Concept Sketch - Preliminary

Started thinking about how the 'hit' could directly alter a course of action. Its almost like the undoing of something. The breaking of something set. I pictured a man walk monotonously and upon a certain number of hit, you are able to change his course, and change it again and again.

And what if that basic a narrative were to apply to a herd. Something like a Simon Says situation. Taking that further, what if there were a group of people marching (with great purpose) and upon an allotted number of hits 3 people leave the group to Jay walk on the other side. And then more join them...

and some more, until the previous action has no basis left.

Yet a new group has been formed and you need to go through the whole thing all over again to break that new 'conformity'.

It illustrates a helpless situation, at the same time, hoping, in small amounts, to give the viewer a sense of accomplishment of having achieved something only to realise it was futile.

This narrative im hoping to drive through one of the developed loops from my previous approach :

There is a box within a box within a box within a box.

Breaking every conformity results in yet another..

Though there is still something missing... it still stands as an extremely generic narrative. How can it be pushed further into something more visceral.

Not just men and boxes... ?

Working on the loop

A box within a box within a box within a box.

Having decided my strongest loop and metaphor to construct a narrative, i have gone ahead constructing the preliminary loop for the interface.

4 layers to be peeled off the box.

Relooking at my content. When it all made sense.

I went back to my proposal to look at how i'd broken down my project into the criteria specified earlier, hoping that its clinical nature would bring some clarity to my content.

I needed to streamline it.. So i re read the brief.

Today, in a world of fast developing technology, where one can’t decide whether a phone is

a camera, a compass or a gardening tool one begins to question the origin of objects,

products, tools that feed and manipulate everyday routines, lifestyles that of basic human

living.

Are we creating a near artificial army of products that is making life so easy that it stunts the

basic natural evolutionary processes of man?

What is the basic need for development? What is the basic need for

consumption/consumerism? What drives competition? And how will all this play out?

More importantly, what drives us, as individuals? What is the core reason for being today?

These are questions I wish to use to direct the viewer through the scenario.

As an illustrator, I would like to use image building to create a space and an image that is

relevant and that resonates with our everyday lives, our routines, our goals, our aspirations

and talk about the loss of simplicity in the face of it.

On the other hand juxtapose this idea to a fictionalised character, namely “Box” and its

evolutionary process alongside us and how he/it may attain a certain spiritual side that we

have nearly lost.

I had begun by questioning material and commercial culture. Our relationship to objects and things that we use and why we so conform to them. How would you look at a coke bottle without its name and brand identity, through its sheer shape . Sure you recognise its shape as a bottle, but it doesnt speak out to you anymore. In a way you don't trust it. But that line of questioning was preliminary.

It moved beyond just speaking environments toward philosophy, political ideology and social positioning of oneself, thats where depiction became a challenge and very nonspecific and impersonal to a great extent. I as a 22 year old am not that politically sound and nor do i have the experience or the right in one way to talk about these issues at a generalised level.

I was never getting into specifics of what the box actually is. In one way it is for the viewer to realise it for themselves. The box is differently constructed for different people. Again. It is constructed by them.

At the same time aesthetically, i need a complementary action to my breaking the box. Conformity. The conformist and the nonconformist. Every broken conformity leads to a 'nonconformity' which leads to a conformity. A box within a box within a box.

This is what i want to say very simply put at a basic level.

Tryouts

Created a 15 sec stop motion to see how the illustrations could be treated / what they evoked / how people would interact with them / interpret them or even understand them for that matter.

They didn't or as a matter of fact i didnt.

Well.. better now than later :|

Ramesh's Feedback

The imagery isnt really painting any picture. It moves from one abstract to another and one cannot expect the viewer to digest all that.

The subject has the capacity to hit a point. What is that point? Do you want to hit a point?

There can be two approaches. One which is explanatory and the other that says something specific. Both are valid.

Its okay to not have tangible, real things to show to say what you want to say.

If its absurdity you want to play with, then go absurd all out. Don't hide or be scared.

Its not that you can't speak through abstraction, its just that, in your situation, you need to have two complementary things to say if you want to put 2 and 2 together.

The act of breaking a block is strong, violent and that needs to be justified by a visual or a connection equally strong.

What do you want to say? And whatever it is, say it strongly, set a bracket for yourself. Be a little more specific in the realm of abstraction and drive the point home!

Rough Concept Sketch

Thinking it out loud! WHAT IS IT IM MISSING??

There is still a hollow feeling everytime i try to explain my subject to someone.

I know what the box is.

I know why i have chosen it as a metaphor.

I have defined it as a form and a character and i have pitched it against another, man.

I have defined that there is a relationship between these two characters and it is not always of equal (?)

What is my context though. It was really hard for me to understand that word. I thought i had defined it earlier. Context. Under what Context do i speak? I have a background, i have content but What is the platform upon which i firmly stand, the platform that would define how i would say it?

I had used the word cynical earlier, but what do these words truly mean. We use them but do we fully understand them?

So once again, what is the context that would define how i say the things i say.

eg: i speak of love but how do i speak of it? with hatred? and how would that tone of voice define how i treat my images? Does personal experience define how i see my subject?

What do i feel about the relationship between box and man? I say it disturbs me.

What about it disturbs me? What is the current nature of their relationship that i have a problem with.

Where would i position myself when i speak of the box? Am i inside the box? Am i standing on top of the box? Am i standing to its left? Playing with placement? Inner space of the box and the outer space of the box. How are the two different?

So what do i want the viewer to take away from the exhibit? What is their relationship to the box like? Or what would they like their relationship to the box to be? To be in a state of consciously being able to make that choice.

That aside, a lot of people are comfortable being consumed by the 'box', what do i say to them? And what do i say to those who accept that they have been consumed. Then what? What is in it for them?

Sometimes the box is victim and at times it is man. However this brings me back to questioning, is the box conscious at all?

The box is not conscious. We make it conscious. We pretend that it is conscious and we as humans like doing that. We say facebook is bad for you.

People blame computers and technology. People blame institutions. People label other people, bracket them.

On the other hand, the box can be viewed as nothing more than a reference point / guidelines / the rules of the game. Norms and laws to make life easier and there is always the bunch who tries to break them. The adverse outcomes of progress? the academic and the ones who say "to hell with all that". Inner space and outer space?

So what is my context? My platform as an artist speaking about this subject.

The box is crippling us. rephrase. You are being crippled by the box. Rephrase. You are crippling yourself.

You went from being a 4 legged animal to a 2 legged animal to fend for yourself. You were a hunter and thats how you evolved.

With the introduction of the box, you have regressed, thereby minimizing your survival instinct. Put yourself first? Break out of those comfort zones. Break out of those boxes.

However corny, I am standing on a platform where i see a more fulfilled life. A sense of adventure. You are fee. Also to consciously choose how you place yourself in relation to the box. You have the power to get creative and there in attain a certain spiritual side that one may have lost not knowingly...

This becomes my context. Would i now look at my subject through the eyes of a cynic?

The context is followed by my background.

Synopsis. Simply put.

Man has made the box.

The box works for man.

Man has made the box with the intention to stack store duplicate multiply draw etc.

Box is man's symbol for a simpler more efficient life.

Somewhere along the line, man ordering the box to do what he wanted has slowly become the box ordering man to do what it wants.

The box is now man's burden and man, the beast of that burden.

SET YOUR BRIEF!

Specifics.

I was talking to Bharath and Ramya about my project and a few areas of blank space were highlighted. Something that would help link the form and everything i've read and written about the box.

We were speaking of structure and that being something i lacked currently. Even context. An added texture that i could supply to my idea.

Context. Specifics.

Is it a time that i am speaking about? Is it an event that i am illustrating by constructing these metaphors.

My current narrative / images are very generic and applicable right from the french revolution to the bhopal gas tragedy. So how can i give it more focus and leave it amorphous to great extent.

Coming back to something i had thought of some time ago. Familiar and the unfamiliar. Go with it.

Also all this while i kept looking at it as me not seeing myself in it / not having a personal side to it. I felt the whole idea becoming to generic.

But actually the whole thing right now was more personal over anything else. The box and all its attributes and characteristics is something only i have observed and appropriated. It was my personal interpretation to everything around me. What was missing was what makes this idea universal. Context.

Sketching ideas

There are various routes im exploring.

Is the installation a single experience that sums up my content in nutshell?

Is it a constructed narrative that the viewer can walk through?

Is it completely screen based with ineteractivity?

Is interactivity necessary at all?

Can i get the viewer to generate content and play it back to them in the exhibit?

What are the various permitation combinations i can work with?

Exploring various forms that can best represent my content.

Illustrating Content

Found images / photocopies with pencil

Working on Illustrating content, an attempt to derive visual metaphors, a step between Text and 3D. Understanding Content.

What are the concepts that im working with?

Spectacles, Distractions, banalization, ordered systems, Frivolity, Abundance, Simplicity, Efficiency

I have completed 30 so far, the target is a 100.

Feedback : scroll and check Review 2.5

A chat with Vidha

"I had a dream the night i read your blog. I woke up with a feeling. It may not directly concern your project but i felt " What if the earth were to feed off us?"

It led me back to something you read, when is the time to say enough, or that actually we are way past it."

There was a man who bought a fish. He put it in a bowl and day by day the fish grew bigger. He kept transferring it from one bowl to the next until the fish was too big and he had to let it go into the sea. He realised he should have done that a long time ago as that is the law. That a fish belongs in the sea. He could provide for it no longer.

Just a thought."

"The Medium is of an interesting choice. The quality of the photocopy and the treatment of the found images adds to the subject. Working with excess.

Something i remember when i think of this - "An artist's job is not to make visual but to make visible", it applies to this in some way. "

"The treatment of the frame is very constant. I don't know about the process or your reasoning but i find everything to be revealed to the viewer. What if the viewer were to look for a point of focus, they were made to feel intelligent in a way, that you didn't have to tell them where to look and that they found it, which led them on to the next image. "

"A third dimension can be enough to change a viewers perspective. What of the 3rd dimension can you bring in?"

"Titling can bring in poetry of some kind. There is a museum in Japan for artefacts collected in the Nuclear explosion. There were many artefacts from the war that were mangled. eg A shoe that had melted into a ball, almost like a sticky mass of tar and it was titled as though it were in its original state. "A black shoe from so and so district." and automatically the viewers imagination could fill up the events in between. Who the shoe belonged to, to how it got to that state, what was the state of the person who wore it?"

"As singular images they are strong. Abstract in one way, but they tell stories. As a series you are forced to make connections because of the repetition in elements. This gives you scope to play around with sequence."

New Directions - Instinct and intuition?

"The middle of every successful project looks like a disaster" - My aunt sent this to me this morning... its the thing thats been driving me all day.

Found another book that was called "Trust the Process - an artist's guide" .. it had chapters like - The Leap of Faith - Blank Canvas - In the Dark etc. so im hoping what im going through right now is legit :)

I have, out of a surge of desperation and anticipation, taken to putting down this cloud of information in my head into illustrations and visuals. Using only found materials and images, photocopying them and creating quick collages that reflect in really abstract ways, the ideas in my head. It is the first step to giving my information a face. Im hoping that these series of images will then help me transition into visually thinking about the space.

I may display this series as a preliminary exhibit along with text to put my information in some perspective. A form of narrative exploration, and mapping in a way.