Reflecting on the journey_Mine the City

As I approach the end to my second immersion as part of Mine of the City project, I thought it would be a good time to retrospect my activity. The project started as a consequence to the first immersion, which dealt with exploring a specific area through text. 

Happenings at Srishti: Part 1

Bangalore has been a new lease of life. I am mesmerized with the evening drizzles, the pleasant weather, a peaceful location, an affectionate PG Aunt and getting introduced to new people.

I had also been looking forward to shift to a new rented accommodation, but it seems to be delayed indefinitely. These are the stuff that happens when you are in a hurry and everything is hoch-poch.

Srishti on the other hand seems to have synchronized most of the stuff.

Coming to introspect my first week here. Things have been pretty mixed. So I am picking up new stuff, dealing with issues which at times seem to have gone beyond my hand and yet trying to keep that enthusiastic face.

For e.g. the house that I am planning to shift to is still a mess. I guess where money there is money involved, it’s always good to be patient and desperation is possibly the worst way to approach anything. Something I didn’t do. Then the adjustments in a PG are the other thing that I am experiencing. With over-flooded sinks, crammed up space and lack of privacy, it’s all turning into experiences that can never be replicated.  

The next story unfolds in Srishti. With a huge selection of courses and projects, I was literally swept off my feet, till I heard that our scheduled has already been predefined. My smiley face turned into a sad one. Later after discussions and rounds of negotiations, I settled for a project called ‘Mine the City’. To briefly explain it, it’s an open ended discussion dealing with the various aspects of the city. I am pretty excited to see how it will unfold. So I have my fingers crossed for now. The point being I need to keep myself aware with all the happenings in my department and try to implement all those stuff in the project I am attached as it belongs to a different department. That said, I actually had discussion with the dean to allow me the flexibility that I need. So I dealt with my Prof and then the Dean to create the space that I need to work.

Coming to the point of negotiation, I think I have come to a point where the awareness of oneself and the need to lead is imminent. Realizing how much I am putting into my studies currently, mentally, emotionally, physically, financially etc., I feel it’s a good idea to have a certain idea on what I plan to do. But the challenge remains in letting ourselves open up to new things as well. The process of filtration is possibly the toughest thing to do. It broadly revolves around introspection, dedication and rectification on a regular basis. And all these require the courage to face up to all the mistakes one makes in the process. It sounds theoretical. It’s akin to walking on a thin thread of rope and trying to keep your calm throughout.

Anyways getting back to Srishti, I need to streamline my thought process, be proactive and aware of the environment. There are also the obvious doubts. But then to look at it the other way it’s time we learn to face our own demons and experiment without letting the fear in. After all life is all about learning.

And before I finish the post, let me introduce two new people I met this week. One is Nandeep and the other is Afsana. The first is an engineer and the latter is a media student. Its nice to have friends when you are in a new place.

Pretty excited to see how life infolds in the next two years. What with making new friends, doing stuff as I want to and learning to challenge myself and achieving small and significant goals. As I go doze off, I hope to have my faith intact and face the challenges and be calm.

Happenings at Srishti: Part 4

My days are pretty hectic nowadays. So there is still excitement of doing and learning something new, but I rue the fact that I don’t get to paint these days.

Few days back I was actually contemplating the various steps I took before joining Srishti… from the years doing painting to the time I spent in travelling, and later working with the start-up… how much has life changed so far? Sometime back I was thinking on how life would be if the concept of failure is erased…how will we define success then? Will it even exist?

Anyways moving away from philosophy, I will share all the stuff that is going on in class. I will begin with few of the workshops I attended. The first is the creativity workshop by Pandrang, we call him Pandy. Two days of fun, brainstorming and conversations. He is an advertisement guy, so our conversation veered from films, music, books to food…it was almost like someone waking up us from sleep. Among few of the stuff he shared, I liked the concept of a T-shaped learning. Yes! You heard it right. It means that like the horizontal bar of a T, you should learn about all kinds of stuff but like the vertical long line in T, you should know one thing well, very well. The discussion started with creativity, exercises to channelize it. I can’t talk for others, but I was rather surprised how inactive I have become. It helped me know where I am going in the Mine the City project.

The other project which is nearing completion is the Qualitative Research class. We are now left with getting everything together and make a final presentation at the school. After spending just one and a half months with this course, I feel the one issue I have with the curriculum execution at Srishti is that they do not realize the potential of time. A course with more time and proper follow-up through regular feedback is more useful than just getting us stuffed with new ideas. One needs an execution ground after a point.

Anyways the next and also the most exciting workshop is the one I had with Anna Fox. She is very vibrant and her works has a strong colour sense. What makes her particularly stand out is her interest in all the mundane stuff around her, her witty take and the power of story-telling through her photographs. I will be brief on this workshop right now. I will dedicate a separate post on her.

Other than meeting new people, attending workshops, right now I am anticipating the September workshop with John Matthew. There is always something new to learn and new to do. And though the lessons are short, it is the effective delivery of the modules that makes me happy. It is only after the day gets over, that you realize that what you take might be just the beginning to a new interest and they can be implemented on a much larger, with a bit more time.

Reading list_1

Nowadays, as I am back to school, I am getting a lot of time to read, some as part of my syllabus while others I borrow from various sources. What makes it interesting is that other than my habit of randomly picking up books on unrelated subjects, the teachers also suggest reading from a variety sources based on our interest.

To begin with, I am reading this book called the pattern on the stone-the simple ideas that make computers work by Daniel Hillis (published by Perseus Books Group, published on 1998, sourced from Srishti library). I am still on the first chapter, but I have got excited enough to read it through. What is absolutely fabulous is that the workings of a computer are simplified to such an extent that even if someone hates computer, they too will start engaging with it. Lucid language, fun and simple examples and absolute no-tech language, meant for every soul who has ever seen a computer.

The next is a book called Against Space Place Movement Knowledge by Tim Ingold (Pdf forwarded by Prayas Abhinav). A beautiful text and an idea of space that will want you to go back to it again and again. The text is so rich with the concept of travelling and movement and what it means and the various viewpoints, that I would rather post this on facebook.

The third one is a book I am yet to read fully. It is called the Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard (Published by Beacon Press, Boston on 1994 and referred by Rakhi Peswani). As of now I read the introduction and a chapter titled Shells. The book looks at the various ways dealing with the idea of space, from physics to metaphysics. It is another book that makes you want to read it again and again and yet let it surprise you.

I have always loved reading. The first thing that I picked up to start ‘reading’ was the newspaper. I am one of those persons who still carries a dictionary. That said, I was not really getting much time to indulge in this passion. But Srishti helped me reinforce this habit and I am glad that it did.

Happenings at Srishti: Part 3

Being away from the artistic scenes and locked up in the outskirts of Bangalore makes me a little distraught. So when I met Rakhi Peswani, I was quite relieved. The difficult part here is to ensure that you are walking in the right path, while you create your own road-maps for the next two-years. The hardship lies in the fact that time is too short and mistakes can be pretty expensive in that sense.

That said Rakhi’s class has been a stress buster. I go through literally so many ideas every time we meet. And to add to that I have got even more enthusiastic to work on my new ideas.

For e.g. today while sitting in the class, we started discussing on sketch books and drawings. It then strikes me that I should possibly start using electronic circuits and working around them without waiting for the need to arise. It is akin to a kid picking a paint brush, and playing with it, often without purpose. It would give me the idea to play around and the space to understand its usage and limitations. The other reason is that my course, which is called Experimental Media Arts, also calls for such media. But this is nothing out of the blue. I took it with the intention of developing my ideas and bringing them into a 3-D scale which can be ‘experienced’. But this being a research course, I feel that certain modules are missing that can otherwise help us in building the skill sets. So it remains on us on how pro-active one can be. The biggest issue though is that the assessment is extremely vague. I think that it’s a course that is still developing and in a sense that is good. But on the flip side, experimentation can be detrimental to the output of students at times.

Getting back to the point of action, I have started to take help from various sources to help me get initiate into coding. Talking of which I started reading on Processing from today. My initial impression has been pretty good. I went through the basic tutorials and I found it quite simple in execution.

The reason for bringing the topic of coding lies in the idea of drawing and the importance of a sketchbook. I get really excited to see old sketchbooks. They never cease to amaze you. Often time you look at an image and wonder how you ever even came up with the idea. It is brilliant to know that I can finally discuss my work with someone.

As I get back to finish an old painting of mine, I would like to end the post with a note I found from Paul Valery’s comment on the writing exercise he would engage in the morning hours and his take on that:

 ‘Having dedicated these hours to the life of the mind, I thereby earn the right to be stupid for the rest of the day.’

And that sums it all.