ART IN TRANSIT Mrinalini Mohan
Shivani Seshadri Abhiyan Humane Amitabh Kumar Arzu Mistry
B.CrA 2015-16
Project overview
As Bangalore grows swiftly into its latest avatar as a megacity, new roadways, flyovers and modes of transit are already carving out a new landscape. While the city’s population often struggles to adjust to these changes, we believe art can provide the tools to comment, question, nuance, bring humour and open dialogue. We use these transitions as an opportunity to engage the public in an interaction with the city that goes beyond acceptance, anger, apathy or ignorance and opens up the possibility of intrigue, engagement and even hope. As an educational program, we are committed to developing a range of critical practices that respond to the growing curiosity towards the revitalisation of public spaces through art and design. This growth in public art practice has created relevance around questions of framing and positioning oneself within a larger field. We facilitate interrogation and navigation for students and practitioners across rapidly emerging binaries within the field of public art practice, such as : Place and Practice Activism and Gentrification Traditional and Contemporary Value and Impact Form and Function Ephemeral and Archival
By providing contextual framing to a nascent media practice we explore the idea of publicness to its truest potential where the artist has a direct relationship with the audience/reader. Practitioners at Art in Transit use the arts and design as a medium to facilitate dialogue between people and the urban spaces they inhabit. This approach is further nuanced by linking emergent global public art practices with the idea of place and locality. This an antithesis to the blind imitation of styles and tendencies that often inhabit the idea of popular. We instigate strategies wherein there is constant evolution of art practice through the lens of place, as opposed to appropriation of place through art. This program extends itself as a platform where various practices, pedagogies and processes centred around public art in Bangalore can converge to provide a unified vision responding to the transforming urban landscape of Bangalore.
Map of station
Immersion process
Frames of entry I started by looking at technology and R&D in Bangalore. It interested me about how much Bangalore had changed in the short span of the last few decades. I myself am from Mumbai, and having grown up there, I experienced the sight of a growing change from childhood till now, and it is still rapidly changing. I was interested in seeing whether that was the case in Bangalore too. However an unexpected turn of events at Cubbon park made me ponder over the idea of personal space and the notion of it being respected by others as my personal space was encroached by a couple of unwanted guys at the park. Privacy is the state in which one is not observed or disturbed by other people. My experience at Cubbon park, made me ponder over the idea of personal space and what are the boundaries that surround it in a public place. My idea was to bring the concepts of how technology could be used to protect ones personal space.
Research infographic
Top; bottom- Comparison of old and new newspaper advertisements
Still from early escalator animation; bottom- Experimenting with pixel stick
Research process
Proxemics is the study of human spatial requirements and the effects that population density has on behaviour, communication, and social interaction. Section 354 of Indian penal code (IPC): If a person either physically or mentally offends (outraging the modesty of a girl/lady in the legal parlance) a girl or a lady with the intentions of or knowing well that the self respect of the victims will be offended, apply the physical or the criminal force, then for any such actions, he shall be liable to get a two years jail term, or may be fined or both. This is a bailable crime but be noted there cannot be a compromise after the case is registered. Males should be warned of the consequences of eve teasing. This problem is prevalent in India and many parts of the world as well. It is slowly being recognized as an issue and the steps are slowly being taken against it.
Like this award winning ad by aaj takhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk6Bi23Q7-E or this video of a woman silently walking on the streets of NYChttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1XGPvbWn0A Attempts at curbing this problem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35KqGNa1FGA
Top; bottom- Scenes depicting different situations of personal space
Case studies Personal space exists between vehicles too. When in a vehicle, the sense of personal space seems to expand. The two-second rule (also known as the three-second rule in some states) is a rule of thumb by which a driver may maintain a safe following distance at any speed. The rule is that a driver should ideally stay at least two seconds behind any vehicle that is directly in front of the driver’s vehicle. It also exists among animals. However, I’m won’t be going in detail about that subject.
Top- Scene showing encroachment of personal space; bottom- Iteration scene showing girl teleporting on being stalked
Top- Personal space between friends; bottom- girl with fire extinguisher wards offender off
Survey
Q. On seeing the following images, what are your reactions? (E.g. All men are bad, how is that even possible?, the situation seems legit, etc.)
1.
Responses:
percentage somen men have bad inten.ons good solu.on How is that even possible Funny Men shouldn’t behave like this
2.
Responses:
Percentage
For self defense Not all men are bad The girl should react aptly Will I be blamed if I can't ďŹ ght back?
3.
Responses:
Percentage Good idea The girl could evade oendor Impossible Made fun/sarcasm of idea The girl should react aptly
Top; bottom- Survey statistics
Initial Project Proposal
The two ideas that I wanted to pursue were 1) Technology 2) Personal space Privacy Safety Surveillance Bangalore people’s physical characteristics After my experience at Cubbon park: Three people followed me, which made me ponder over the idea of personal space and what are the boundaries that surround it in a public place. Privacy is the state in which one is not observed or disturbed by other people. My intention was to see if I could bring the concepts of personal space and technology together. That is, to see whether such technology existed which could help a person regain their sense of personal space. Initially, my research questions were based on safety and probing into what were the future possibilities in technology to make a space feel safer. However, as time went on, the focus moved to communicating the various types of personal space that existed in different situations and finally got narrowed down to the encroachment of women’s personal space in public places in the form of street harassment.
Top; bottom- Early iterations of interventions in metro
Approach I want to take this up in some way or other. Also, from my previous project I used, photographs of the stipulated area and rendered them into backgrounds using a personalized color palette. As of now, I’m going to try to make people aware of these safety mechanisms. I’m going to take more pictures of the areas there and find out by interrogating more people. The danger areas- robbery, thieves, and rapists will be shown Learning outcomes Researching about the safety mechanisms and technology for the advancement and betterment in the future. Finding a way to channel all my random information/animation to a specific format. Studying the people of Bangalore in the transit through sketches or animations.
I wanted to focus on the idea of the encroachment of a woman’s personal space in different situations and how this could be addressed. In order to do this, I thought of various ways in which I would wish to deal with the unpleasant situations of personal space being disrespected. My ideas included supernatural powers when faced with a problem. For e.g. teleporting, moving -speed of light, repelling kryptonite earrings that cause a bad headache to perpetrators, self-defence knuckle guards, etc. Thus, I was trying to envision a world where such gadgets existed which helped a victim evade the offender and obtain peace of mind temporarily. However, this approach was met with criticism with respect with being in a public space. I realized that by putting up clips of the girl escaping these situation, I would be wrongly saying that its her responsibility to escape, when clearly the culprit was the other party. Hence, after looking up what were the practical ways of dealing with this problem in a real world scenario, I came to the understanding that it would be by negotiating with the perpetrator rather than using violence or escaping. This would probably prevent him from committing such acts in the future. This would, in effect move society closer in making public spaces safer for women.
Top; bottom- visualizations on site
Establishing position
I was more convinced about the lack of safety for a single woman after reading a couple of articles about a woman being raped in Cubbon park by the security itself and about occasions where a woman felt unsafe in the metro or was even harassed without any aid to help by the security guards etc. on few occasions. However, as instances of these have been particularly few. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2477559/Bangalore-Metro-officials-claim-womens-safety-responsibility-police.html Certain apps were launched to help people, in particular women feel safer and to alert them of the various danger zones in a city. Sending alerts to their close ones regarding where they are via gps tracking systems, namely- safety pin, etc. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/slideshow/15-personal-safety-apps-for-women/itslideshowviewall/45431568.cms LightRails: A Neglected Railroad Underpass Illuminated by Artist Bill FitzGibbons http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2013/08/bill-fitzgibbons-lightrails/ In recent years the dark tunnel had deteriorated into an unwelcoming and potentially dangerous area, so the city hired sculptor and public artist Bill FitzGibbons to create a lighting solution that would encourage more pedestrian traffic.
Top- LightRails by Artist Bill FitzGibbons; bottom- Mind map
Formalizing concept
In the first seminar, I proposed that my medium of expression was going to be animating over photographs or film. I wanted to show the safety, the kind of people of Bangalore and animate it. And I planned to do this in particular by studying the people of Bangalore through sketches, etc. At the same time I wanted to show how technology could be used in secluded areas to make it safer and render this into an animation. However, I later moved on to the idea of using signboard like stick figure characters in my animation. The intent was to make them seem funny and less intimidating while using bright colours to do the same. They would be played on screens which resembled signboards. However, they would have to be placed in areas where it wouldn’t encroach the usual movement flow of the commuters. However, the idea of the signboard form had to be discarded due to some restrictions by the authorities. Hence, the form went on to projection on the walls of the metro station.
Top- character iteration for my personal space animation; bottom- Colour palette for animation
Mind Map
Top- Storyboard of hypothetical kryptonite ear rings that wards off personal space offenders; bottom- initial visualization iteration; opposite page- storyboard of girl using self defence against offender
Top- Storyboard of hypothetical high speed shoes to escape from stalkers; bottom- initial visual style iteration; opposite page- storyboard of girl escaping from attacker through a magic vent which teleports the victims
Framework
Using the various ideas activated by the ‘underground’ - The Otherland set forth to re-imagine the site through a series of whimsies, fantasies and other stories.
Storyboard of hypothetical holographic watch that wards off street harassers by projecting a bodyguard hologram
Iteration of another visual style
Storyboard of girl that uses fire extinguisher to incapacitate offender
Curatorial process
Initially, the signboards were going to be placed in areas where a connection could be established with the objects in the animation and the physical objects present in the metro or in areas which I felt were secluded, like the toilet area. And the intent of my form was, that by placing such signboards with bright stick figure characters would make the space less intimidating and instigate people to talk about these issues and thus make the space less deserted. However, this was met with criticism, because it seems that by placing something like that in a secluded space fear would probably be evoked in the minds of people when maybe it wasn’t formerly. Furthermore, the selection of my sites were not permitted as they wouldn’t make sense as a narrative if they were situated in separate spaces, i.e. the paid area and the unpaid area. Therefore, I changed the space entirely to the paid area on to a wall stretch where people couldn’t possibly miss the story. I chose the income tax exit space next to Taarini and Urvika’s sky and light installations respectively. As this made sense to me because my intent was primarily to make a space seem safer, and to give people an idea on how to deal with uncomfortable situations. Thus, situating it near the well lit areas would probably help in this cause.
Top; bottom; next page- Iteration on the positions of signboard TV’s which would display animations in narrative form. As one would proceed through the metro, one would get to know the narrative in sequence. This idea was scrapped due to reasons of lack of continuity in flow of the narrative
Form and Prototype
My installation would come on the Income tax exit wall stretch in Cubbon Park metro station.
Top; bottom; opposite page- scenes from final animation
Budget
I would need a min. of a projector with 2000 lumen brightness to project in the bright environment of the metro. The budget specification for my prototype installation was predicted to be â‚š2000 to rent a 2000 lumen projector. It was initially scheduled to be tested on 14 April 2016 but got delayed a bit as I needed to work on the animation. I scheduled it later to 21 April 2016 or after.
For the final installation, I would need 4 projectors costing a total of ₹54,000 Also an additional ₹4000 for ceiling mounts to mount the projectors. Hence, I would require an est. total sum of ₹58,000.
Final visualization on site
Bibliography
“Art in Transit.” Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology. http://srishti. ac.in/centers-and-labs/art-in-transit “Welcome to archive online.” The Times of India. http://epaper.timesofindia. com/Default/ClientEpaperBeta.asp?skin=pastissues2&enter=LowLevel “Woman gangraped in Cubbon Park, 2 arrested.” Dna. http://www.dnaindia. com/locality/bengaluru-central/woman-gangraped-cubbon-park-2-arrested-75374 “Proxemics.” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxemics Kumar, Ashish. “What is eve teasing and what are the provision under law to punish eve teasing?.” IndiaStudyChannel.com http://www.indiastudychannel.com/resources/142033-What-eve-teasing.aspx “Award winning , funny Indian ad on eve teasing for AAJ TAK.” YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk6Bi23Q7-E “10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman.” YouTube. https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=b1XGPvbWn0A “10 hours of walking but this time she talks back (BEST CATCALL parody).” YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35KqGNa1FGA “Driving safely in traffic - the two second rule.” RSA. http://www.rotr.ie/rules-for-driving/speed-limits/speed-limits_2-second-rule. html
“Your perspective.” Survey Monkey. https://www.facebook.com/l. php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.surveymonkey.com%2Fr%2F7WBYVQT&h=CAQEgID3a&s=1 “15 personal safety apps for women.” The Times of India. http://timesofindia. indiatimes.com/tech/slideshow/15-personal-safety-apps-for-women/itslideshowviewall/45431568.cms Jobson, Christopher. “LightRails: A Neglected Railroad Underpass Illuminated by Artist Bill FitzGibbons.” Colossal. http://www.thisiscolossal. com/2013/08/bill-fitzgibbons-lightrails/ Wong, Master. “Self-defence Lesson 3: Push, block attack.” YouTube. https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xo4EEnh6H70