Periscope of Reality Art in Transit
Art in Transit Shaarang Bhanot Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology Project Guide’s Name: Amitabh, Abhyan, Shivani, Arzu DMA 2016
CONTENT Project Overview
Animation Iterations
Site Analysis
Animation Form
Mapping
Structure Iteration
Immersion Process
Structure Form and Evolution
Exploration Of Concept
Prototype Phase
Research Questions
Form Specifics
Project Proposal -
Facing Challenges
• Priminary Proposal
Reflection
• Final Proposal
Plans for Final Installation
Mood Board
Bibliography
Inspiration Board
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Art in transit is a public art project creating meaningful futuristic intervention in spaces of transience based in Bangalore, India. The project began in mid 2014 when a large number of students started to interpret a public space in their own way. Tht Project deals with urbanization, rapid development, besides other changes that people face in these spaces. The interaction with these spaces, to be more specific the metro is the main cursory point in the project. In colaboration with BMRC,
the Art in Transit has created waves in a way that has made public art actually accesible to public. The metro within this meteropolis, is a semi public space that offers opportunities for congregation and social network, where a diverse group of people come together with a common purpose of getting from one point to another. The Art in Transit collective is interested in a trance-disciplinary framework that engages through art and design practices with the metro, as a symbol of the changing face of the city.
Cubbon Park Tunnel
SITE ANALYSIS
The Art in Transit Project is site specific, located at and around the Cubbon Park metro station and the Vidhana Soudha metro station. Both stations have large underground areas and multiple above ground entrances. By the nature of their location, Cubbon Park metro station is the access point to places of social, economic, historical and cultural interaction be it MG Road, Shivajinager, Cunnigham Road, Cubbon Park, Chinnaswamy Stadium,
NGMA and the various other museums and shopping districts in the area. Vidhana Soudha Station is the access point to the political and legal systems of Bangalore city. These stations offer varied social, economic, political, historical, locative and cultural points of entry to the center of Bangalore city. Both stations are still under construction and will open to public use during the duration of the project.
Thinking of stories that exist in the space.
Understanding and placing form through of the site.
CHOOSEN SITE
Cubbon Park (Platform)
Metro station enterance point locations on the map
SITE MAPPING
Mapping of Dr. Ambedkar Road and Nrupathunga Road
Map of High court and Cubbon Park Layout
Magistrate Court Canteen Area
IMMERSION PROCESS
“Case ? Case ?�
My process started with me going through the process of selfexploration. My journey began with a walk from Queens Road to the Cubbon Park metro station with us venturing down a station that is still in the process of construction, to get an understanding about the space I will be working along. The walk continued from the road along the Press Club and High Court to Dr. Ambedkar Road. My own exploration began by walking along the Dr. Ambedkar Road. I got a sense of contrast in the experience of the space of Vidhana Soudha and the High Court area of Cubbon Park. What struck out for me was - how there were really few trees around the secretariat building as compared
to its other side and the thought of how it could be a planned move to make the building stand out more visibally. It was then that the idea of the presence of trees was brought into play. I went along the process of exploration by learning through the basic process of mapping my journey and accumulating a data base of the space for my research. It involved mapping of lanes from inside the park to along the roads, writing down the names of trees and buildings, and collecting fallen leaves and plants and making my own landmarks, based on elements of space that got my attention. My journey took me to the State Central Library and Lal Bagh where
my next step involved understanding the history of what the city has experienced, and how it has changed, to how it has worked on and around its flora. Through my interview with Abhayraj Naik, whom I approached to ask about political moves or acts that are involved when it comes to the flora
of Bangalore. He is a lawyer and has written a paper on special justice and Street Vending in the Indian City called Wizards at Making a Virtue of Necessity: Street Vendors in India. He brought forth important insight into my research to delve deeper into understanding what constitutes the appearance of a city. To think about the impact of the enclosure
movements, the Colonial influence, Capitalism as against Socialism, globalization, lands left to waste, public spaces and environmental land grabbing. Public spaces are no longer about esthetics and spaces with no commercial value because they don’t
lead to investment. He talked about anthropological and sociological way of looking at it. The anthropological approach took forth the idea of the presence of plants and I started thinking in terms of plant ontology.
Form placement according to site
EXPLORATION OF CONCEPT Initially, I wanted to capture the human aspect, the personal lives of people, commuting from one place to another. Based on my practice, I was looking from the perspective of a moving digital images practitioner, trying to communicate the idea of existence of a conscious network of behaviour shown by plants and fungi that can be used in our own context. I was looking at the idea of - the nature of “change” - through plants (trees/ leaves/fungi), of communicating with one’s environment in response to light, sound and touch. My theme Transit as an experience is about the space providing a platform to explore human journey in all its facets - exploring and explicating memories
and narratives, replacement and displacement, journey as an experience of the self, and technology as a form of mediation+connection across space and time. To realize the existence of entities coming together in a public space is to realize that the city is a living consciousness. The nature and experiences of a public space is strained by multiple ideas from the varied perceptions that a user of that public place succumbs to. This brings forth the question of what is a public place and what it can be? Bangalore has gone through a series of changes and the metro station is one major development of this process. The
LOOKING THROUGH CHOOSEN SITE When I choose my form I tried visualizing the placement, according to site. This is the Cubbon Park Metro station, in middle of platform facing two different ends to the station.
city of Bangalore is a representation of a modern civic space that every inhabitant of the city can relate to. Hence, these experiences are always open for modification and that is the primary objective of this project.
As a group we question - does the metro have the potential to become the connective tissue between our experiences?
The Art in Transit project looks at the nature of this “city” through the Metro Rail Transit System and inquires how experience, memory and fantasy invent this city like many others is civic spaces are going through.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS • • • •
What is the purpose of piciking my topic? What am I trying to evoke in people? Why with the metro? How is it related to them?
PROJECT PROPOSAL PRELIMINARY PROPOSAL The idea was that change is constant and if you do not create change, change might just create you. But are the unplqanned and unexpected changes bad? What if all changes were good by default? Questions in one’s mind brought forth from experience that tests one’s ideas. To be able to produce a piece of work that trigger questions about the nature of flux, of change. The shape I wanted for my project was of experiencing and acknowledging behaviours of entities such as plant and fungi by triggering a relatable
connective experience between the commuter and the entity species. I wanted a visual approach towards my project, to bring out the idea of exploration through conciousness by entities. Questions in one’s mind brought forth from experience that tests one’s ideas and skill. My attempt is to bring the general idea of curiosity among people who are travelling via the metro and to make them question their experience and realise that they are part of a bigger entity which they are allowing themselves to be part of.
FINAL PROJECT PROPOSAL My intent as an animator is to work with moving visual, thus I started exploring and experiencing the given space from a pure visual animation point of view. I took this project as it required a public space intervention and public space dynamics that is something I saw as a challenge. The theme it provided me was of a journey of self through transit as an experience. My attempt is to evoke a sense of curiosity among people who are travelling via the metro to want to take further steps to explore, and to make them question what they experience. It provided me a medium for engaging in the action of passing through or across a place using simple narrative-based animation.
The Art in Transit project allows me to tap into stories and bring about an essence of belonging via the realization someone is going through at that moment. The Periscope of Reality aims to project certain ideas, phenomenon and experiences that is the Bangalore metro, bringing one together as a community. I chose the periscope/binoculars to allow me to bring a “point of view” perspective to an audience’s experience and to give the passer-by the chance to categorize information according to one’s own personal experience. My role is of a story teller.
MOOD BOARD
Looking at the functionality of projection of animation through a Stereoscope.
TWO WAY VIEWING OF ANIMATION
The initial idea for the animation was to have two separate sectons of the same animation played that could be viewed together or separately.
INSPIRATION BOARD
ANIMATION ITERATIONS
Showing two sides of the same information.
ANIMATION FORM
The animation shows the splitting of one entity into two different entities. They are going in two separate ways to their respective frames. At the start, they were one complete entity, representing a certain form. They
created it by coming together to form a unique strand. But alone they have their own distinguishable colour and their own path to go to. Drawn back when their paths would meet again.
ANIMATION FORM 2
The entity is stuck. It is looking around from a fixed position. It has only a fixed space to look through and beyond what is the known. The idea is to observe one’s surroundings and to analyse one’s position from their own space. In search of an answer to what is known to one and what is not. To want to understand what one sees
around when one decides to do so. It is a private world where one can be alone, trying to get through and reach out. What happens when you step into another person’s journey, what it means to them, go inside their mind to see what we find. Look through each other’s eyes.
STRUCTURE ITERATIONS
To give different experience and information through each periscope. The above periscope is divided into two section making it form a binoculars showing either ends of the same platform. The person on site A could view the people on site B though a projection which is happeneing at site C, showing the footage being recorded by a camera at site B.
By covering sections of the persicope mirror with black to hightlight information that I want as the intervension of a specific experience that I want to project.
Visualization that broth forth the idea of using PVC pipes.
FORM AND PROTOTYPE EVOLUTION The form is a representation of periscope/binoculars. It is two periscopes coming together to form a singular binocular. Both periscope ends face different directions, separate ends. Each periscope has a screen projection at the end, placed
horizontally reflecting the animation, seeming like a hologram. The periscope provides a “point of view” perspective to categorize information according to one’s own personal experience. The periscope placement allows for play of not
knowing where the end of the periscope is looking at. They can choose to view from the left side or the right, or both. The periscope’s placement allows the person to view through the periscope
at a spot where they can’t access where they are looking towards directly. It’s a separate experience on both ends. One gets to choose the experience they want to go through.
PRELIMINARY RESEARCH QUESTIONS • • • • • • • • • • •
What are the working dynamics of a periscope? Different types of periscope – reflective and non-reflective. Single eye view/double. Forms of periscope. Geographical structure of the metro station and what it brings out. State of being related by the medium. The content I want to produce for the animation. Bringing out an incentive. Monotony of travelling. Everyday mundane life. Bigger questions.
Initially, the periscope was going to be made out of acrylic sheet with projectors in the centre but behind the periscope projecting onto a
translucent plane, while in front, the reflected information light coming from the periscope end would be exiting into the eyesight as well.
Searching for a simpler solution for my animation projection through the periscope I came accross the Pepper Ghost effect. Pepper’s Ghost is an effects technique for creating transparent images. It works by reflecting the image of a ghost off of a sheet of plexiglass. IThis effect has been a staple of theaters and haunted houses since John Pepper popularized it in the 1800s.
It involveed a step by step process of : 1. Ateration nimation/Hologram tests 2. Evolve form/Render 3. Retest 4. Periscope Construction
5. Final Render - hologram + Periscope 6. Registration (Hologram + Reflection)
PROTOTYPING PHASE During my prototype phase, I decided to work with PVC rather than acrylic sheets taking the costing into consideration and fitting mirrors at 45 degree angle at the connectors of the pipe, at a much smaller scale. For the animation to be projected onto the mirror, I worked with the Pepper’s Ghost effect. I needed a transparent material with a reflective surface. A cheaper, lighter, and easier to use material was acrylic plexiglass. When using a transparent acrylic sheet, it
is important to look at both sides as one side is always more reflective. The more reflective side should be facing the image source. Designed with one reflective surface, I used a transparent piece of acrylic to reflect an image generated on a mobile phone. The acrylic is angled at 45 degrees in relation to the display. The viewer looks at it straight on (0 degree viewing angle) and the black pixels from the phone stay transparent.
FORM SPECIFICS
The form is made out of PVC pipes, consists of Bincoular+Periscope made out two 13 ft PVC pipes. The pipes are cut into four sections.Attached to each other by four elbow joints.The pipe is cut into four pieces each being 4 ft and one 1 ft at the end. Each elbow joint has a mirrors attached at a 45
degree angle. At the end of the pvc periscope there is a small projection screen kept horizontally which has a acrylic glass mounted on it at a 45 degree angle behind the screen, bringing out the reflection of the image being displayed, making it seem like a hologram.
FACING CHALLENGES
Challenges I am facing to be able to view the image reflected visual as properly as possible. Loss of information and light. As the scale increased, it became necessary to have a fixed magnification to reflecting glass to
make the light cover the distance of the pipe without which the animation got small and blurry. Also, it was challenging to cut the edges to fit the mirror to be able to reflect as much as possible without loss of information from the mirror end.
REFLECTION
The project allowed me to push my boundaries as an animator as it required me to set up a physical prototype installation for my animation functionality to come out. It provided me an opportunity to have public space intervention and play with public space dynamics that I saw as a challenge. It gave me a new perspective about
the city and its growth. It introduced me to the rhythm that defines the pulse at which a city moves, sensitised me to the replenishing landscape and changing face with the arrival of the metro. I was able to make a connect between the traveller and the element of constant change.
FINAL VISUALIZATION OF THE PROJECT ON SITE
CITATIONS/ BIBLIOGRAPHY • Mythbusters - Plants have feelings (primary perception) - https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=fStmk7e9lJo • Do Plants Respond to Music? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o54o71wVa2c • Do Plants Respond to Pain? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGLABm7jJ-Y • Mimosa Pudica - The Sensitive Plant - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLTcVNyOhUc • Reflective Prism - http://www.instructables.com/id/Reflective-Prism/ • How to Make a Stereoscope - http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Stereoscope • Curiosity and Exploration - http://www.csun.edu/~vcpsy00h/students/explore.htm • GIFs for inspiration - http://giphy.com/
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT • I would firstly like to thank my family for their support. • Srishit giving me a platform to work on. • I would like to thank my project faculy Amitab Kumar, Abhiyan Humane, Arzu Mistry, Shivani Seshadri, Aastha Chauhan and Gaurav Singh for their support, feedback and the push I need to take my project through. • Thanking my peers who helped me critique and feedbacks of my work. • Geetanjali Sachdev and Leslie for their experties.