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.

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

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.