Thursday, July 29, 2010

THE EAST WEST MAP OVERLAY














                   The west in blue and the east in red shows the walk in London. The Black lines are the scaled overlay of Chennai Map, specifically the T Nagar  Area.









Monday, July 26, 2010

The STAGE for the performance.
(The Parking Lot behind the Old Truman Brewery)

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

synthetic emotions




















synthetic emotion is all about the synthesized material emotions of the dancer's accessories. The dancer's body is engulfed by the costume the 'pleated silk saree', a visual assistant to map her minute and subtle expressions. In this set of exploratory mapping exercise; I examine the crease, the fold, the stretch, the pull and the twist of the rich silk with reference to the bodily pose or the dance gesture.  

the silk fabric / crease / fold / twist / stretch















PEN and INK drawing showing the body - movement and the synthetic emotions of the fabric. The central concentric circles with lines is the pleated fabric woven around the black void (the dancer / body). The radiating straight lines shows movement and the thickened curves shows the embodied accessory of the dancer in a particular sequel within the performance.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

spatial dance drawings - series 1















_ The Nectar of Immortality 
The dash lines are to represent the movement of water - the dancer. The leg notations are used to explore the potential of mapping geographies.


























_ Vishnu disguised as Mohini

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

_ CARTOGRAPHIC GESTURES

WHAT ?

The reactionary phase of work led me to consciously situate my project in a TALE OF TWO CITIES.
London and Chennai contested here tries to find a tactile relationship by involution of Chennai into London’s landscape.

The Project uses Gestures, Palimpsests and Cartography deliberated through movements of a classical Indian performative art – BHARATANATYAM. The intention is to create the necessary flux to establish modes of engaging into a foreign landscape for an ancient and prevalent Indian art.


WHY ??

Chennai being a British colony in history has lot of Colonial traits and reminiscence. The relational dynamics and differences in art and culture of these two cities are full of potential yet to be explored.

After reading part of the book, NON REPRESENTATIONAL THEORY by Nigel Thrift; I was consumed by the notion of existing social constructions and precincts of our so called democracy and the lame political order across the globe. The book also illustrates the mutilated and curtailed human aspirations in this prescribed world order, the only respite being our own fascination through art, music and dreams or sometimes a parallel world too – indeed a true sense of freedom, expression, discovery and invention.

It’s my fascination to see the fusion of an Indian art in a new landscape. Bharathanatyam is a classical dance which has Hindu mythological references. It is believed to be the cosmic dance between Shiva and Parvathi (Indian God and Goddess). The dance form is still practiced in southern India with innate details of hand and bodily gestures, predominantly performed by females.

HOW ???

The Bharatanatyam involves
Abhinaya (expression) or Natya - dramatic art of story-telling in Bharatanatyam
Nritta - pure dance movements, as a medium of visual depiction of rhythms
Nritya combination of Abhinaya and Nritta  

[Relationship – the story for the dance]
The observance of Kumbh Mela dates back many centuries in Ancient India to the Vedic period, where the river festivals first started getting organised. In Hindu mythology, its origin is found in one of the popular creation myths and the Hindu theories on evolution, the Samudra manthan episode (Churning of the ocean of milk), which finds mention in the Bhagavata Purana, Vishnu Purana, the Mahabharata, and the Ramayana............  

The western contemporary dance uses Laban Movement Analysis for choreography. More Interesting techniques are being explored in Synchronous-Objects by William Forsythe, visualizing choreographic structure from dance to data to objects.

The story would be enacted as a metaphor for a cartographer based in London; enabling mapping of geographies influenced by an art form. The Latency of the foreign performative art, if induced in shaping landforms would be sudden; leading to much more deliberated landscapes for future spaces (cities). The Spatial formations and geographic art renditions of Julie Mehretu are lines of work to be explored upon.

Cartography is an interesting subject by itself, but when interlaced with inducing architectures of foreign references; it makes the cartographer into a cybernetician. The Dancer, for example, could become a social object for our cartographer to exercise his role.

My Mother’s notational representation of Bharatanatyam would be enacted as a language of expression to map dance data to objects in the Gestural Space. The wetness of the project is in the way it illustrates, art in art; space in space and difference in difference.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

_ CARTOGRAPHIC CYBERNETICS of the GESTURAL SPACE


The reactionary phase of work led me to consciously situate my project to a TALE OF TWO CITIES.
London – Chennai; contested here tries to find a tactile relationship by involuting Chennai into London’s landscape.

 The term cybernetics stems from the Greek κυβερνήτης (kybernētēs, steersman, governor, pilot, or rudder — the same root as government). Cybernetics is a broad field of study, but the essential goal of cybernetics is to understand and define the functions and processes of systems that have goals and that participate in circular, causal chains that move from action to sensing to comparison with desired goal, and again to action. Studies in cybernetics provide a means for examining the design and function of any system, including social systems such as business management and organizational learning, including for the purpose of making them more efficient and effective.


WHAT ?
The Project uses Gestures and Palimpsests deliberated through movements of a classical Indian performative art – BHARATANATYAM. The intention is to create the necessary flux to establish modes of engaging into a foreign landscape for an ancient Indian art.


WHY ??
Chennai being a British colony in history has lot of British traits and reminiscence. On the other hand Britain hasn’t had much of Indian impact yet. The relational dynamics and differences in art and culture of these two cities are full of potential to be explored.

After reading part of the book, NON REPRESENTATIONAL THEORY by Nigel Thrift; I was consumed by the notion of existing social constructions and precincts of our so called democracy and the lame political order across the globe. The book also illustrates the mutilated and curtailed human aspirations into limelight and the only respite being it’s our own fascination through art, music and dreams or sometimes a parallel world too. Indeed a true sense of freedom, expression, discovery and invention.

It’s my fascination to see the fusion of an Indian art in a new landscape. Bharathanatyam is a classical dance which has Hindu mythological references. It is believed to be the cosmic dance between Shiva and Parvathi (Indian God and Goddess). The dance form is still practiced in southern India with innate details of hand and bodily gestures and predominantly performed by females.

HOW ???
[Relationship – the story for the dance]
The observance of Kumbh Mela dates back many centuries in Ancient India to the Vedic period, where the river festivals first started getting organised. In Hindu mythology, its origin is found in one of the popular creation myths and the Hindu theories on evolution, the Samudra manthan episode (Churning of the ocean of milk), which finds mention in the Bhagavata Purana, Vishnu Purana, the Mahabharata, and the Ramayana............   The Bharatanatyam involves
Abhinaya (expression) or Natya - dramatic art of story-telling in Bharatanatyam 
Nritta - pure dance movements, as a medium of visual depiction of rhythms 
Nritya combination of Abhinaya and Nritta  

The western contemporary dance uses Laban Movement Analysis to choreograph. More Interesting techniques are being explored in Synchronous-Objects by William Forsythe, visualizing choreographic structure from dance to data to objects.

The story would be enacted as a metaphor for a cartographer based in London; enabling mapping of cities influenced by an art form. The Latency of foreign performative art form if induced in shaping landforms would be sudden, characterising much more deliberated landscapes for future spaces (cities). The Spatial formations and geographic art renditions of Julie Mehretu are lines of work to be explored upon.

Cartography is an interesting subject by itself, but when interlaced with inducing architectures of foreign references; it makes the cartographer into a cybernetician. The notational representation of my Mother’s Bharatanatyam would be enacted as a language of expression to map dance data to objects in the Gestural Space. The wetness of the project is in the way how it illustrates, art in art; space in space and difference in difference.

CHOREOGRAPHER's notations




















This is my mother's notation for her Bharatanatyam Dance Composition. The Primary movements or steps (ADAVU) are recorded as simple human figures. This is a very personal form of representation for each and every Indian Artist. 

Western / Contemporary Laban Movement Analysis is different from this. The idea of notation and composing through drawings is a common method in both. 

synchronous-objects by William Forsythe
is visualizing choreographic structure from dance to data to objects.   

BHARATANATYAM - South Indian Classical Dance

Bharatanatyam  //  (भरतानात्यम)  - Hindi  //  பரதநாட்டியம் - Tamil 
is a classical Indian dance form originating in Tamil Nadu, India. One of the oldest of the classical dance forms in India, it is also known as the fifth Veda. Bharatanatyam is usually accompanied by the classical music. It has its inspirations from the sculptures of the ancient temple of Chidambaram. Bharatanatyam, as the name depicts is the combination of:
BHA- Bhava (Expression), RA- Raga (Music) and TA- Tala (Rhythm) Bharatanatyam is a traditional dance-form known for its grace, purity, tenderness, and sculpturesque poses. Today, it is one of the most popular and widely performed dance styles and is practiced by many dancers all over the world.

-------------------
The images below are of actual dance recitals in Chennai. The intention is to extract all visual information, costumes, gestures, movement, stage, etc into a metaphor. 





























Abhinaya (expression) or Natya - dramatic art of story-telling in Bharatanatyam 
Nritta - pure dance movements, as a medium of visual depiction of rhythms 
Nritya combination of abhinaya and nritta  

These hand gestures are called mudras.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

topographies of JULIE MEHRETU




















Mehretu’s canvasses try to incorporate many kinds of spaces, many kinds of dynamics, many kinds of existences, many kinds of imagination, holding each of these spaces in tension and never trying to resolve them: collisions, concordances, cataclysms, they are all here, along with
‘speed, dynamism, struggle and potential’ (Mehretu in Fogle and Ilesanmi, 2004: 14). Instead of resolution, she sees her task as trying to produce a sense of trajectory which is probably the nearest thing to what used to be called history that social theory can now offer.



Thursday, January 14, 2010

A4 DRAFT report DCja1410_A

clipped fiction // palimpsest // gestural palimpsest // palimpsestic accordion

++ soho as a gestural space
++ latency
++ flux
(words of interests and potential from the first term)

The reactionary phase led by repetitive assertions of the previous terms work potentially opened up newer possibilities with greater architectural manifestation for my base ideations.


WHAT ?
The Project is about Gestures and Palimpsests with Soho enacted as a Gestural Space. The term FLUX means flow or continuous change or movement. Since the primary aspect of the project is about the gestures and motion; I felt the need to mix two scenarios for greater deliberation and intent pushing the exigencies of the idea of a gestural space.

FLUX _ for me would be like a tale of two cities for instance here, CHENNAI (formerly Madras in India) and London. Chennai being a British colony in history has lot of British traits and reminiscence. On the other hand Britain hasn’t had much of Indian impact yet. The relational dynamics and differences in art and culture of these two cities are full of potential to be explored.

_ The idea is to fuse the south Indian Classical performative art BHARATANATYAM as a gestural act in SOHO.


WHY ??
After reading part of the book, NON REPRESENTATIONAL THEORY by Nigel Thrift; I was consumed by the notion of existing social constructions and precincts of our so called democracy and the lame political order across the globe. The book also illustrates the mutilated and curtailed human aspirations into limelight and the only respite being it’s our own fascination through art, music and dreams or sometimes a parallel world too. Indeed a true sense of freedom, expression, discovery and invention.

It’s my fascination to see the fusion of an Indian art in Soho. Bharatanatyam is a classical dance which has Hindu mythological references. It is believed to be the cosmic dance between SHIVA and PARVATHI (Indian God and Goddess). The dance form is still practiced in southern India with innate details of hand and bodily gestures and predominantly performed by females.

_ I would like to use Bharatanatyam’s ADAVU (sets of hand/body gestures) as a derivative for a metaphorised performance in the perceived gestural space relating to SOHO.


HOW ???
The term ‘LATENCY’ interested me from the very beginning. That’s the first thing I felt about SOHO. Latency formally means the interval between stimulus and reaction.

I want to explore the latency of this gestural act in Soho. Any per-formative art is always frozen in time. I would like explore the merger of the Indian act in an active gestural space and expose the architectural manifestation which is like affect seeking response for the next act.

_ It’s continuous like a string of FLUXES and LATENCIES intertwined conveying the merger of the art form with the gestural space which is like a stage. At this stage, it’s full of potential waiting to be explored. It could be anything from a set of eruptive explosions, series of shadows to a multi-modal drawing frozen in time.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

FIRST TERM review - dec 15 2009














CARTESIAN DUALITY - inspired from a picture from the National Portrait Gallery. This represents the body mind duality  layered in a Cartesian Space with the human brain as the central force of all events within the X Y Z Axes. This multi modal drawing traces the illusionary paths of human brain about itself in space as seen by its other self. 




  










GESTURAL PALIMPSEST - Palimpsest (recorded and informed motion) induced spatial sweeps of the human bodily motion. This drawing is to manifest the extent of involuntarily / voluntarily volume swept by human motions in the cartesian space. Projections of the body and the motion of the light source traced are represented in blue and red respectively. 


















GESTURAL PALIMPSEST 2 - Light used as means to draw objects of references enabling actuation in the real space. The gestures are recorded like palimpsest information to understand the formal implication of the light traced in the given spatial condition. It's the future of object making through light and photons to enact the instances of referenced objects ephemerally.  














PALIMPSESTIC ACCORDION - metaphorised accordion depicting the stretch of urban information. The sample case is of a notice board from SOHO. The notice board stretches itself like a jukebox of light projecting itself on the wall with the people actuating them like reeds which flow on the pedestrian surface. 
The intent of the this exercise was to understand the architectural metaphors that can produce new insights to revolutionize the objects of day to day interest into more natural and self thinking beings.