that would have added nuances to make it a richer piece.

For the second project, which was the memory radio, Most of my time spent was figuring out the electronics and programming to get the piece working, so again more research on the actual content of the piece and getting exposed to more spoken word art and sound art would have definitely helped me tell the story better.

The third project fortunately, had a lot of things brewing in my head, from the miniatures of rajasthan to the medieval paintings of Albrecht durer. I looked up a lot of Dadaist work to see how the collage form has been applied elsewhere.

Overall, Susan Sontag’s against interpretation was the one article that has stayed with me the most, and if I compare my work process to last year or even a few months back, it has opened me up to intuition in some sense, whereas earlier I would try to be logic heavy.

3. AIMS/OBJECTIVES/CONCEPTS: How and to what extent have you achieved the aim and objectives of the projects? Describe the main concepts driving the projects.

The aim of the first project was to create a mood and a physical experience for the viewer revolving around the memory that I had, I think it succeeded to some extent and people felt that were entering someone elses private space, and it made them uncomfortable, at the same time, maybe it didn’t allow for entry points.

For the second project, I felt the interaction of tuning in to the radio to listen to stories was a success for me, and I would like to take that forward at some point in time. I felt it was very strong as a storytelling device.The only thing was it needed more development on the narrative side. Which is not an issue, because I am taking that forward, at some point.

4. AUDIENCE: Are you addressing a specific audience with your work within these projects? For example, a specific community, your peers, members of your family, a corporation or business, educators, patients of a hospital department, government agencies?

Honestly, I haven’t given much thought to a specific audience in any of the projects,I was just concentrating on communicating the idea to people in general.

5. FORM/MEDIUM/PRESENTATION: What are the forms and methods of presentation that you are working with? From the work you have done so far, have you gained any insights on your approach to making, doing and documenting?

most importantly, I have discovered how much blogging helps. When things are not clear in your own head, you can always go back and see things clearly written out. Also, to see the blog build up from scratch and to go through the work, is in itself an inspiration to do more.

Apart from that, as I mentioned earlier, i have become a little more intuitive in my work, as compared to the logical work process I had earlier. I am definitely more open to chance, and to go with the flow, and to not know.and to be okay with it.

6. RESEARCH METHODS: What kind of research methods have you used to research the projects work in depth, and how has your research informed your process?

My main research tool was the internet. Apart from that, a major research/excavation project was talking to my family so often and hearing stories from the past, and asking them to send pictures, tapes, photo albums. This part of the research felt great, and at the risk of sounding corny, has made me closer to my family.

7. REFERENCES: How useful were the references you explored so far- the artists, anthropologists, designers, writers or other practitioners?

the artists we all looked up, and even the ones I found personally on the net were very useful to look at. It was always great to see what established artists have done and what standard you’re aiming for. It wasn’t only installation work, but things that I did in general, like watch someone play a piece of music really well, or a well made film, all of this I feel added to the thoughts in my head and resulted in whatever I created during the course of this project.

8. POSITION & RELATIONSHIP: How do you think your projects would function in, or be positioned to contribute to, similar contemporary fields of production?

 I think that the miniature photography thing that we tried out at the end has a lot of potential to develop further into a way of making pictures. Similarly, the radio work is also interesting esp for me as a way of using objects and technology together, to convey stories and feelings.

Memoryscapes- exhibit at aftertastes, Rococo gallery

Concept note- These images were a result of a collaboration between Christiano Penso from Rhode island, U.S and me.

prints size- 12x8 cm

There was a good turnout at the gallery and it was nice to hear what people thought about the work.

Lots of people thought the work was quite interesting, and the fact that the prints were small made them go closer and look for details which was nice.I realised after a few comments though that giving a deeper context to the images through the concept note would have made the experience richer for the viewer.As i was striving not to explain the work through the concept note, i ended up making it minimal and non commital.I realised though, that the context might not be an explanation of the work but would have left more room for interpretation.

aftertastes- exhibition at rococo gallery.

A poster for the final exhibition being held at rococo gallery, rest house road. 

work in progress

thought of trying something different with the same techniques that we've been figuring out together. not too sure if its working yet. 

memoryscape 3

death of the physical world

Death of the Physical World

I've been messaging my project partner on and off for several days now, and we've come up with some good ideas. I'm particularly interested in the rise of digital media. As digital media becomes more popular, people tend to push away from physical media.

Kindles aim to replace books. Netflix and Hulu have destroyed businesses like Blockbuster. Music and movies can be purchased online, through itunes, as fewer people buy CDs and DVDs.

Many people, much like myself, have a certain appreciation for physical media. We like to hold the actual media in our hands, but that feeling is disappearing ever so slightly, year by year. I'm very intrigued in exploring the idea of physical media's looming death.

| Recent Photo: "Goodbye, Old Friend."

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This is a post from  my partner's blog. from now on we'll be using the foggy attic as a joint blog to post our progress and conversations

heres a link to his personal blog as well.

http://cpenso.blogspot.in/

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memory landscape 2

started on a second one today.still a work in progress. need to change a few things.

more progress on memory landscapes

did a few more rounds of exchange over this image with chris. i think it looks quite interesting. hoping to develop our work further with the next one.

i find it intriguing that after working on this image, chris' images too are strangely becoming part of my memories. as i look at the image, i can almost imagine chris' dog, lito, being there with me and ma parents. memory is so malleable and volatile.

albrecht durer- proverbs

very interesting from the nothern renaissance. beautifully detailed, i could look at this for hours! its amazing how multiple stories are weaved into one image, and how the eye moves from one to another, discovering new things as i go.

one more

progress 2

tried a few more things.not sure which one to go with. but i like the look of the crow

progress

we started work today on a peice revolving around memories around an ocean. the idea came from the fact that my partner comes from a place which is called "ocean state", in rhode island.
my memories and images of an ocean will be very different from his and will be interesting to see in our little composition. thinking we should play more with perspective and foreground background elements, maybe text and colour too.
still a work in progress.

richard hamilton

stumbled upon this inspiring work by richard hamilton.
content wise its gonna be very different from what chris and i are working on, but visually i find it giving me lots of ideas. the play with perspective, and with the sizes of the component images is very interesting. also, its interesting how the images are not perfectly sitting together, and they remind me of their earlier context, where they might have been taken from. thats the beauty im seeing in collages.

collage.

by doing the first round of exchanges, i realised that the work is moving towards a collage direction as well. found an interesting one here.

memory landscapes? - progress

been thinking about ideas of how to collaborate and been talking with my partner chris about a variety of things.ive been interested in miniature paintings a bit and ive been reading an orhan pamuk book which amongst other things has an underlying narrative which revolves around miniature painters of istanbul. after some research, i found it interesting how the indian tradition of miniature paintings can depict a vareity of images and narratives all within one image, and not much attention is paid to classical perspective in the image. 

me and chris have been discussing how the world too has become a very small place now and ones culture and influences are not so geography specific anymore. we realised that even though we live continents apart, there were a lot of things that we shared in terms of movies, things we liked etc.

this idea of geography and landscapes seemed interesting and we are planning to try out creating some kind of landscapes where we send each other images and work on them, add to them, subtract from them to create a fictional sort of landscape from both of our memories.

we tried a first round of this today, just to see what might happen. nothing exceptional came out of it yet, but it was a fun experience, and i think after a few rounds, we can arrive at an aesthetic and move towards defining certain themes for these rounds of exchanges.

more updates soon.

(also, chris wasnt keen on adding images from his side today, he added effects and colour corrections, maybe with a few more exchanges images will start turning up from his side as well, and strange landscapes will start to emerge. )

it was a fun exercise nonetheless!