BODH An introduction Anchana Kota
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“Art is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that other people are infected by these feelings, and also experiences them�- Leo Tolstoy
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Contents Beginning Statement Understanding metro spaces Through sketches Through metaphors Making the space ours Mapping tools Dwelling on dreams Lucidity Research Challenges with my artistic process Shifting Perceptions Lucidity Ideation Primary Research: Testing Peenya Filtering down Guided by Awareness Material exploartion Little People Play Check point Data Collection Ideating through Creating Reworking Concept Questions Self- aware Are you here? Right now Acknowledgments
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Art in transit as a project aimed to introduce art in public spaces and be part of a place making process by creating art that is inspired by the space and for the space. But specifially Art in transit was about “creating meaningful pauses�.
When I took up this project, all I had in mind was to create art in a public space; little did I know the tools and things I would learn about the process of creating art using design. More so learning about how public spaces work and what goes into creating site specific art.
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Statement
As a practitioner of art and design I depend on “the other”. I am driven by the reactions and experiences other people take away after having seen my work. When I have people experiencing a situation as I intended I am enthralled. I enjoy working with a multitude of mediums. I rely on research, analytic and an element of whimsy in my work to make it engaging and interactive. I enjoy creating tools to analyse data, make inferences and arrive at insights. Although I could work in any field, when given the opportunity I turn towards making people see the brighter side of the world, the way I see it: “To let the little things that bore you, suddenly thrill you.” –Andy Warhol
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Understanding Metro spaces Our commencement with work in the public space allotted to us, happened through a series of exercises that got us to engage with community and spaces. We just began by learning about various lenses to look at such spaces and actualizing our ideas in eclectic forms.
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Our site of interest was a metro station in Bangalore that lay on the “green line” which ran from Malleshwaram; Mantri mall up to Nagasandra. The other existing metro line was the “purple line” which ran from Mg road to Byapanahalli.
We began by testing our tools on the purple line before we took it to our site. Our first materialized exercise was sketching a particular metro station on the “purple line”. I was working on the “Swamy vivekanadna” metro station. It is a huge station with not as much footfall as other stations on that line. I understood the purpose of this exercise as being a point of entry and connection with a metro station. By sketching a space and spending time around it, the things we notice and give attention to is at a more intimate level than it is while we just observe or photograph it. As I sketched the space I was noticing the texture of the walls, deducing the age of the space by the peeling paint, understanding the space as I drew the converging lines. Sketching as a tool was now one the important ways for me to approach a public art project.
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Through Sketches I instinctively picked frames that told a story to me or that were amusing in context of that space. Sitting there as the rain was in the air, I watched a few old women take shelter under a pillar. I spent time next to them and heard their conversations as I vaguely doodled the space around me. That was a moment I wanted to capture, the simplicity of their use of the station while they just took cover till the rain passed, it surpassed anything I was expecting to gain from that visit. That was my first frame.
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I soon picked a cow grazing next to the station and as I sensed the irony in the contrast between the shiny overwhelming station with the cow who was barely intimidated by any space around itself. It made the station more approachable for me.
The structure of the space also caught my attention. To find a ramp placed on the sidewalk for disabled people seemed like the metro was being more inclusive of their commuters, yet, the placement of it seemed so random to me that my sketch almost looked like I had altered it for my convenience.
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We continued the exercise on to the green line where our site was located. On the very first day of it, we were just asked to ride on the metro from the first stop to the last and then follow the same routine we did with the purple line. I enjoyed riding on this metro a lot more as it had a larger variety of landscapes; buildings, old temples, glass faรงades for temples, houses hiding under trees, malls and industrial structures. This ride was less populated considering the journey was almost 20 minutes, 8 minutes longer than a ride on the purple line.
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After having reached Peenya, I began to gauge the space for artistic possibilities. I slowly walked around the space, observed how large the interiors were, its depth and subsequent emptiness. Some art work looked very sparse and lacked context, the guards wondering if they should blow their whistle asking me to quicken my pace. I managed to sneak in a few photographs of the space, but I knew if I had to sketch I would need more time with it. I headed outside and tried to find as many fascinating angles as I could. When removed from their purpose, theses lines assumed intriguing postures. I left the metro station that day brimming with excitement at the potential I saw.
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Along side our assignments and exercises, we had talks given to us by many an artist in the field of creating public art and designing for public spaces for us to work on building our concepts and formulating our line of enquiry. We had “the Kabir project” team come in and talk to us about home, journey and memory in the light of spirituality. We also had Deepta, a faculty member, come and talk to us about her project on urban development around the metro stations in Bogotá.
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Through metaphors After our assignment on sketching, we went back to our respective metro stations to find a metaphor that we could associate with our metro station. The idea was for us to be able to find different entry points into understanding the space as a metro station.
As I sat there watching the metro station and sketching its foundation, I realized how its towering bridges and swooping staircases reminded me of an amusement park. I could imagine myself sliding down those roofs and hanging off those bars and people taking joy rides on escalators. Only, this one was abandoned. There was a sense of melancholy the metro station suddenly held; an atmospheric yearning, a void to be filled.
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The next step was similar to that of the one we conducted for the purple line; finding a metaphor for not just the Peenya station but the whole green line. This time round, though, we worked in groups after having come up with metaphors individually. Our process was looking at each individual’s metaphor in the group and seeing how we could integrate it to reach our final metaphor. Along side, we also tried to understand what the city of Bangalore was going through and what stage of development it is in and what the emergence of the metro stations mean to Bangalore.
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What we ended with was looking at the Metro station as new facial hair growing on the adolescent Bangalore’s face. We then worked on a means of expressing it best, which was a partial flip-book. It would show what Bangalore as a city is dealing with, with the emergence of the metro depicted by a young adolescent having sprouted facial hair and what his thoughts are. For me the process of how we collaborated all our metaphors was fascinating, as we had to take key elements and insights from each metaphor to reach our bigger metaphor, which covered most of our points in it. Also, working on its content -to find the right voice that could depict both the metro station and the young boy- was both stimulating and enjoyable.
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I found myself staring at the mirror With a tiny glimmer of hope There wasn’t anything to see yet Nothing to feel I remained the same Everyday I’d observe with envy The leaps and bounds everyone else was making And I waited for the day to come Then one fine day It arrived and appeared And was welcomed with such joy Overflowing with happiness at this glorious beginning I showed off to the world my new prized possession But it grew unsteadily A little clumsily And soon I didn’t know what to do with it Gathering attention from all around With my sudden spurt in growth I grew impatient with my awkwardness It grew in patches Making gawky connections I didn’t know when it would end. Waiting was all that was left. I know I’ll get there eventually I know this phase is necessary And hopefully… It’ll be worth the wait Or will it?
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Making the space ours Now that we had seen our site we started working on potential ideas that we wanted to propose for the space. At that time, the proposals were only to get us to feel comfortable with the space, to have a sense of belonging and inhabitation. In the process of creating our proposals, I realized the things I needed to know about the community. The lack of context was jarring in my first proposal. Some of the ideas were:
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A random dream generator; dreams deal a lot with travel and transit and with a substantial amount of research I wanted to create a bank of dreams that are collaged and played for a span of 20 seconds, randomly starting and stopping. I imagined this taking place as they walked up towards the platform passing each pillar which was correspondingly lit up by each (stepped on)stair; thereby offering each person a different montage.
To create a game for the guards in the station to change their attitude towards the commuters. Have clocks painted that look like they are leaking (Salvador Dali) all over the stairs.
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Have an animation story line run across the rails from One station to another, printed on metal or flex. This could be used to send a message on social issues maybe, or just entertainment.
Although a digital medium could be a possibility, I wanted to create a reversible ruby Goldberg machine where once one places their foot, different pulleys and ropes will pull up images that collapse after a short duration.
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Water flowing in a river or an ocean current as a metaphor for the passage of time or even life; the lights could have elements that move like cloth ,a sense of movement generated by using shadows and colour. Glass could also be used in this space to additionally create a sense of water using different densities of colour and placement. To have element’s hanging with various materials, like OHP, butter paper, cloth and use the wind to show movement, Or even simply orchestrate the illusion of water running using sound.
I wanted people to see the metro station the way I do, in terms of the potential and what taking that ride makes me feel. I wanted people to be able to view or see that it could be a space that cold feel like a new journey every time, ‘like a road not taken’. I wanted people, who, after putting their token in due to a trigger of their footsteps, see roads and landscapes unfolding in front of them.
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Maps as tools Our introduction to using maps as tools began in class, we mapped each others day from when we left our house to how we got to class. That opened a whole new perspective on what maps can do and how we could use it for documentation and communication beyond just geographical understanding of a space.
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After this, we were asked to map a 2 kilometres radius in Yelahanka where our institution was situated, keeping Srishti in the centre. This map had to depict something that Google maps would be unable to show us. We split up into groups and walked narrow alleys and covered as much ground as we could. Luckily for me, my teammate came up with the idea to map all the vehicles. We then decided to map in a way that enabled us to see where majority of the vehicles were registered and get a demographic idea using only number plates. It was an intensive two days; after having documented over five hundred vehicles, we divided the bikes and cars into how many were found in each area and where they were from and layered them accordingly. It was extremely fascinating to see the kind of data that emerged from this mapping. We learnt that one house alone in our section of the map was from Mysore.
If we had to pursue it further, we would have liked to study the up scale residential complexes to see if the majority would remain the same as the data we had collected.
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After all our maps were put together we realized that we could use each other’s maps as tools to understand a space. These tools that were created through assignments by each of us were valuable to the entire class.
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The same task was carried out in Peenya, except we were working by ourselves this time round. I was at a loss for what I would map even after having walked around and driven around the area a few times. It was suggested to me to map the mappers; Basically mapping everybody’s map. It was around now where we had to fend for ourselves that I found myself struggling to find direction. So for a few days, I waited till people were done with their maps to see how I could curate them all together and failed repeatedly till I realized I could map the people who had created the maps. Up till that point, I had participated in group discussions regarding peoples work, their process and what they had done for each assignment. I managed to find a thread or concept that ran from their first assignment till that point, divided them into the kind of maps they were and wrote a few lines that had a poetic element to it as I wanted it to be
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represented in a dream state. The larger concept I gave it was that we were all part of this sleep state of ours where dreams and nightmares alike are shared amongst each of us and have a reason for existing individually, but can be tied together for each individual and as a group. It was extremely exciting to see people reading what I had written for them and to either accept what I had written or have realizations of their own work through mine.
Sensory Sound
Aditya- A line of microorganisms that belong to a macro transitory space, which slowly transformed into a game of monotony, but soon the other senses tried taking shape in the dream scape, slipped and slid, following the sounds of the space which hazily formed a map.
Harleen- Yellow and blue standing tall representing robots in a space that behave like two, Transistors and lines interpreted from transit and connecting lines, lost in a maze of maps sound guided her through time and through space.
Light intensity
Alok- The space stayed still yet moved, the lines blurring past, into the adolescent city, the lines expanded into spaces traced by the nose. And then they turned into light. Bright lights flowing through time. Manush- Alienated in the space, people engrossed in their actions and suspended in time, the dream flowed around it, and it flowed into sounds where animals brayed and bleated, the sounds took over the senses took shape, map followed by map of sound and light.
Walking Lets sit
Taarika- An image that stood clear, so big an idea, it drove itself into the game of monotony not just for her but for a combination of people and ideas. From commercial to informal the maps took form, a land where one walks and only then sees.
Maze
Sayori- Looking through windows and at them, the story reveals itself, flipping through pages and past compartments the metro finds itself in the window of perception. Lost in a maze of maps the map made a maze of roads that require weapons when alone, to survive a game of the life of the people inhabiting it.
Pain
Radhika- Epitomizing metro stations across cities, this one dealt with pride being held up high, its still an element of confusion, like everything consumerism makes us deal with today. Although the journey itself was a personal one with
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Dwelling on dreams I was also struggling with what direction to take my project. From my previous ideas I had 3 essential themes, which was working with dreams, the idea of time and just getting people to interact and have fun at the metro station. I had narrowed it down to dreams induced by sleep, as I had done work previously in that field. I began by doing intense research on dreams, scientifically, spiritually, by scrutinizing previous artistic pursuits etc.. As my research material assumed a voluminous form in each field, I was unsure as to which aspect of it to deal with further. However, as time went by, I realized that they couldn’t be separated from each other so I went back to my research.
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The first thing was about the importance of dreams, that I came across repeatedly was that :
“ The neurophysiology mechanisms that we employ while dreaming (and recalling dreams) are the same as when we construct and retrieve memories while we are awake.” (Scientific America).
There were also scientific experiments conducted to show that the REM cycle, during which we dream, is critical to building the power of our memory.
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Lucidity The aspect of dreams that came up often was lucid dreaming. This has been something that came naturally to me since I was a child. Although I haven’t managed to follow it up properly, it has been of great interest. Although after having watched a lot of videos, read articles and seen artwork done on lucid dreaming and its importance to our waking life, I still had no idea as to what I wanted to do in the metro station.
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Research Some of the artwork I had come across were: Chantal Powell, who created an interactive installation of cherubs sleeping to form a colour wheel
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Luke Jerram was interested in getting people to lucid dream and to influence their dreams through creating sleep pods which played with sounds and light while the participant was asleep. I was more inclined towards Luke Jerram work as he was directly trying to create an experience of lucid dreaming.
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Fariba Bogzaran an artist whose work is fundamentally grounded in her lifelong research of dreams and the concept of lucid dreaming: the state of being conscious while dreaming. The act of lucid dreaming allows for the construction of an unrestricted creative space where her body of work is generated. Her work is mostly trans-media installations, paintings, and drawings. Her work aims to recreate; her concepts and imagery of fear, scientific inquiry, and transcendence. Yet there was an element of distance in the conveyance of lucid dreaming itself, which made her work distant from what I was hoping to achieve.
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Challenges with my artistic process There were points where I was getting extremely frustrated with my artistic process as I felt like I was working but not getting anywhere. I was unable to arrive at a place where I felt I was creating something that would have an impact, I was unable to design a satisfactory experience as it was still too broad a subject. I often found myself delving into other people’s projects and ideas with more enthusiasm, than facing mine.
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Shifting Perspectives Considering I felt like I had hit a dead end with the dream space by researching it, I decided to think of the various experiences I would want to create in the metro station, and during a conversation realized it would be a very interesting challenge to get someone to experience a lucid dream through an intervention in the metro station.
“To have a lucid dream you must know that it’s a dream while you’re dreaming. The best technique for becoming lucid is to actually become more aware and look and listen and pay attention to details, because when you see things that don’t fit, that’s a clue that you’re dreaming” (Psychology today)
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So then I began to look at various ways as to which I could induce lucid dreaming. Now, considering it is already a difficult process to get one to be lucid while dreaming as Luke Jerram’s work showed, I had to trace back a few steps in the lucid dreaming process and only make second guesses as to what the result would be, as this was a transitory public space and my art intervention would have to last there for a while and have the desired effect on people without me directly communicating with them. I began by understanding the different ways of getting yourself to lucid dream. Some of the triggers to realize you’re dreaming is when; you see a digital clock, or try to read text, or if there is a change in elements you are surrounded by (if you are walking on land and there is water sprouting at your feet).
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I decided to use these as my starting tools to induce lucid dreaming. It is also important to begin by being aware of your surroundings in your waking life to use that as a reality check when you dream. It is important to constantly question reality. This was research I gained from Charlie Morley a dream lucid dream teacher and after having looked at lucid dreaming applications like Awoken and 10 steps to lucid dreaming.
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Lucidity Ideation One of my initial ideas was to add a digital clock on the metro platform, which every few minutes would have one of the digits act funny (make an arm spin, make a whole digit spin, have a little man run across the digits etc.) .
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After that idea I was considering the various ways I could enforce these triggers in the real world. Another idea was to have motion triggered water sprays around corners of the metro station. Just a tiny spray that jolts them, makes them ponder and question what just triggered it.
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Primary research: testing Peenya I went on to doing interviews around Peenya as to what kind of dreams people have and If they are lucid when they dream. For most of it, people dreamt of their everyday lives and I found 5% of the people I interviewed had understood what being lucid meant when they dreamt; what was most fascinating, though, was that everybody was interested in the realm of dreams. Although my interviews hadn’t reaped too much, I felt more assured working with dreams, as it would still capture peoples attention.
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Filtering down Once I had reached this stage I realized a lot of it was driven on assumptions as to what a person would go through after having interacted with my piece. Without the concept of getting people to lucid dream, what my interventions were doing was only to tamper with their immediate sense perception, and euphemistically, playing a prank. Although I had come up with various ideas to be able to make them question their reality, for example; having tiny speakers around the metro station that just said “Excuse me”, random messages found in obscure spots of the metro station, having objects like helicopters and cars placed on different surfaces. I realized I wasn’t satisfied with my explanations for them. I also took inspiration from Pors and Rao and their depiction of everyday objects in a way to question the nature of its form. I also researched Zen koans to see if there was material in their stories that would give me an idea to make people question reality through absurdity.
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Guided by awareness Soon, I realized that if my intention was to get people to notice their environment and be aware of the spaces they walk through (a form of reality checking), I could use these elements I had created as a point of entry into creating things in spaces to achieve my goal. My ideas were using similar elements like the helicopter and car , but also a lot of ‘little people’ interacting with the metro station. I walked around the station to find spots that intrigued me and started working on what could draw a persons attention to that space. I found spaces behind dustbins, seemingly random doors, within patterns etc.
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Material Exploration Apart from objects that I had to source from a market I needed to create little people. I needed a material that would strengthen and would be easy to mould. As I had worked with aluminium before I tried creating figurines with foil. But they were too flimsy. The other option I had was to create cold porcelain made of white glue and corn starch. I did not manage to get the mixture right the first time but it was manageable. I had to try adding parts of corn starch and glue separately to get the right consistency, and to reduce grains in the mixture. I experimented with mediums for colours, such as inks and acrylic and switched between the two according to the number of cracks I needed to hide. Or I left it without colour to increase the contrast and reduce how much the figurine stood out. Every figurine needed to be made in separate parts. The legs first so that they could harden and bare the weight of the rest of the body, then the hands were placed to create dents in the main body so to stick it with a stronger adhesive. They needed to be constantly watched over so that they would shrink evenly. If not the parts would get distorted as they would bulge in places that were not aired, as the outside hardened and inside remained wet. These were some of my first iterations.
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There were challenges in having to figure various postures that were still recognizable and could be pieced together after them having dried.
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Little people play I had reached this point pretty close to our first exhibition in the metro station. Although I experimented with other objects in the station, the little people took over what I was executing for the exhibition. Over a span of three days, I placed them in various locations interacting with the station, they were placed both in the walking path of the commuters and a little outside of it too. I wanted my installations and interventions to be small enough to make an impact when it was in he space, where people would have to actually look for them, or to be more observant to spot them, yet when taken away would continue to have a similar impact on them as they walked through that space.
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Each of these little people were placed according to site. The three little people were intended to get people to look outside the metro station, see the frame of the metro line by the side of the forest backgrounded by the sky. The little blue man was placed around a corner as people walked towards the escalator. The people who did notice the little man were intrigued by it, and were not too sure of what to make of it. The three placed on the platform were slowly destroyed and replaced in other spaces, that I had not intended.
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The two interesting things that happened was that the guards and construction workers started interacting with these little people; they would either disappear or be spotted in spaces I had not placed them in. The people who did notice it were intrigued by it. As I did not manage to converse with anybody apart from the guards and my peers I was still only assuming that people would start being aware of their space by looking out for the little people. My realization was that I needed to make these models out of a stronger material and figure out how I wanted people to interact with them. The mass of feedback I got after the exhibition centred around creating a little scene around the people, hopefully making them last in their space longer, or putting them on a pedestal to make their presence there more purposeful; to find a way of connecting all these people, a story line or a bigger intention for them, to try and divert my attention to other objects, or to use these little people to pass on a message and move the whole idea out of the metro station too, and to get better documentation of peoples responses to my intervention.
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Check point I then hit a road block again with what I wanted to do. I did follow up on my feedback, figured out stronger materials to use, checked up on tracking devices, but with no seemingly larger theme and concept, I was stuck.
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I then sat and went through the entire process I had gone through in the past few months of the project to see if there was a missing link or a bigger picture I had missed. Although I figured they were all to do with making people stop and look for a few moments. I had not realized that I was making them see through seeing things the way I do. A world filled with amusement and things to be looking out for that are happening in plain site that could potentially better their day. And that became my larger theme that ran through my previous work and I wanted to consciously continue into what was to come.
Data collection Although I had spoken to people about my project and got responses about how they felt good for having spotted the little people, and were intrigued by it in the metro station I did not have any documented proof of it. I decided to test it out by placing a little person on a commercial street in Bangalore. I was glad to find that out of fifty people who walked by the people whose attention it did catch were intrigued by it enough to come back and have a look at it. I also realized the need for a stronger conceptualized installation, so as to have a stronger message to take away.
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Ideating through creating Considering I was stuck with my process I decided to just start creating and stop thinking. I identified with the form of a dream catcher and the ideas attached to it. As I began creating it I saw potential for it to filled with things within its gaps and I could give it a stronger context of the metro station by tying in elements from everybody’s work, in terms of material and concepts. After my realization of the bigger theme in my work I wanted to pick elements in everyday life around Peenya that could bring a smile to people’s faces (like a boy creating a game in the little chores of transporting banana leaves into his house, old people sitting and playing marbles) and add these photos to the dream catcher. My little people would be interacting with the dream catcher like it was a world in itself, and then find itself all over the metro station.
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As I got ahead to making it I realized that all my tiny micro processes have seemingly assumed a macro-cosmic form. My individual processes and elements have now cumulated into a story, the subjects of which are not just my elements but also the audience. By infusing an alternate reality into everyday objects, I make the metro station not just everybody’s but each ones own.
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Reworking concept The dream catcher idea was reconsidered after my third review as the dream catcher isn’t a familiar symbol in most peoples lives. I had not realized that filling in its gaps was destroying the idea of a dream catcher. As the dream catcher as symbol/concept was not used to its full potential there was no actual need for its form, it could have been a net or a web. The other aspect of my project that was pointed out to me was that there was no actual content to my project. Although there was an intention that was being partially achieved it was not strong enough.
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I went back to my process and traced what all I had been trying to achieve and how I could take further. I had begun with trying to induce lucid dreaming by being more aware subconsciously using daily activities, moved on to being aware as a form of reality checking which integrated points of being amused. I side tracked by trying to get people to be amused with the world the way I am but with no actual reason for it. But realized if I followed through with being aware and conscious of your surroundings I could get people to also look at being conscious of their actions. As I traced back further I also realized that after my course with the DalaiLama foundation, this was one aspect of the Buddhist philosophy I was consciously integrating into my life, and subconsciously felt there would be value in putting it out there into the world while possibly preparing the initial stages to lucid dream.
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Questions Why be aware of small things? What is in it for me? Let alone anyone else? What was my intent? What message do I want to communicate?
Issues
Why would they care? Is this the job of an artist? What is the role of an artist? Am I an artist or a designer? How to bring together being an artist and designer?
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This project for me has been to answer these questions for myself. It has been a struggle, to answer them at every step of the way. As a service designer who has always been given a problem statement and worked towards it; my biggest struggle was finding a problem statement that resonated with me and had value to society. Earlier I had worked on a project on trying to prove that the supply of spaces that offer peace is higher than the demand for it. Everybody constantly seems to be seeking a space to be calm and at peace. But the answer for me that were driven by every religions philosophy has been about being grateful and living in the moment. My struggle through the project and ideating for it was to accept that it does not have to be a means to an end but a journey to create an experience for other people to feel the way I do. To see that every space one enters could be place of peace if one was more aware and observant of their own thoughts, actions and spaces. I realized my question should be how do I make people care about this inquiry. As an artist I felt the first step would be to introduce it to the world around me and then work towards making them care about it.
While researching on awareness I came across to two main aspects to it. Awareness of self and awareness of space. Both of it forms of meditation that is required to be more mindful. To be at peace and in control of your thoughts. I wanted to pursue both directions. One to see if I could create a trigger to get people to be aware of ones own actions as well as being more aware of ones space. It was after having combined both did I realize that I wanted to pay more attention to one being more present in the moment. It is easy to be caught up in ones own head, with all the visual and audio clutter, we tend to live our lives on auto pilot, not registering or even noticing the things that are happening around you. Worried and lost in our own thoughts, we don’t realize the value of knowing one’s self better. There are enough number of reminders in words out there coming from all kinds of people that ask us to do exactly this. And yet there is something about the act of being in the moment we seem to often forget to do. Now “Bodh” for me is to see what are the various probes and tools I could use to generate this response.
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Self - aware The idea is to place these little humans in settings that depict a satire of public etiquette, so as to make one aware of their spaces and their actions. The intention is to draw attention to these scenarios, it may make someone conscious of their own actions or just be able to relate to it. I want each scenario to be able to have value on its own as well as add value to a space.
I did some research concerning everyday activities where persons annoy their counterparts without being particularly aware of their affect. As I began collecting these scenarios I gathered information about why these actions frustrate people. These ideas from my research made me realize the potential for interventions that could be along the lines of making people aware of their actions but I have not yet figured a way to combine it with making people aware of their space, as effectively as the little people can. Some of the activities I narrowed down were: People honking unnecessarily People blinding other drivers by using high beam. People using their phones while in conversation. When people yawn while conversing with you and don’t acknowledge it People reading over your shoulder Being gawked at. Things being placed that don’t belong there and weren’t ever placed there. Being physically pushed around in a public space. A restless persons twitch acts as a trigger of restlessness in others around them. Not making eye contact while conversing.
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These are iterations of satirical depictions of what it feels like when someone is reading over your shoulder, when someone gawks at you, and someone honks insistently. (Top left to bottom) On the left are the figurines I made to depict what it feels like when someone uses their phone during a conversation.
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Are you here? I also wanted to test how I could get people to be more in the moment through awareness and observation. Considering the little people only managed to intrigue and our site was not available for us to continue testing in, I decided to take it into a space where I could test how to get people to observe spaces around them. I began this process by looking at how do I get people to observe tiny things around them, which is where I had left it at earlier. I then began questioning how do I get them to be in the moment through observing things around them. I came up with a few ideas, such as; having frames placed around an area to see if people would look through it. Or drawing attention to a space by placing a sticker or a plaque cards. I decided to test the one with the frame to see how people would respond to it. I carried this experiement out in Indira nagar. Once having placed it, I realized it would require more iteraions to get people to look through the frame.
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The questions that came up were: How big do I need it to be to draw someones attention? What shape does it need to take for it to act as a trigger to look through it? How much do I decorate the frame to raw someones attention? Then there were questions regarding the location of these frames. Where will there be enough people? How do I place these frames? Should I frame somehting specific? Will that ruin the intention? How do I make it more purposeful. Also started questioning whether it would make a differencce depending ont he kind of people exposed to it? If it is placed in an area that people were already being more observant will it gain more attention? Could I use that information to work with taking it to a different space?
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RIght now This project is a work in progress. And would continue to be so.Considering my process has taken me through a variety of concepts, ideas, research papers, and interventions and I yet do not know my end goal, I am certain it will continue taking me to new spaces I have not explored.
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This project for me has been a personal and profesional journey. Understanding my strenghts and weaknesses. It has been a culimination of all that has mattered to me in the past four years of being in Srishti. Understanding how I work and what I am drawn towards. Dwelling into other peoples work, tying together larger concepts. Drowning in ideas and resurfacing with seemingly nothing. Doubting myself through every step of the way, and yet finding solace in other peoples words and the growth of the project from where I began. I have learnt the value of learning and ideating through creating and testing. Learning that research needs to be put down, that people require larger validation than oneself. Learning to differntiate between objectivity and subjectivity in creating and the value and need for appropriate use for both. It continues to fill me with questions and answers that I need to write down, to trace every step of why I have reached where I have reached. I look forward to continue working on myself and this project.
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Acknolwedgments The list of people I would need to thank is long, as I have had help coming in from various directions and inspiration and guidance coming in from points I could not have imagined. My faculty Amitabh, Shikha, Arzu and Samir have been my guides throug most of my times in this project. Made me realize the value of what I was capable of doing at every step, guding me towards resources and keep me away from straying. To have picked my calls up and listened to anything I had to say. My peers and friends for the hours they have spent ideating with me and shooting me down for the times I needed to be shot down. My parents for their constant support and faith. The guards and the BMRC for putting up with us in their space and becoming my friends to discuss my work with. A hearty thank you for everybody else and everything else that has helped me through this project.
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