ART IN TRANSIT
JORDANNA COUTINHO DOCUMENTATION & PROCESS B.Cra 2016 1
CONTENTS Project Proposal
Art In Transit 1. 2. 3.
Project Overview Site Analysis Why Art In Transit?
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A. Seminar 1
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1. Proposal
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2. Research Direction
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B. Seminar 2
Frames Of Entry
1. Revised Proposal 2. Final research Direction
A. City Past, Present & Future 1. 2. 3.
Literary Review Object, Architecture & History Embodiment & Experience
B. Case Studies 1. Fearless Collective: Dharawi Biennale 2. Ourijit Sen: Mapping Mapsa 3. Khirki Extension 4. Forager Collective & Alan Schwabe 4. Forager Collective “Let Them Eat Cake”
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Curatorial Process
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Form & Prototype
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Final Viualizations
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Bibliography
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C. Artistic Infulences 1. Socially Engaged Art Practice Around The World
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ART IN TRANSIT Project Overview Cluster: Public Spaces: Aesthetics, Community and Tensions Vision: The politics of place, particularly public space, is inherently and organically strained due to multiple stakeholders and ideas from the varied perceptions of inhabitants of that place-- about what a place can/should be and what it is? Justice, diversity and inclusivity jostle against the powered, the homogenized, and the elite desires of place, complicating the definitions of “the public” or “a community”. As artists and designers how we listen, engage, reflect and respond to these dynamics of public space influences the explorative practice and the participation of diverse communities at stake. Can we imagine a contemporary Bangalore aesthetics and experience that is yet to exist? “In these great times, when orders are being imposed on us from every direction...the idea that we can change the order of things is truly ridiculous. Luckily, we traffic in the ridiculous. We are Artists.” (Chan, 2014, p. 53)
There is an experience of what Bangalore was / is today that predicates a multi layered imagination, desire, hope, inkling and aspiration of what Bangalore can be. Bangalore is an example of “the city,” the nature of which is being brought into question worldwide. 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, which like many others, is in a state of transition.
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The metro within this metropolis, is a semi - public space that offers opportunities for congregation and social networks. Where a diversity of people come together with a common purpose of getting from one point to another. The Art in Transit Collective is interested in a transdisciplinary framework that engages through art and design practices with the ‘metro’ as a symbol of a changing city. Does the metro have the potential to become the connective tissue between a past nostalgia, our present experience and the fantastical future?
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 centre of Bangalore City. Both stations are still under construction and will open to public use during the duration of the project. The physical space of the metro is made up of multi-levelled underground architectural spaces as well as over ground access entrances in and around Cubbon Park. In addition, the diverse social, historical, political, cultural, economic, temporal dimensions of these two metro station make these stations and the surrounding roads, footpaths, buildings and parks an interesting site for contemporary art practice students. The opportunity to work in a functional public space in and around the Metro allows for an exploration of a variety of public art practices. A space is provided to explore traditional and contemporary, local and historical practices of public engagement and community celebration and develop creative practices and their social responsibility towards re-imagining the future of the city. Through understanding context and place making, one is allowed to locate Socially Engaged Art + Public Art practices in a local theoretical framework.
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Why Art In Transit? Art in transit is a collaborative space that allows for individual artistic expression within a comprehensive conceptual framework. Fuelled by this constant engagement with space and building context with fellow collaborators allows for a broadened understanding of how to position oneself within a collective and conceptually curate processes and outcomes, along with expanding our interpretation of resource and material. Here one is provided with the platform to engage with a larger network of the city, enabling our artistic capabilities to move beyond individual choice but to build larger conversations. The forum to voice ideas and opinions is openly challenged, pushing to a more grounded, relevant exploration of concept to form.
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FRAMES OF ENTRY City Past, Present, Future What does the city of Bangalore aspire to be? The metro has emerged as a symbol of this transient city and Bangalore’s identity jostles between nostalgia and future aspiration, becoming a collection of various tensions. Questions about mobility vs. immobility, inclusion vs. exclusion, marginalized vs. capitalized allude to the complex nature of social, political and economic binaries that can trap our thinking and action. This projects offers the opportunity to explore the various layers of Bangalore’s transient identity, be it the past collective memories of the city, one’s present varied experiences of the city and the diverse and competing aspirations of this city. Through this project we will collect, explore and investigate if the metro can become the connective tissue between the past, present and the future of the city.
Literary Review The Promise Of The Metropolis Bangalore’s Twentieth Century Janaki Nair Nair approaches the city through a framework which incorporates an understand of the city as it exists today put together through its historical themes, ideologies, principles of planning, manifested and proposed visions conceived by government agencies and challenges the discourse on the site of contention that the city has become, elaborating on the tug of war between the “city beautiful” movement the envisioned futuristic Singaporean vision that the city is expected to live up to alongside creating an identity for the city’s inhabitants. 8
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‘Bad roads have become a metaphor for corruption, for the impossibility of being ‘modern’ and for the intractable problems posed by legal claims over land use in the city.’
‘The town of Bangalore was compact and required only minimal transport infrastructure since a large number of persons wishing to go from place to place in the city either walk or go on bicycles… Walking was the fastest way of getting around and most distances were measured in terms of walking time.’ (K.N. Venkatrayappa, 1950)
(Nair,Janaki, Remembered and Imagined Cities, The promise of the metropolis, Pg 100)
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Development City Build Up tripled from 1945-1973 and doubled in size from 1973-1980
Indicative of RAPID growth, in comparison to it’s contemporaries Mumbai and Chennai. In five decades Bangalore’s status shifted from a small town to an internationally known metropolis. ‘No other contemporary Indian city allows us to track the passage from small town to metropolis as well as bangalore does’ Bygone Era- Futuristic visions (Singapore in the making)- Private Public Partnership ( Bangalore Agenda Task force) Master planning accounts for less than 2% of the city.
BBMP (1949) BDA BATF(1999) IT Influx Industrial Sector migrants Industrial townships 12
Evolution Planning itself generates unplanned neighbourshoods, just as much as the plethora of legal routes to the city of the city space engenders new illegalities. The organized sector begets and sustains the unorganized sector. This narrative of good governance oriented urban reforms also HOMOGENIZES the rest of the city into a NON PLANNED SLUM. ‘livelihoods of consecutive generations become interwoven into social , economic, cultural, institutional fabric’ Large scale interventions launched in the name of development, decision making bypassed local society, especially the poor. Modernist interventions were (are) political interventions aimed at making cities “SLUM FREE”
Janagraaha Resident Welfare Associations
Nostalgia ‘Those who are dismayed by and are perhaps fearful of the baffling directions taken by urban democracy, seek comfort in a far more placid and restrained past, striving to recreate this moment not just at the ideological level but through various mechanisms.’ ‘The ideology of beauty is brought into direct conflict with democracy of the market and the culture of mass consumption.’ ‘Visits to some hotels like Mavalli Tiffin Room near Lalbagh were lessons in citizenship with detailed instructions provided on ways of enhancing public hygiene and order, also the location for discussions on the vigilance of citizens in times of crisis’
“The baby has grown up and must acquire adult clothing so let’s rip off the nappies and give Bangalore a new look”
In the name of aesthetic then a range of pleabian practices was rendered unacceptable namely the wall poster, cinema culture and manifestation of the political
(Nair, Janaki, Remembered and Imagined Cities, The promise of the metropolis, Pg 100)
Marginalized communities Mixed economies 13
Bangalore Urban Art Commission (1976) T.P Issar+ M.A.Parthasarathy “too much adoration for the old� Commitee integrated into city planning to bring the city’s aesthetic to the forefront. Notion of beauty that nostagically recalled another social order, colonial Indian society. 14
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Aesthetics Of A Ground-up City Solomon Benjamin Solomon Benjamin in his article “The aesthetics of ‘the ground up’ city” uses the relationship between aesthetics and politics as a framework to build context around the politics of space and developmental processes in the city of Bangalore. There is, he argues an emphasis on a top down planning structure when viewing a city and should rather be approached from a ground- up angle that negotiates local spatial politics. What becomes clear through his argument is the conflict that emerges between upper – middle visions that manifest into the creation of public spaces resulting in them being inclusive by excluding certain sections of the public.
We need to move from the aesthetics of an individual architect to a politicized aesthetics from an urbanist perspective of a dynamic ‘ ground up’ city- one that is ‘open source’, local historicized and responsive to an economy that creates jobs. It is quite possible that the seemingly chaotic elements of an ‘undisciplined’ city might be, in fact, representing progressive possibilities.
‘The main aim was political-institutional: As large – scale interventions launched in the name of development, decision-making bypassed local society and especially the poor.’ ‘Such modernist interventions were ( and are) political interventions aimed at making cities ‘slum free’. ‘Modernist planning- ‘Its notions of aesthetics was in the large scale conceptual moves, homogenized into the compositions of the wider fieldwhere cities were framed as compositions to be viewed up from a high mountain top vantage point’.’ Are the ‘middle’ class’s amorphous relationships to the city heightened by projections of modernity and re-enforced by fearing the ‘lower’ class as an ‘encroaching’ slum? ‘Value of “squatter aesthetics” i.e. the clustering of houses around a courtyard that houses things of common value and serves as a location for festivals and community events that enrich life. This is the aesthetics of the ‘architecture without architects’.’
(Benjamin, Solomon “The aesthetics of ‘ the ground up’ city”)
Chadigarh, Le Corbusier’s vision.
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Public Space and Life In A City: The Politics Of Space In Bangalore Salila.P.Vanka Referencing Nair’s words “Planning generates unplanned neighbourhoods just as much as the plethora of legal routes to the production of city space engenders new illegalities in its interstices” or in other words, the organized sector begets and sustains the unorganized sector. Salila. P. Vanka broadens this argument to showcase sidewalks, roads, parks and a variety of public spaces being privatized in its use as both a place of residence and work by most marginalized communities who with increased urbanization are drawn to city to indulge in the many opportunities it has to offer. The existing planning structure within the city, does not acknowledge the needs of these communities (specifically from the lower economies class) pushing them further and further into the peripheries of the city, what results is the existing public spaces of the city being in a constant state of negotiation and conflict.
‘Marginalized communities use public spaces to seek inclusion (visibility and citizenship) in the formal city using informal claims of tenure and use value.’ ‘Increased role of Dalit politics in shaping urban space where formal planning processes fail to address the economic and political right of subaltern groups.’ ‘-Limited hawking licenses - Ill planned hawking zones Vendors constantly remain in a predatory state as there is no license/ formal recognition to provide security.’ 18
Keywords Development
“squatter aesthetics”
Nostalgia
visibility
Evolution
marginalized communities
politicized aesthetics
citizenship
local spatial politics. inclusive
local historicized
Public Space
Public Interest Government
use value tenure Dalit politics
subaltern groups. Master Planning
Social Order
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Object, Architecture & History Cubbon Park and It’s Environs One can begin to understand the relevance and importance of site, to the various identities of the city. Situated amidst the High court ( Attari Kacheri), General Post office and the State Bank Of Mysore safeguarded by the colonial spatial nostalgic vision of the Bangalore Urban Art Commission and threatened by the futuristic identity propelled by the Bangalore Agenda Task force in it’s creation of the monolithic Visweshwarya towers challenging previously established notions of beauty and progress. And in recognising the political hotbed of activism that Cubbon Park housed, along with the need for a new architectural identity to celebrate India’s freedom and established of the Bangalore city municipal corporation in (mention date) the Vidhan Soudha towers over the city centre, it is through re-visiting site that we begin to uncover the various facets of the city.
Existing Railway lines Karnatake State Gazetteer (20th edition) Madras Railway Company Bangalore - Madras (1864) Southern Manratta Railway ( 1889) Harihara -Birur- Gubbi- Pune Birur- Shimoga- Bidar (1899) 20
-Source map (2000) -Hindustan Aeronautical Limited (1948) - Indian Telephone Industries (1948) 21
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Embodiment & Experience
Transcribe Translate
“SPEED” v/s “SLOW” Understanding mobility through motion. How is the same route experienced through different modes of transportation? What is the social network? How symbiotic is the metro to the neighbourhood it is situated in?
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Transmit Mapping
Rhythm Motion
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OBSERVATIONS / METHODS
Distance covered : Mg road - Trinity Circle - Halasur - Indiranagar - Swami Vivekananda - Bypanahalli
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• Using the physical terrain and objects along the way to map a topographical line. • Coding memory through impulse . • Clumsy re-enactment of space re-creates clumsy memories. • What tools would accurately represent the terrain? Charcoal to map out an auto journey v/s a clean ballpoint pen line to represent a metroline. • Experience as a reconstruction? • Psycho- geographical landscape.
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MANIFESTATIONS IN PUBLIC SPACES As a community we have an innate compelling urge to leave our mark in public spaces or on public property. From inscriptions on tree barks, engravings on public benches and elevator doors, we manage to convert the surfaces available to us into conversations and declarations. A walk in the park, a quiet stroll through the busy streets or the long wait at the bus stop provide an endless database of these words and phrases. In a nation bursting with people are these voices staking claim to these places? Are they making a statement “I was here” ? Are they breadcrumbs on a memory trail, in hopes that moment lived is captured in the very fabric of the space itself, or is it infact a defiant act against authority where defacing public spaces and property, marks rebellion against those who safeguard it Would it be possible to harness these voices, to map out a database of ‘visions’, failures and successes of the city, sourced from interactions of its users with the space.
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Case Studies Dharavi Biennale Fearless Collective Duration : 2011- 2015 Dharavi a locality situated in Mumbai, is one of the largest slums in world. Founded in 1882 and measuring up to 535 acres in size, Dharavi is home to close to a million people, a multireligious, multi ethnic and diverse population. Public health and sanitation is an issue of immense concern amongst its residents, with limited access to clean water and lavatories, the Mahim river now doubles as an open toilet, adding to the spread of contagious diseases. Dharavi continues to endure large-scale epidemics. Government healthcare provisions and civic amenities are limited and often overlooked. With an average turnover of close to US 500$million a year, there exists within Dharavi a large informal economy mainly focused on recycling, textile and traditional pottery, exporting goods around the world. SNEHA ( Society for Nutrition, Education & Health Action ) a Mumbai based NGO birthed the Dharavi Biennale as a three year art , health , recycling festival with a series of several standalone workshops called “ Art Boxes’ one such Art Box , “Bonded not Bound” conceptualized by artist Shilo Shiv Suleman as part of Fearless Collective’s (Fearless is a collective of artists, activists, photographers and filmmakers who use art to speak out against gender violence, formed in 2012 in response to the gang rape of Jyothi Singh) murals based against gender based violence being painted across the country. The collective’s immersive workshop, aimed at understanding ideas of personal space and community amongst the women folk within Dharavi drawing from their everyday lives, conversations and personal histories, inspired a “ tapestry of tarpaulin blue” responding to both the dominant colour shading Dharavi and the faces of its many women. CONTEXT BUILDING/ TOOLS / RESOURCES: Women, community, conversation, everyday exchanges + workshop to better understand personal space/ confrontations. 36
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Mapping Mapusa Market Ourijit Sen Duration : 2013 - Current Mapusa a market situated in north Goa, is a popular tourist attraction showcasing fresh local produce and spices celebrated weekly by its Friday market which draws in small entrepreneurs and farmers from across the locality. It reflects the rich vibrant Goan lifestyle. The original structure was built in 1961 and has since been added to incorporate a fish and meat sector. “Every Friday the market swells as hundreds of ‘day vendors’ arrive from across Goa. They set up improvised pitches selling home-grown produce, Goan delicacies, spices, toddy and other local goods. The array of merchandise is reflected in the diversity of market users who come in their thousands to do business and socialise in the vibrant atmosphere.” Mapping Mapusa Market is an interactive exploration into how a contemporary Indian market can be creatively mapped through art. With an open invitation to artists, students, tourists, environmentalists, activists and market enthusiasts to contribute impressions of the market to a new website. This process will extend knowledge and create a record of this exciting, vibrant, complex and important place that is a dynamic hub for commerce, social interaction and cultural production. CONTEXT BUILDING/ TOOLS / RESOURCES: 1. Participate in, and contribute to, an ongoing art project centered on the history, culture and contemporary life of Mapusa Market. 2. Explore the collaborative possibilities of design, fine art, photography and video, and liberal arts-based research skills. 3. Explore non-textual learning through the development of observation, documentation and visual research skills. 38
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Extension Khirkee Aastha Chauhan Duration : 2004-2014
CONTEXT BUILDING/ TOOLS / RESOURCES: 1. How does your art become part of community stories, integrate amongst a community? 2. Understanding your position in a community. Why are you here? How and why are you engaging with this community? 3. Understanding the key to access this local space, the community its residents and children are often best resources to tap into points of confrontation, shortcuts when mapping the locality, obstacles and terrain.
Khirki, situated in south Delhi gets it’s name from the intricate windows on the 1354’s mosque Ferozshah Tughlaq tribute to Delhi, a relic from the sultanate architecture. “In khirki, a 21st century mall stands opposite a 14th century village” Shivan Vij (We have been misrepresented, say angry residents of Delhi village in eye of AAP storm, Jan 25, 2014 · 01:32 pm,scroll.in) Home to Khoj, an international art collective and surrounded by Malviya nagar and Hauz rani Village, it is the heart of south Delhi, making if affordable and convenient location for international migrants and young professionals.
“After 2007 came a flood of people from different communities within India and abroad: Afghans, Nepalis, Malayali nurses, Somalis, Manipuris, Kashmiris, Nigerians, Ugandans, Cameroonians and so on…But not all communities are treated with respect, and the biggest problem foreign nationals, particularly those from African countries, face is prejudice based on cultural difference: that they dress differently, eat differently and behave differently is not something that all of their neighbours look kindly upon.”
AAPKI SADAK : 2013 A party created by the children and for the children of Khirki showcasing through a series of performances and interventions the contestation of space as “playground” and the concern of safety in and around heavily motorized spaces within Khirki to raise awareness on building “non-motorized” spaces customized to specific residential neighbourhoods . The lack of space and provision of a designated playground result in the neighbourhood children resorting to the streets as an alternative play area, the large inflow of traffic through Khirki makes these a large safety hazard. 40
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Extension Khirkee Street Art Festival 2004 Working around the tension, existing within khirki owing to the juxtaposition in the rich-poor, nationality and caste differences present amongst its residents Aastha embarked on a series of interventions with khirki to create an open forum to voice, make visible these disparities or maybe create a platform for necessary communication, using a more artistic approach.
Vinay Khavadiya
“Launched on March 24 at the not-for-profit Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art (FICA), where a public talk was given by the partipating artists and guide maps were handed out. Chauhan, who previously worked with Khirki-based art space Khoj for six years, took part in a residency in Italy with local street artists before coordinating this festival. Knowing the Khirki area and local community well, she was able to pair up certain artist-friends (architects, graphic designers and advertising creatives by day, muralists or graffiti artists by night) with particular walls and locations in the area. The murals in the festival, all created within a threeweek period from March 10–31, are available to view indefinitely.” 42
Zine
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Forager Collective & Alon Schwabe CONTEXT BUILDING/ TOOLS / RESOURCES: How is the world organized through food? (Creating divisions, borders) binding them together.
‘Dietary Confinement’ is a translation of the yearly supply of foods provided into Gaza and cooked into 52 dishes corresponding to the amounts of foodstuff supplied over 52 weeks of 2013. By taking the weekly breakdown of truckloads that the Israeli Government allows to enter into Gaza, we have divided the tons of food by the 1,701,437 inhabitants that the Palestinian Authority acknowledges live in the Strip. As a result, we calculated an estimated average amount of grams of food that every person would hypothetically obtain per daily meal. We cooked them into patties on a frying pan during the proportional amount of minutes corresponding to the cooking gas that entered Gaza every week.
How is space being created and transformed through food? Non-traditional mapping .
Cooking Sections : Dietary Confinement Isreal- Palestine (Issue 4/2015) Food has become one of the crucial prison-building methods. The amount of calories and nutrients allowed to cross, and construct, the border is meticulously calculated by the Israeli government. Only a certain amount of truckloads can enter the Strip on a weekly basis, in a number that results out of the threshold between bare life and human rights watchings, between siege, smuggling and food security.
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Let Them Eat Cake Audrey Samson and Francisco Gallardo (Issue 5 /2015) Governability and the bio politics of everyday life flow through the many layers of shared images, liked videos, protocols, and hyperlinks, all orchestrated by the Facebook News Feed algorithm. Hard to swallow? What if we sugar coated it? How about a mouth-watering Yuk n Yum version of your social media-self?
Essentially digital data is translated into synthetic DNA form (adenine, cytosine, thymine and uracil). The XNA is based on ribose, a simple carbon sugar. The substance, containing a copy of the participant’s digital traces, is added to the sugar used in the recipe.
Ad Topics: A list of topics that you may be targeted against based on your stated likes, interests and other data you put in your Timeline. Facial Recognition Data: A unique number based on a comparison of the photos you’re tagged in. This data is used to help others tag you in photos. Followers: A list of people who follow you. Following: A list of people you follow. Friends: A list of your friends. Likes on Others’ Posts: Posts, photos or other content you’ve liked. Likes on Your Posts from others: Likes on your own posts, photos or other content. Political Views: Any information you added to Political Views in the About section of Timeline.
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PROJECT PROPOSAL 1 How can planning shape and direct city growth?
In a city where planned spaces are reserved for and afforded by certain upper/middle class lifestyles, by seeking increasingly privatized solutions to public problems and public spaces are used as platforms for marginalized communities to seek visibility and citizenship, How can we plan public spaces to stop depriving one section of the public to favour another section of the public. How “public spaces” are reated, planned without the consultation of the very same public when its sole implementation is meant for the improvement and benefits for all users i.e. the public. Would an avenue of ‘Social planning’ one that emphasizes practical wisdom to access ‘ other ways of knowing’ a more ‘experiential’ and ‘intuitive’ understanding of local spatial politics and knowledge of our heterogeneous community prove to be a better approach in determining how to cultivate these spaces.
In the late 1950’s Guy Debord devised a tool “psychogeography’ - the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals.” A physical mapping of the embodiment of a space, thereby translating emotion/opinion/fact into a tangible object.
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As a community we have an innate compelling urge to leave our mark in public spaces or on public property. From inscriptions on tree barks, engravings on public benches and elevator doors, we manage to convert the surfaces available to us into conversations and declarations. Would it be possible to harness these voices, to map out a database of ‘visions’, failures and successes of the city, sourced from interactions of its users with the space. My aim, is to create an interactive maps of sorts, using this tool of psychogeographical mapping to encourage exchanges of information between the public and the space to create a database in the form of mapped installations. How can the embodiment of the space, transcribed, translated and mapped out.
Research Methodology
My initial research began with a story, one that brought to my attention the rather transient (lasting only a short time/ impermanent) nature of the identity of Bangalore city. I was told that when my parents were growing up the only time they got pulled over by the traffic cop was when their little gas lamps (that functioned as a headlight) weren’t lit. Just the thought of our street today where the traffic police are bombarded by relentless, ongoing traffic covered in smog and fighting to control the chaos on the street is a far cry from what is was six-seven decades ago. In order to provide clarity to this exaggerated anecdote, an investigation into the development of the city’s existent transport networks, and planning ensued. Shaped through the eyes of Janaki Nair in her study of the city “The Promise of the MetropolisBangalore’s Twentieth Century” with additional support from the archived pages of the Bangalore Gazette and Salila .P. Vanka’s Politics of public spaces in Indian Cities The transformation of the city from a town to a metropolis has been rapid, each decade bringing with it a marked change in the physical landscape and ethnography of its people. What began as a pensioner’s paradise, soon became the home to the “big four” companies in the public sector ( Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (1940) Indian Telephone Industries (1948), Hindustan Machine Tools(1955) and Bharat Electronics Limited (1956)) the formation of industrial townships moving then to the “informational city”. Each stage brought with it a mass influx of people representing various communities, socio-economic backgrounds; religions and the expansion of the city began absorbing satellite towns and devouring what used to be agricultural land, tanks. These changes have broadened our understandings of what the “public” consists off and our city is now faced with creating spaces and environment that responds to the needs of the people. The task of being “inclusive” without “excluding”. 49
Research Direction
Seminar 1 Reflection
1. How has the difference between Development (A specified state of growth or advancement) and Evolution (The gradual development of something) become essential in analyzing the city?
Keywords - Participation - Aspiration
2. How are lower, middle and upper class “visions” of the city projected onto public spaces?
Are Indian cities becoming bourgeois at last, are Indian cities becoming bourgeois alas? Contestation around the notion of “civil society”
“the ideology of beauty is brought into direct conflict with democracy of the market and the culture of mass consumption.”
Paul chan : New orleans Claire Bishop : Participation ( what position is taken and why? what position is critiqued?) Ted Purves : What we want is free
3. Who’s nostalgia? Does nostalgia play a relevant role in shaping the city as it is today?
Focus on methodolgy and tools
4. What pushes a “consumer citizen” ( a citizen who consumes/enjoys the goods and services provided by the city) into becoming a “political agent” ( citizen’s who begin to engage with government agencies such as the BBMP/ BDA after their needs in terms goods and services provided by the city are not met ?
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Curatorial Process Participatory Networks How does your concept intergrate with site and fit into a larger project bracket?
Connecting Economies
Disconnecting systems Casualities
Identities Nature
Communities Environment 52
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Why Participatory Networks? Participatory Networks at its core relies on, requires and facilitates participation and interaction with its users. It is here that the interface becomes the intervention. These users are not limited to commuters but include pedestrians, joggers, hawkers, vendor, workers and people passing through site.
Accessible Sites
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4. Why do I want people to participate and engage with the space?
Project Proposal 2
What defines participatory networks?
To create accessibility and memory that isn’t hindered by visions of who is allowed and what is the required function of the space. Public spaces are designed for the public but planned and regulated through government bodies who do not include the very same public into the planning process, here spaces created tend to prioritize the needs of one section of the public over the other. These visions that manifest in created spaces result in them being inclusive by excluding.
Participatory Networks at its core relies on, requires and facilitates participation and interaction with its users. It is here that the interface becomes the intervention. These users are not limited to commuters but include pedestrians, joggers, hawkers, vendor, workers and people passing through site.
5. Problems and Limitations -Vandalism -Permanency/ impermanency/ clean slate -Language, questions, literacy
2. What do I intend on doing here? To translate the embodiment of the space by transcribing it onto the physical landscape.
3. How? To provide tools of engagement that function as an invitation to both consciously and subconsciously record observation, emotion, memory, opinion and thought. To channel our innate urge to leave our mark on public spaces/property in order to create a database of visions and representations. 58
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Visualizations Form 1 4. What kind of interaction do I want people to have? A) One that makes the user geographically aware and sensitive to location, using psychogeography (mapping) as a tool. Apt tool to document visibility, identity, memory and its associations with space Here we provide the context of “boundary� and the user defines what’s within it. One can also infer the difference transportation networks and socio-economic class have on visibility, identity and way finding. B) An interaction that mandates time and presence within the space. Here, the content/ data being harnessed is not defined within a given context. One can see tap into aspiration, imagination, boredom, observation of the individual using engraving/etching/mould making and moulding as a tool. This action would require a bodily interaction, movements where the physicality of the action overtakes thought.
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Form 2 Harnessing the relationship between SURFACE and TOOL. What happens when avenues are created to document, etch, draw these visions?
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Form 3 Addressing problems and limitations of a free and available surface, - Vandalism, Would people use this as an opportunity to deface public property? Permanency/ impermanency/ clean slate - Permanency/ Impermanent Does removing the “illicit” aspect of this act, remove the will to participate in the act. Does this act of mark making require a clean slate? One where the clean slate acts as an open invitation. -Language, questions, literacy There is a very natural and exciting response to writing or drawing on foggy window panes. Would the mechanism of a fogging-un-fogging glass pane within the metro, one that erases and creates this “clean slate” invite participation
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Prototype 1
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How would people respond when presented with the tools to carry out this act of mark making? Rules of engagement: - Space should be highly accessible / no physical barriers - Non guided intervention - Should use available landscape/ surface as canvas (No surface provided) - Should allow for an avenue of anonymity - No physical link between material/surface (Allow for movement of materials) - Optional interaction left up to user Tester Sites: All tester sites are located in and around Cooke Town, Bangalore Site 1. Milton Park - Run and maintained by residents associations - Joggers track - play area/ ABC park - predominantly frequented by middle-upper class residents - play area frequented by lower/ mixed economies -fitness/ activity based interactions Site 2. Bangalore East Railway Station - Autorickshaw drivers, traffic police, commuters, fruit wholesalers and vendors - In- transit based interactions
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Site 3. Cooke Town Bus Stop
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- Residents( locality) - In transit commuters -Cafe/ Restaurants guests -School children -Vendors /fruitsellers/stalls
Site 4. In-Jurrn Housing
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- No civic amenities - Garbage dumping site - Sqautter/self sustaining local economy - Feeder slum
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RESULTS
1. Tools were too inconspicuous 2. Possibilty of landscape as surface / canvas was not entirely communicated 3. Tools weren’t held down were constantly moving or had to be replenished 4. Individual participation wasn’t strong enough to hold participant/ tool to site 5. Materiality of tools within specific sites needs to be better analysed/ understood. ( economy of material)
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1. What is the relationship between the mark people make and the place where they make it? Is this an act of spontaneity, memory , boredom or vandalism? 2. Why do people feel the need to seek out permission to draw, interact with public spaces? Does watching someone else use the tools legalize the act?
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3. How important is familiarity with surface / ow big of a role does it play when interacting/ engaging participants (Dark v/s light surfaces) 4. Would creating an intervention that allows for individual participation be part of a larger framework work in making the piece self-sustaining? 5. What is the intent of this mark making and how do you test it? 75
Socially Engaged Art Practice Artist Influences Rirkrit Tiravanija “Cooking up an art experience” “With Pad Thai’ 303 Gallery New York 1992/1995/2007/2011 You are the art. You are making the art. Distance between Art-Artist-Performance blurred Viewed as art because of the context it is in. You are not looking at something, you are within it. The phrase “lots of people appears regularly on his material list.
Real time experience Exchange Breaking down barrier between object and spectator Possibility of activity as art 76
“You are making the art as you eat curry and talk with friends or new acquaintances.” - Rirkrit Tiravanija
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Felix Gonzéléz Torres
Gabriel Orozco
UNTITLED “ PORTRAIT OF ROSS IN L.A.” Art Institute of Chicago, 1991
HOME RUN, “PROJECTS 41” Art Institute of Chicago, 1991
175lb of individually wrapped candies in multi-coloured cellophane, mirroring the weight of his partner Ross, viewers are invited to take a piece of the work with them. As Ross was suffering from AIDS the gradual disappearance of the candy , symbolized the gradual disappearance of his body.
Got residents across the street from MOMA to place oranges in their windows. In order to experience installation beyond the walls of the museum and disrupt the traditional notion of exhibition “viewing space” , blur the line between art and life.
Collaborative Community Education 78
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Thomas Hirschhorn
Gramssci Monument Forest Houses , The Bronx, NYC , 2013 Monument Series Temporary ‘monument’ to Italian political theorist and Marxist Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937), Constructed in the form of an outdoor pavilion, with elements including an exhibition space, library, theatre and bar, all built and run by the residents of Forest Houses Presence and Production’ in a work in a public space, meaning that the artist will be based in the South Bronx and onsite, making work, for the duration of the project. The monument also keeps to Hirschhorn’s commitment to materials that ‘do not intimidate’ 80
“I do not want to invite or oblige viewers to become interactive with what I do; I do not want to activate the public. I want to give of myself to such a degree that viewers confronted with the work can take part and become involved, but not as actors.” - Thomas Hirschhorn 81
Santiago Sierra
160 cm Line Tattooed on 4 People El Gallo Arte Contemporáneo in Salamanca, Spain, 2000 Four prostitutes addicted to heroin were hired for the price of a shot of heroin to give their consent to be tattooed. Known for his controversial installations in which hired labourers perform useless tasks in white-cube spaces—masturbate, crouch in cardboard boxes, have their hair dyed blond, sit for tattoos, hold up a heavy block of wood—Sierra aims to unmask the power relations that keep workers invisible under capitalism. “ oppositional forces” Invisible, marginalized, work v/s worth poverty v/s exclusivity of art world 82
Sierras work is not symbolic, it is not about oppression, it is oppression itself , why re-capitulate something in order to say it is wrong? Furthermore why simply stop at saying it is wrong , why not instead help transform these social relations? - Claire Bishop, Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics (2004) 83
Literary Review ARTIFICIAL HELLS Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship CLAIRE BISHOP, 2012 Today’s artists are engaged with a wide variety of practices many of them bearing little resemblance to traditional artistic mediums, allowing their practices to take a “social turn”. This expanded field of post- studio practices currently goes under a variety of names: socially engaged art, community- based art, experimental communities, dialogic art, littoral art, interventionist art, participator art, collaborative art, contextual art and (most recently) social practice. “The artist is conceived less as an individual producer of discrete objects than as a collaborator and producer of situations; the work of art as a finite, portable, commodity able product is reconceived as an ongoing or long- term project with an unclear beginning and end; while the audience, previously conceived as a ‘viewer’ or ‘beholder’, is now repositioned as a coproducer or participant.” – Bishop, Artificial Hells
Relational Aesthetics (Esthétique relationnelle) Nicolas Bourriaud, 1998 Initially appearing in the catalogue for the exhibition Traffic curated by Bourriaud at CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux. Relational art encompasses “a set of artistic practices which take as their theoretical and practical point of departure the whole of human relations and their social context, rather than an independent and private space. The artwork creates a social environment in which people come together to participate in a shared activity
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“the role of artworks is no longer to form imaginary and utopian realities, but to actually be ways of living and models of action within the existing real, whatever scale chosen by the artist”-Bourriaud
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Relational Aesthetics
Relational Antagonism
‘meaning’ is interpreted collectively, socially, rather than intimately or individually.
sustains a tension among viewers, participants and context
entirely beholden to environment and audience.
NO dialogue democratic participation
the viewer not simply addressed, but allowed/encouraged to be or start a community or take an action.
opposes the “glassy-eyed” utopianism of relational aesthetics thus “relational aesthetics’.
thus “relational aesthetics’.
Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics CLAIRE BISHOP , 2004
Aesthetically rendered exploitation is presumed to be not only qualitatively distinct from exploitation but ethically privileged as it in the bigger business of raising awareness via artistic provocation.
Arguing that socially engaged art has become largely exempt from criticism
Difference i.e. a lack of consensus is a constitutive feature of any society characterized by multiculturism and value pluralism, a radical democracy is one that aims not to eliminate but to embrace and promote this tension as a productive political force that “forecloses any possibility of a final reconciliation of any rational consensus of a fully inclusive “we” .
“ To praise relationality as a good in itself given that exploitation, humiliation an physical and psychological abuse are also human relations” “ if everything is happy interactivity there is no aesthetic basis on which to evaluate relational art.”
Democratic society is not one in which all antagonisms have disappeared but one in which new political frontiers are constantly being drawn and brought into debate. Relations of conflict are SUSTAINED not ERASED.
How do you evaluate such relations as art? What about this relational art allows us to differentiate this Art from Non art? What is the QUALITY of relations in relation aesthetics?
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Prototype 2 How do people engage with and build relationships with spaces? How does one have the time to create memories in a space? What would be the best tool to engage time and space? How does pace and focus re-organize the spaces we experience everyday? How does walking through a space, stopping to touch a tree bark, pick up seed pods, lie in the grass and look up at the sky change the way we see that space? What would we find if we were not just “looking” but “seeing”? What would we find see if we walked down the same trail with different people at different points of the day? Would their way of experiencing and “seeing” a space be similar to yours?
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Resource Mapping REVISITING SITE AND NATURE OF ENGAGEMENT What is the intent of this mark making and how do you test it? In trying to accurately create a framework within which to test intent it became clear that the only avenues to gain insight into the intent behind mark making would hamper the purity of the engagement, in inquiring behind the motives of writing a particular word or drawing something, would I get an honest response or a guarded one? or does shedding light on the act ruin the “illicit” excitement it provided in the nature of the engagement? In conducting this experiment this entire act of “participation” and “engagement” was one that I couldn’t bear witness to or be a part of, in trying to judge or gain better insight into this act of participation, would reducing it to just this act of mark-making be reducing my ability to make better judgments or observations. In taking a step back to review both my ability to understand “material” and build a relationship to site, I embarked on a resource mapping journey that took me to the streets of Shivaginagar.
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MAPPING THE TRAIL. Starting at the Lady Jahangir Kothari Memorial Hall, down Venkatswamy Naidu Road, past Dandu Maramma at Shivaji Circle, onto Chandini Chowk Road, moving into the beef market and ending at Russell Market.
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Material & Material Processes
MAPPING THE TRAIL. Goods + products
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MAPPING THE TRAIL. People
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MAPPING THE TRAIL. Structure
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PROCESS WHY make participatory work?
PARTICIPATORY PERFORMING ARTS PRACTICE: TOWARDS A TYPOLOGY,25/04/2015 Chrissie Tiller
WHO are the participants?
How does engagement with space change perception, increase awareness, build a sense of ownership. What role to creating and re-surfacing memories when engaging with space, does it build an air of comfort and familiarity? Does walking, the nature of the walk itself, pace, observation,confrontation, spontaneity, the “anything could happen� possibility allow for a deeper more conscience engagement with space? And once this engagement happens does it probe participants to return to the same space? WHAT happens?
Call for entries were made on various social media platforms like Facebook, Art/ Event groups and as a collaboration with Designuru hosted in the first week of April. Responses generated were mostly from students ( aged 19-24) with backgrounds in Architecture,fine art,design with the odd research analyst and corporate techie. HOW does the participation happen? The participants are asked to use the walk as a tool to engage the market space within Shivajnagar. At the starting point the participants are asked to choose a container of their choice, to consciously pick up objects to effectively map their trail, the idea being at the end of the walk the container should reflect their trail, open to their own interpretation, with the condition that the objects they pick should fit within the container.
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Participants begin walking at Lady Jahangir Kothari Memorial Hall, down Venkatswamy Naidu Road, past Dandu Maramma at Shivaji Circle, onto Chandini Chowk Road, moving into the beef market and ending at Russell Market. WHERE do people make this work? The walk culminates in an object mapping exercise, that begins with a snack and conversation about first time market experiences and an individual reflection of the market through the objects collected, followed by collective mapping within the market terrain. What are triggers and associations participants mostly make? Has there been a shift in the perception of the market before and after the walk?
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CHOOSE YOUR CONTAINERS
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PICK UP ANY OBJECT OF YOUR CHOICE
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TAKE YOUR TIME, LET YOUR OBJECTS REFLECT YOUR TRAIL
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EXPLORE THE TERRAIN
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EXPERIENCE
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TOUCH + FEEL
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COLLECT
MAP 118
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OBJECT MAPPING Creating a database of the objects collected. How do these objects contribute to the identity of the market? Do they accurately display the variety/diversity of the market? Or reveal the congregation of materials in particular spaces?
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COLLABORATIONS How have participants, mapped their own visions of the market? How have they grown to add onto our trail?
The Charcoal Project Osheen Gupta
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ANALYSES Education For Socially - Engaged Art : A Materials and Techniques Handbook,2011 Pablo Helguera
NOMINAL PARTICIPATION The visitor or viewer contemplates the work in a reflective manner. The walk in itself requires a certain amount of reflection, designed through its pace & route which is addressed at the end of the walk.
DIRECTED PARTICIPATION The visitor completes a simple task to contribute to the creation of the work. Being provided with a loose framewrok, and with the objective of completing a particular task , the walk commenced within the avenue of direct participation with the particiapants understanding the final outcome would contribute to a larger mapping excercise.
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CREATIVE PARTICIPATION The visitor provides content for a component of the work within a structure established by the artist. Apart from the mapping exercise made known to the participants, the additional record being made of their triggers and associations along with modes and level of engagement , acts as a foundation to my own observations, theories of participation engagament.
COLLABORATIVE PARTICIPATION The visitor shares responsibility for developing the structure and content of the work in collaboration and direct dialogue with the artist With certain participants return to create their own interventions within the market space, the walk has now entered into the avenue of collaborative participation.
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Conversations Kiran Joan
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FUTURE POSSIBILITIES
This prolonged engagement with both participants and the market has deepened the vision of what Shivajinagar holds within it. Through continued collaboration, there are avenues to recreate this experience for multiple users, newcomers or residents of the city. Through curated walks, audio tours, object mapping, catering to increasing the database of mapping or simply allowing people to “see� more, what can be accomplished through this module of understanding spaces. An accessible online database, that allows for geo-tagging / pop up walks or simply a toolkit designed to harness the walk as a tool to engage space.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY The Promise Of The Metropolis: Bangalore’s 20th Century Janaki Nair, 2005 Oxford University Press Aesthetics Of A Ground-up City Solomon Benjamin, 2010 www.india-seminar.com Public Space and Life In A City: The Politics Of Space In Bangalore Salila.P.Vanka,2014
Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics CLAIRE BISHOP , 2004 www.mitpressjournals.org Artificial Hells Claire Bishop, 2012 verso books Participation Claire Bishop, 2006 whitechapel What We Want Is Free Ted Purves, 2005 suny press Activism vs. Antagonism: Socially Engaged Art from Bourriard to Bishop and Beyond Jason Miller, March 4, 2016
deepblue.lib.umich.edu Karnatake State Gazetteer (20th edition) 1990 www.dharavibiennale.com/bounded-not-bound www.mapusamarket.net ForagerCollective When Food Begins To Build a Prison, 2013 www.theforagermagazine.com/4/3 ForagerCollective Let Them Eat Cake www.theforagermagazine.com/5/4 ForagerCollective Let Them Eat Cake www.theforagermagazine.com/5/4
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