The Spectator- the ‘rasika’noun
An observer of an event: beholder, bystander, looker-on, observer, onlooker, watcher.
[Latin spectātor, from spectāre, to watch]
Antonyms: participant, player, performer
John Berger opened his well-known BBC television series ‘Ways of Seeing’ by saying “It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world.” His comment points out the powerful position of the spectator, whose act of spectating creates and reinforces our social, political, and even bodily place in the world.
The word Rasika-the spectator, means one who can enjoy the rasas i.e. aesthetics. And aesthesis means a heightening of senses. So it implies that only a ‘good’ rasika will be able to enjoy the rasas well. What is being a rasika? Just as to create an art form involves lot of involvement from the artist. Similarly to be able to ‘enjoy’ an art requires involvement. All art forms always have a spectator in mind which is why enjoying art cannot be a casual act. Viewing an art is setting a conversation in motion-the conversation between the artist and the art, and the art and viewer. Art is the narration of the artists experience to the spectator. But why do we need to encounter art?
Rational man has always wanted to tame. We have tamed our physical environments. Conditioning and rulebooks are considered integral part of the civilized society. Similarly man tries to control his emotional and aesthetic environment. However one cannot control art. But the responses to art can be controlled. The conditioning systems, the Canon, etc play their role in forming these responses. But most of the times they cripple one of the experience one could have got otherwise. From the act of designing a city to some home apparel, human is always the scale. And the human is not just functional and pragmatic but also sensual. Cities designed imagining human as machine, dictating order and control, are not complete though it celebrates man power and dominance. A human scale also measures desires, agonies, anxieties, intimacies, etc. Art is able to responds to man’s this plane of existence. Hence encountering art is an emotional experience. How does one interact with art?
In one of the essay in her book ‘Art Objects’ Jeanette Winterson’s gives a personal narrative about her first encounter with art - how it was a deeply emotional experience. With this experience she draws parallel to the questions raised in her mind about her life, self and art.
When we look at art we are looking at an intense imaginative experience. Our responses are varied. Also the way we look at a work of art is affected by a series of assumptions of art and self. Sometimes these assumptions are obscure- since they mystify and raise art to an unrelateable pedestal. Our unfamiliarity with art is perhaps because many a time the work falls so much out of the comfort zone of our own experiences (of which we have complete knowledge and control of) that in order to keep this comfort intact we deny the other world of the art.
This denial of imaginative experience happens at a much deeper level than our affirmation of the daily world. Everyday, in countless ways we convince ourselves about ‘ourselves’. True art when it happens to us challenges the ‘I’ that we are.’[1]
As Winterson says, engaging with art is like falling in love. Similar to love, letting art affect you demands time and devotion. It is driven by a desire to know and explore, and a risk of complete surrender of your own being- prejudices and feelings, so that this new unfathomable emotion can overtake you and can be experienced to its fullest. Such an engagement reveals to us facets about our own selves which could never be revealed or be repeated by any other experience. Thus we are involved in just a love affair with art alone, but also with ourselves -discovering oneself in the process and what is it that constitutes this ‘I’. It involves the risk of constant learning and re-learning of one’s own self- just like how in love one is discovering a new ‘oneself’ through the eyes of the lover.
'Art is not merely a decoration or entertainment, but a living spirit. An act of art is a celebration of the profound human capacity.' Thus art is an intense act. Hence appreciating art cannot be a casual act, it itself has to be an intense act. However that doesn’t imply that this intensity is a privilege of a minority. It implies that all human have the capacity to ‘receive’ art, one just needs the resolve. Being a spectator is as important as being an artist.
‘Art does not belong to a biological evolutionary pattern. Art is not a little bit of evolution that the twentieth century city dweller can safely do without.’
Friday, March 11, 2011
Clock Towers
It is not until the Raj had arrived that Indian city landscapes began to be marked by these inescapable monumental architectural features which struck at regular intervals to announce the citizens the passage of time. No doubt they were also stylistic elements of the Colonial architecture and symbols of the power of the Raj. Though now we have ceased looking up the clock tower for ‘time’ in this digital and electronic era, since we have our own personal clocks strapped across our wrists, the clock towers loom significantly in the backgrounds as an artefact of a past and a birth of a concept of time. This very idea of time-the linear concept of time, has transcended much beyond its arrival in our context and has now assimilated unquestioned into our systems. And its sublime symbol- the clock towers through its physicality, its history tell us a story its time.
What is this time? And why is this need for the human to track time, from the time immemorial starting from tracking the sun at different times of the day to ancient scientists inventing the sundial to the clocks of today have been developed to keep time with accuracy? Is it to understand and tame the abstraction of our own existences, which is so intertwined with time? And aren’t these questions the birth of sciences, history and philosophy? And also religions-where each are trying to give their answers through their distinct mythologies, doctrines and philosophies.
Right from burning of incense sticks and candles which were, and are, commonly used to measure time in temples and churches; the intelligence of the inventions of various instruments used to measure time has been astounding. The hourglass, waterclocks and later, mechanical clocks used to mark the events of the abbeys and monasteries of the Middle Ages-are just to name few. It is only an urgency to document/understand time and acute observations that gave birth to inventions such the ancient zodiac astronomical calendar to Einstein’s theory of relativity. The clock tower, however, had a functional birth in the Biblical region when the passage of the hours was marked by bells in the abbeys as well as at sea. It is the etymology of the word clock also.
The English word clock probably comes from the Middle Dutch word "klocke" which is in turn derived from the mediaeval Latin word "clocca", which is ultimately derived from Celtic, and is cognate with French, Latin, and German words that mean bell.
Before the middle of the twentieth century, most people did not have watches, and prior to the 18th century even home clocks were rare. The first clocks didn't have faces, but were solely striking clocks, which sounded bells to call the surrounding community to prayer. They were therefore placed in towers so the bells would be audible for a long distance. Clock towers were placed near the centres of towns and were often the tallest structures there. As clock towers became more common, the designers realized that a dial on the outside of the tower would allow the townspeople to read the time whenever they wanted. And it is with the arrival of the Raj this new philosophy and religion of the clock tower came to India.
Colonialism brought with it the concept of linear time. And most of us now are accustomed to living life according to this linear beliefs and patterns of existence. We believe everything has a beginning, middle and an end. But Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism –the dominant religious schools of Indian sub-continent, had little to do with the linear nature of history, the linear concept of time or the linear pattern of life.
The passage of 'linear' time has brought us where we are today. But Hinduism views time from a cosmic perspective to. There exists the divine time of the Gods and the illusionary time of the mortals. Also, it believes the process of creation moves in cycles consisting of the yugas. And since this process is cyclical, it is never ending. Creation begins when God makes his energies active and ends when he withdraws all his energies into a state of inactivity. Time kal is thus a manifestation of God. God is timeless, for time is relative and ceases to exist in the Absolute -as the past, the present and the future coexist simultaneously. The cycle of time, Kalachakra, creates the divisions and movements of life and sustain the worlds in periodic time frames. [3]God also uses time to create the 'illusions' of life and death-which is nothing but a gateway to the next cycle, birth. This is true of the universe itself and parallel to the cyclic patterns in the rhythms of nature. The Rita, Ritu, Chandramasams and the nazhikas-vinayikas are the measurements of time.
This was the philosophical context in which the mechanical clock towers were planted. These power symbols of industrialisation- also were alien to a culture where occupation and knowledge systems were more ghetto based, when the apprentice had to report at his master’s workshop at sunrise and not at ‘Aath bajje’ i.e. when the clock strikes eight. New systems of education, new occupations, etc. dictated the importance of the clock tower. The shifts in language of the clock tower from its colonial origins to being amalgamated in vernacular architecture, as a sign of modernity, are interesting to note. These shifts are not only a case of architectural study, but it is the study of history of colonialism and its assimilation and impact on ideology of the sub-continent.
The clock towers stand in new meanings and new contexts as an artefact of a past and a birth of a concept of time.
What is this time? And why is this need for the human to track time, from the time immemorial starting from tracking the sun at different times of the day to ancient scientists inventing the sundial to the clocks of today have been developed to keep time with accuracy? Is it to understand and tame the abstraction of our own existences, which is so intertwined with time? And aren’t these questions the birth of sciences, history and philosophy? And also religions-where each are trying to give their answers through their distinct mythologies, doctrines and philosophies.
Right from burning of incense sticks and candles which were, and are, commonly used to measure time in temples and churches; the intelligence of the inventions of various instruments used to measure time has been astounding. The hourglass, waterclocks and later, mechanical clocks used to mark the events of the abbeys and monasteries of the Middle Ages-are just to name few. It is only an urgency to document/understand time and acute observations that gave birth to inventions such the ancient zodiac astronomical calendar to Einstein’s theory of relativity. The clock tower, however, had a functional birth in the Biblical region when the passage of the hours was marked by bells in the abbeys as well as at sea. It is the etymology of the word clock also.
The English word clock probably comes from the Middle Dutch word "klocke" which is in turn derived from the mediaeval Latin word "clocca", which is ultimately derived from Celtic, and is cognate with French, Latin, and German words that mean bell.
Before the middle of the twentieth century, most people did not have watches, and prior to the 18th century even home clocks were rare. The first clocks didn't have faces, but were solely striking clocks, which sounded bells to call the surrounding community to prayer. They were therefore placed in towers so the bells would be audible for a long distance. Clock towers were placed near the centres of towns and were often the tallest structures there. As clock towers became more common, the designers realized that a dial on the outside of the tower would allow the townspeople to read the time whenever they wanted. And it is with the arrival of the Raj this new philosophy and religion of the clock tower came to India.
Colonialism brought with it the concept of linear time. And most of us now are accustomed to living life according to this linear beliefs and patterns of existence. We believe everything has a beginning, middle and an end. But Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism –the dominant religious schools of Indian sub-continent, had little to do with the linear nature of history, the linear concept of time or the linear pattern of life.
The passage of 'linear' time has brought us where we are today. But Hinduism views time from a cosmic perspective to. There exists the divine time of the Gods and the illusionary time of the mortals. Also, it believes the process of creation moves in cycles consisting of the yugas. And since this process is cyclical, it is never ending. Creation begins when God makes his energies active and ends when he withdraws all his energies into a state of inactivity. Time kal is thus a manifestation of God. God is timeless, for time is relative and ceases to exist in the Absolute -as the past, the present and the future coexist simultaneously. The cycle of time, Kalachakra, creates the divisions and movements of life and sustain the worlds in periodic time frames. [3]God also uses time to create the 'illusions' of life and death-which is nothing but a gateway to the next cycle, birth. This is true of the universe itself and parallel to the cyclic patterns in the rhythms of nature. The Rita, Ritu, Chandramasams and the nazhikas-vinayikas are the measurements of time.
This was the philosophical context in which the mechanical clock towers were planted. These power symbols of industrialisation- also were alien to a culture where occupation and knowledge systems were more ghetto based, when the apprentice had to report at his master’s workshop at sunrise and not at ‘Aath bajje’ i.e. when the clock strikes eight. New systems of education, new occupations, etc. dictated the importance of the clock tower. The shifts in language of the clock tower from its colonial origins to being amalgamated in vernacular architecture, as a sign of modernity, are interesting to note. These shifts are not only a case of architectural study, but it is the study of history of colonialism and its assimilation and impact on ideology of the sub-continent.
The clock towers stand in new meanings and new contexts as an artefact of a past and a birth of a concept of time.
The Wedding Album
We look into the interior of the house. The living room occupies the centre stage of the family drama, and spaces like kitchen, entrance, the TV room and the stairs scattered around it. This was the stage set for the ‘Wedding Album’.
An impressive crowd had turned up for the play at Tagore hall on the 10th of September in Ahmadabad with evident anticipation and expectations for Girish Karnad’s recent play. The play began after the organizers ‘We’ foundation welcomed this Mumbai based theatre group, by Lilette Dubey ,which has performed the play in various parts of the country already.
The play begins with the scripting scene of TV soap with attempts to identify what an interesting story can be. The creative head finds ‘the video footage with a self-conscious Vridula explaining herself to a prospective groom in the USA , very boring and unreal affair not suited for a prime time soap. It then flashbacks into a stereotypical snapshot family wedding scene -of Vridula. However as the play progresses, and the complexities and conflicts of each character in the family comes forth-far from any stereotypical. The plot line is simple, but the characters are not.
The actors Lillete and Ira Dubey and Suchitra Pillai have effortlessly slipped into being a middle class South Indian Nadkarny family in a Kanandiga village of Karwar. Particularly the latter, as a cynical wife and overprotective mother. As the father Amit Lal provides comic interludes and also shows a grappling patriarchal system almost reclusive with strong female individuals around. Rohit, and his love life- a hypocrisy existing within the youth, who reverently regard so called modern value system, at the same time don’t discard certain chauvinistic ones.(“I have a Catholic girlfriend”)
However the play received mixed reviews from the Amdavadi audience. Some ardent Karnad fans felt it didn’t meet his previous benchmarks. Some appreciated its multiple layers and attempts at a reflection of contemporary Indian middle class, typical to Karnad. Though the script is rich and strong, the monotony of some dialogues seems a drag. However, it includes some very subtle but effective details like Hema smiling at the letter, Vridula’s escapades at the cyber café, the social activists attacking the cyber café, Ashwin’s spiritual quest in an Indian bride.
The play somberly ends with the absent father watching TV, throwing light on him. (note the placement of the TV and the dramatic effect the light from the TV falling on his face) and the domestic help, who was assumed to have lost her insane daughter shares some revelations, only to conclude with the excitement she experiences when her master’s child relishes her cooking- a condition and complexity of being human.
An impressive crowd had turned up for the play at Tagore hall on the 10th of September in Ahmadabad with evident anticipation and expectations for Girish Karnad’s recent play. The play began after the organizers ‘We’ foundation welcomed this Mumbai based theatre group, by Lilette Dubey ,which has performed the play in various parts of the country already.
The play begins with the scripting scene of TV soap with attempts to identify what an interesting story can be. The creative head finds ‘the video footage with a self-conscious Vridula explaining herself to a prospective groom in the USA , very boring and unreal affair not suited for a prime time soap. It then flashbacks into a stereotypical snapshot family wedding scene -of Vridula. However as the play progresses, and the complexities and conflicts of each character in the family comes forth-far from any stereotypical. The plot line is simple, but the characters are not.
The actors Lillete and Ira Dubey and Suchitra Pillai have effortlessly slipped into being a middle class South Indian Nadkarny family in a Kanandiga village of Karwar. Particularly the latter, as a cynical wife and overprotective mother. As the father Amit Lal provides comic interludes and also shows a grappling patriarchal system almost reclusive with strong female individuals around. Rohit, and his love life- a hypocrisy existing within the youth, who reverently regard so called modern value system, at the same time don’t discard certain chauvinistic ones.(“I have a Catholic girlfriend”)
However the play received mixed reviews from the Amdavadi audience. Some ardent Karnad fans felt it didn’t meet his previous benchmarks. Some appreciated its multiple layers and attempts at a reflection of contemporary Indian middle class, typical to Karnad. Though the script is rich and strong, the monotony of some dialogues seems a drag. However, it includes some very subtle but effective details like Hema smiling at the letter, Vridula’s escapades at the cyber café, the social activists attacking the cyber café, Ashwin’s spiritual quest in an Indian bride.
The play somberly ends with the absent father watching TV, throwing light on him. (note the placement of the TV and the dramatic effect the light from the TV falling on his face) and the domestic help, who was assumed to have lost her insane daughter shares some revelations, only to conclude with the excitement she experiences when her master’s child relishes her cooking- a condition and complexity of being human.
The City of Desires
‘Do we want to belong to a history which erases plurality?’ This is the question the students, of final year Bachelors of Architecture at CEPT, are attempting to address through their design dissertation- a project with an unusual format and ambitious intentions.
The studio, of five students, had initially begun with each student’s individual area of interest. Pranav is looking at the nomads, their living patterns and their exchange with the regions they travelled, a phenomenon very contrary to the civilized settled city; Abhay at work patterns and meaning of work spaces-which are inevitable industrial spaces; Nalini at the idea of pilgrimage, an opposite to the chaotic city; Vishnu at tribal life and their art forms which add value to their lives, Heena looks at the city as a knowledge source, negating the monopoly of formalized systems of knowledge and Maulik was interested in intelligent waste management, and not look at the waste as a by-product but an inherent part of the city. Though each of these cases were associated with the city, they were contradictory to it, in terms of values. Since these concepts were counterpoints or opposites of the ‘city of recent times’-which was unified, singular and had a dominant value system, the studio collectively questioned the larger idea of the’ Act of city making’. Thus evolved the idea to create a city where pluralities would be allowed to co-exist.
Interestingly, traditional Indian society had always been tolerant about the idea of co-existence of plural community value systems. In Arthashasthra, the diagram of the city included communities whose existence was complimentary to the socially structured urban cities. For instance, the trangenders were a part of the civic structure. A mainstream dominant social value system never existed before. The student study had made visible many suppressed histories of the city. And also make seen the invisible and unseen city.
“Truly a city requires the opposite to be complete. However there is always a tendency to deny or suppress it.”, says professor Chayya, who heads the studio. When the counterpoints o or the opposites are allowed to exist as the city itself will it be the utopia or the ideal city. “Philosophically, the Indians believed that life had many paths, and no one could judge one path from the other as the optimum.” However with today’s economical and social system, the attempt to make our society like the ‘Other’ is immense. There is a desire to belong to the ‘world class’- which believes in a unified and singular state of existence.
The utopian city is thus a plural society where diverse value systems will co-exist. The students will evolve individual architectural interventions-as per their respective areas of investigations, which will on a larger scale come together as the ‘utopian city’ and interact with the city to form meaningful relationships. The nomads will be given infrastructure by the city; the tribal art forms will disseminate in the urban life providing new meanings to either, the process of recycling will imbibe itself as a iconic and integral part of city architecture; the proposed workspace typologies shall be sensitive to various working patterns, knowledge centers will be integral to communities and not be centralized institutions and the idea of pilgrimage-peace and self reflection will be a part of the city itself. Thus are born Utopias.
In Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino describes a curious museum in the city of Fedora. It is filled with many miniature designs of ideal Fedoras. However each time the designs were complete, Fedora had changed. Hence now redundant, they were placed in the museum. The citizens often thronged the museum to feast on these cities of desires.
The studio, of five students, had initially begun with each student’s individual area of interest. Pranav is looking at the nomads, their living patterns and their exchange with the regions they travelled, a phenomenon very contrary to the civilized settled city; Abhay at work patterns and meaning of work spaces-which are inevitable industrial spaces; Nalini at the idea of pilgrimage, an opposite to the chaotic city; Vishnu at tribal life and their art forms which add value to their lives, Heena looks at the city as a knowledge source, negating the monopoly of formalized systems of knowledge and Maulik was interested in intelligent waste management, and not look at the waste as a by-product but an inherent part of the city. Though each of these cases were associated with the city, they were contradictory to it, in terms of values. Since these concepts were counterpoints or opposites of the ‘city of recent times’-which was unified, singular and had a dominant value system, the studio collectively questioned the larger idea of the’ Act of city making’. Thus evolved the idea to create a city where pluralities would be allowed to co-exist.
Interestingly, traditional Indian society had always been tolerant about the idea of co-existence of plural community value systems. In Arthashasthra, the diagram of the city included communities whose existence was complimentary to the socially structured urban cities. For instance, the trangenders were a part of the civic structure. A mainstream dominant social value system never existed before. The student study had made visible many suppressed histories of the city. And also make seen the invisible and unseen city.
“Truly a city requires the opposite to be complete. However there is always a tendency to deny or suppress it.”, says professor Chayya, who heads the studio. When the counterpoints o or the opposites are allowed to exist as the city itself will it be the utopia or the ideal city. “Philosophically, the Indians believed that life had many paths, and no one could judge one path from the other as the optimum.” However with today’s economical and social system, the attempt to make our society like the ‘Other’ is immense. There is a desire to belong to the ‘world class’- which believes in a unified and singular state of existence.
The utopian city is thus a plural society where diverse value systems will co-exist. The students will evolve individual architectural interventions-as per their respective areas of investigations, which will on a larger scale come together as the ‘utopian city’ and interact with the city to form meaningful relationships. The nomads will be given infrastructure by the city; the tribal art forms will disseminate in the urban life providing new meanings to either, the process of recycling will imbibe itself as a iconic and integral part of city architecture; the proposed workspace typologies shall be sensitive to various working patterns, knowledge centers will be integral to communities and not be centralized institutions and the idea of pilgrimage-peace and self reflection will be a part of the city itself. Thus are born Utopias.
In Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino describes a curious museum in the city of Fedora. It is filled with many miniature designs of ideal Fedoras. However each time the designs were complete, Fedora had changed. Hence now redundant, they were placed in the museum. The citizens often thronged the museum to feast on these cities of desires.
The City of Desires
‘Do we want to belong to a history which erases plurality?’ This is the question the students, of final year Bachelors of Architecture at CEPT, are attempting to address through their design dissertation- a project with an unusual format and ambitious intentions.
The studio, of five students, had initially begun with each student’s individual area of interest. Pranav is looking at the nomads, their living patterns and their exchange with the regions they travelled, a phenomenon very contrary to the civilized settled city; Abhay at work patterns and meaning of work spaces-which are inevitable industrial spaces; Nalini at the idea of pilgrimage, an opposite to the chaotic city; Vishnu at tribal life and their art forms which add value to their lives, Heena looks at the city as a knowledge source, negating the monopoly of formalized systems of knowledge and Maulik was interested in intelligent waste management, and not look at the waste as a by-product but an inherent part of the city. Though each of these cases were associated with the city, they were contradictory to it, in terms of values. Since these concepts were counterpoints or opposites of the ‘city of recent times’-which was unified, singular and had a dominant value system, the studio collectively questioned the larger idea of the’ Act of city making’. Thus evolved the idea to create a city where pluralities would be allowed to co-exist.
Interestingly, traditional Indian society had always been tolerant about the idea of co-existence of plural community value systems. In Arthashasthra, the diagram of the city included communities whose existence was complimentary to the socially structured urban cities. For instance, the trangenders were a part of the civic structure. A mainstream dominant social value system never existed before. The student study had made visible many suppressed histories of the city. And also make seen the invisible and unseen city.
“Truly a city requires the opposite to be complete. However there is always a tendency to deny or suppress it.”, says professor Chayya, who heads the studio. When the counterpoints o or the opposites are allowed to exist as the city itself will it be the utopia or the ideal city. “Philosophically, the Indians believed that life had many paths, and no one could judge one path from the other as the optimum.” However with today’s economical and social system, the attempt to make our society like the ‘Other’ is immense. There is a desire to belong to the ‘world class’- which believes in a unified and singular state of existence.
The utopian city is thus a plural society where diverse value systems will co-exist. The students will evolve individual architectural interventions-as per their respective areas of investigations, which will on a larger scale come together as the ‘utopian city’ and interact with the city to form meaningful relationships. The nomads will be given infrastructure by the city; the tribal art forms will disseminate in the urban life providing new meanings to either, the process of recycling will imbibe itself as a iconic and integral part of city architecture; the proposed workspace typologies shall be sensitive to various working patterns, knowledge centers will be integral to communities and not be centralized institutions and the idea of pilgrimage-peace and self reflection will be a part of the city itself. Thus are born Utopias.
In Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino describes a curious museum in the city of Fedora. It is filled with many miniature designs of ideal Fedoras. However each time the designs were complete, Fedora had changed. Hence now redundant, they were placed in the museum. The citizens often thronged the museum to feast on these cities of desires.
The studio, of five students, had initially begun with each student’s individual area of interest. Pranav is looking at the nomads, their living patterns and their exchange with the regions they travelled, a phenomenon very contrary to the civilized settled city; Abhay at work patterns and meaning of work spaces-which are inevitable industrial spaces; Nalini at the idea of pilgrimage, an opposite to the chaotic city; Vishnu at tribal life and their art forms which add value to their lives, Heena looks at the city as a knowledge source, negating the monopoly of formalized systems of knowledge and Maulik was interested in intelligent waste management, and not look at the waste as a by-product but an inherent part of the city. Though each of these cases were associated with the city, they were contradictory to it, in terms of values. Since these concepts were counterpoints or opposites of the ‘city of recent times’-which was unified, singular and had a dominant value system, the studio collectively questioned the larger idea of the’ Act of city making’. Thus evolved the idea to create a city where pluralities would be allowed to co-exist.
Interestingly, traditional Indian society had always been tolerant about the idea of co-existence of plural community value systems. In Arthashasthra, the diagram of the city included communities whose existence was complimentary to the socially structured urban cities. For instance, the trangenders were a part of the civic structure. A mainstream dominant social value system never existed before. The student study had made visible many suppressed histories of the city. And also make seen the invisible and unseen city.
“Truly a city requires the opposite to be complete. However there is always a tendency to deny or suppress it.”, says professor Chayya, who heads the studio. When the counterpoints o or the opposites are allowed to exist as the city itself will it be the utopia or the ideal city. “Philosophically, the Indians believed that life had many paths, and no one could judge one path from the other as the optimum.” However with today’s economical and social system, the attempt to make our society like the ‘Other’ is immense. There is a desire to belong to the ‘world class’- which believes in a unified and singular state of existence.
The utopian city is thus a plural society where diverse value systems will co-exist. The students will evolve individual architectural interventions-as per their respective areas of investigations, which will on a larger scale come together as the ‘utopian city’ and interact with the city to form meaningful relationships. The nomads will be given infrastructure by the city; the tribal art forms will disseminate in the urban life providing new meanings to either, the process of recycling will imbibe itself as a iconic and integral part of city architecture; the proposed workspace typologies shall be sensitive to various working patterns, knowledge centers will be integral to communities and not be centralized institutions and the idea of pilgrimage-peace and self reflection will be a part of the city itself. Thus are born Utopias.
In Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino describes a curious museum in the city of Fedora. It is filled with many miniature designs of ideal Fedoras. However each time the designs were complete, Fedora had changed. Hence now redundant, they were placed in the museum. The citizens often thronged the museum to feast on these cities of desires.
The Story of a Yakshi
The career of the Didarganj Yakshi is an interesting one. It marks trajectories how overtime an object’s value transfers from an archeological antiquity to a national artistic icon and later to an endangered art treasure-which gets fossilized in the space of a museum. The Yakshi is not merely an aesthetic/art object but also an important national icon.
The Mauryan sculpture adopted the name of the place where it was discovered, Didarganj in 1917. Instituted as a local goddess, the Yakshi was transferred to its ‘ rightful’ home, the Patna museum, after convincing the villagers that a figure holding the chowky can only be a mere attendant. Thus for the officials the immediate battle was not just over meanings-or exhume its past life, but over custody. Henceforth the Yakshi would be available for no other rituals other than of art. Similar has been the history of many ancient art objects, especially idols which easily correspond with those of the Hindu pantheon.
The Yakshi -a freestanding, life size, female figure, six feet eight inches on the pedestal, with one arm missing and the other holding a flying whisk (chowky)flung over the shoulder; engages the viewer on many counts- the intricate style of modeling, the lustrous polish of the Chunar stone body and the not the least of all the voluptuous anatomy. The Yakshi belongs to the pantheon of Indian sculptures providing introductions to the sensual aspect of ancient Indian art. ‘While the images of the meditating Buddha held their ground as the reigning embodiments of Indian spirituality, they (art historians) had been bought face to face with an alternative pantheon of divine and non divine female figures whose charms were overtly and overpoweringly physical’ ,writes Tapati Guha in her book National Claims.
Since the time of its first discovery in 1917, the Yakshi has kept re-appearing not only in museums and exhibitions, but also proliferately in books and albums. In the year of India’s independence, it represented the new nation in the show that Codrington organized in London. It returned to Delhi in 1948 and became a part of the exhibition ‘Masterpieces of India’ at the Government national museum. However the return of the Yakshi with a pockmark chip, after the 1980 tour of the USA and France brewed a huge controversy. Taken as a dent in the national pride the sculpture was designated a special category of ‘rare and endangered’ antique and was given the verdict to never leave its home museum.
Now, cloistered in the Patna museum, as a shadow of its past, it is important to ask for whom the Yakshi exists there? For a small community of scholars and museum officials who have invested it with a unique historical, aesthetics and national value? Or for the masses that thong the spaces of all such museums in India, who remain completely oblivious of the figure’s true art historical worth?
The Mauryan sculpture adopted the name of the place where it was discovered, Didarganj in 1917. Instituted as a local goddess, the Yakshi was transferred to its ‘ rightful’ home, the Patna museum, after convincing the villagers that a figure holding the chowky can only be a mere attendant. Thus for the officials the immediate battle was not just over meanings-or exhume its past life, but over custody. Henceforth the Yakshi would be available for no other rituals other than of art. Similar has been the history of many ancient art objects, especially idols which easily correspond with those of the Hindu pantheon.
The Yakshi -a freestanding, life size, female figure, six feet eight inches on the pedestal, with one arm missing and the other holding a flying whisk (chowky)flung over the shoulder; engages the viewer on many counts- the intricate style of modeling, the lustrous polish of the Chunar stone body and the not the least of all the voluptuous anatomy. The Yakshi belongs to the pantheon of Indian sculptures providing introductions to the sensual aspect of ancient Indian art. ‘While the images of the meditating Buddha held their ground as the reigning embodiments of Indian spirituality, they (art historians) had been bought face to face with an alternative pantheon of divine and non divine female figures whose charms were overtly and overpoweringly physical’ ,writes Tapati Guha in her book National Claims.
Since the time of its first discovery in 1917, the Yakshi has kept re-appearing not only in museums and exhibitions, but also proliferately in books and albums. In the year of India’s independence, it represented the new nation in the show that Codrington organized in London. It returned to Delhi in 1948 and became a part of the exhibition ‘Masterpieces of India’ at the Government national museum. However the return of the Yakshi with a pockmark chip, after the 1980 tour of the USA and France brewed a huge controversy. Taken as a dent in the national pride the sculpture was designated a special category of ‘rare and endangered’ antique and was given the verdict to never leave its home museum.
Now, cloistered in the Patna museum, as a shadow of its past, it is important to ask for whom the Yakshi exists there? For a small community of scholars and museum officials who have invested it with a unique historical, aesthetics and national value? Or for the masses that thong the spaces of all such museums in India, who remain completely oblivious of the figure’s true art historical worth?
Monday, March 7, 2011
Amdavad likes it short
Short film entries by women filmmakers are the buzz this month with International Woman's Day round the corner. As we gear up for a new year full of promises, more and more women are turning to film making to express age-old concerns and share tales spun from their imagination.
While female directors in Bollywood are far and few in between, India does have a few successful women filmmakers like Mira Nair, Aparna Sen, Gurinder Chadda, Deepa Mehta, Meghna Gulzar and Farhan Khan in the otherwise male dominated film industry. Although making a full-length feature film is an expensive economic and intellectual venture, with the decreased cognitive and financial cost of making a short film today, it has become possible for young students to experiment with film making as a medium. The appeal of this multi-sensorial, multi-media expression tool has seen an unprecedented surge in the number of students opting for film courses or submitting films as assignments. For instance, Alisha Attarwala, a college student from Ahmedabad made a film on the lives of beggars in Ahmedabad. She says, "the beggars were curious about the camera and the novelty factor helped us break the ice with them". But film making projects are now itching their way into school level as well. "I made a short film on the need to educate the girl child as part of a Grade 10 project and found the medium an engaging and meaningful way to interact with under-privileged girl", says Krina Prajapati a student of Mahatma Gandhi International School. She feels that "these small efforts do make a difference at the local level especially when we couple it with long term action."
With more short films being made, there was a need to screen them. A story narrated must be heard! Notably since last year, Ahmedabad is a happening place to be for short filmmakers with the Ahmedabad International Film Festival, Shamiana and Chitra Katha in addition to the well established film clubs of the city offering a wonderful platform to share and screen films. Way to go Amdavad!
Published in the March issue of Shamiana Shorts 2010.
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