a project on visual culture
Concept Note According to Irit Rogoff, each of us experience visual culture in different ways to remake the world of our fantasies or desires to narrate the stories that we carry within us. While trying to segregate or define the visual culture of Bangalore, we found that it did not have a unanimous visual or cultural identity. The city is appreciated and loved by its natives and millions of people from different parts of India and the world who have made Bengaluru their own. Even though Kannada is widely accepted as the state language, there is an array of different languages and cultures found in different belts of the city. We have tried to highlight how these languages give an identity to the city and make Bangalore truly cosmopolitan. Bangalore’s visual and cultural chaos is what forms its identity. Our video and sound installation is a simple product of our understanding of this undulating concept of the city’s visual culture. Namma Metro, which is the city’s latest and most exciting addition, is global in its infrastructure and organization but local with respect to people and to an extent, the system. Thus, we have recorded the announcement, Welcome to Namma Metro, next station, Indranagar in fifteen different languages. Along with it we have a video installation of a series of pictures that say My Bengaluru in various languages, further stressing on the cultural acceptance that forms a part of Bangalore’s visual identity. We present to you, Namma Bengaluru.
We’d like to thank the following people for their perspective: Mr. Anil Kumar Yash Dhanya Rajaram Venkatesh (for his sculpture dissertation) Ramesh Kalkur Surekha Mr. Gangaram Carl Lindquist Kumkum Nadig Voices Translations Shreya
Simran
Taarika
Raheel
Sreeja Manasa Neharika Himali Sanjana Fanette Jana Nupur Mrinali Anshruta Trusha
Arathi Furqan Shreelaxmi Quentin Mrinali Neharika Nitya Kumar Iyer Anuradha Kumar
Aishwarya Kumar Benjamin Armel Pallavi Datta Shoumik Biswas