Luciano Checco
Fascinating photographs by Luciano Checco of the 'other' side of Singapore.
Flowers & People
A young family enjoys the digital installation 'Flowers and People cannot be controlled but Live Together' by teamLab, a group of Japanese artists.
Creating the Jugaad Dishwasher, The X-Way
The X-Way was a 2 day workshop sponsored by Nokia and Microsoft that focused on ideas, strategies and discussion around improving Mumbai city. Ben & Andrew moderated the workshop, keeping it challenging as twenty creatives and innovators came together with many, many city ideas.
Arduino Yun Workshop
The two day workshop by Ankit Daftery was a great way to dig deep into the possibilities of the Yun. As an interactive artist, I'm already aware of various options available. Trying them out was empowering and surprising. You can make complex interactions with just two to three days of effort [as a beginner], especially at an affordable price.
Installation Sketches
Worked on some collaborative concepts with Ankit Shekhawat who is the head of the Emerging Media lab at Moonraft in Bangalore. We pitched these ideas to an upcoming event in Bangalore. Conceptualizing these installations is a really fun process, especially when budget is not a constraint. Quite proud of these ideas, since we went crazy dreaming up robot drones to do our bidding.
Vikhroli Skin - Prep
My most recent work will be displayed at this event sponsored by Godrej Labs on the 14th of Dec. It is going to be 200 thousand square feet of art, performances and culture, so don't miss out if you are in Mumbai.
The Clock
Almost calming, at times ironic and humorous this 24 hour video work pulls you in and makes you just sit and watch for a while. I managed to watch it for 30 mins the first time and 2 hrs the second time. Almost addictive and hypnotic it's amazing how accurate the film is and lovely to spot familiar scenes from favorite movies or old classics I was forced to watch in art school.
Ramkinkar Baij
However it was enlightening to see his growth as a brilliant artist and the extent to which his personal philosophies, politics and ideas were so deeply and honestly entrenched in his work and life. Baij clearly 'lived' his ideals, spending a lot of time with the Santhals who were a prominent topic within his work.
Gallery Reflexive
Work by Prajakta Palav. It caught my eye because of the way she had used the gallery floor in her work. It is intelligent and relevant, especially in these old buildings in South Mumbai that are converted into gallery spaces.
Reclining Buddha Murals
These are photographs of the detailed murals that decorate the walls and windows of the Reclining Buddha temple. It exists in a much larger temple complex called the Wat Pho, which contains several hundred images of Buddha, many stupas, a huge Bodhi tree, stone statues and smaller temples.
Out of Sight
With an unused underground car park as its gallery walls, Out of Sight investigates the resilience and flexibility of art, and the need for its development with supporting communities in unorthodox circumstances: an appreciation for the otherwise overlooked in the chosen location compliments the political provocation of the role of the outsider in society and rebellion against industry precepts.
More on Shadows
In his essay In Praise of Shadows Japanese novelist Tanizaki writes about the conflict between western and eastern aesthetics in the modern world. He says that Japanese 'find beauty not in the thing itself but in the patterns of shadows, the light and the darkness, that one thing against another creates.' He emphasizes beauty in subtlety and that which cannot be seen too clearly, leaving some of the experience to our imagination. Pallasmaa talks of something similar when he emphasizes the importance and intimacy of darkness.
Dayanita Singh
I am especially interested in her attempts to express her own visions of a place or city, opposing the singular story people usually expect about India, that of 'sensational catastrophes and human failures'
Danger of a Single Story
This brilliant TED video by novelist Chimamanda Adichie articulates what I often have to say about Mumbai while here in UK. Namely, yes there is poverty and yes we have slums - but these are proud people who are more than just the anonymous poor.
Collaboration: The Third Hand
Through collaboration the singular voice of the artist is muted or dispersed, it is a break away from a singular artistic identity. The author introduces the idea of a 'third hand,' or ghost artist which is an elusive other or combined identity created in collaborative works. This third independent existence is in itself 'uncanny' because such a constructed ghost identity 'blurs the distinction between the real and phantasmic.'
Site-Specific Art
In his book Eyes of the Skin, Pallasmaa talks at great length about the beauty of human perception and how the senses interact with each other to form experience. He emphasizes the importance of a sense experience as a whole. He says there is a bias to the eye in the architectural practice because people are focussed on how a building looks rather than how a body can move within it or how it feels. When it comes to the perception of places he discusses the importance of emotion, memory, imagination and fantasy.