Tungsten

TUNGSTEN | ISSUE I

tungstenOCT 2012 | ISSUE 01

TUNGSTEN | ISSUE I

FOR MEDESIGNIS LIKE CHOOSINGWHAT I’MGOING TOWEAR FORTHE DAY.Only much more complicated and not really the same at all.Robbyne Ray

That pretty much covers it. Design is something we all argue about, bicker about, appreciate and generally criticize, as much as possible. And what the hell is alternative design anyway? Well even if you can’t define it and put it down to that one sentence that bestows upon you all the clarity in the world – we can always show you work – work done by artists in India or about India, work that aims to push beyond those traditional boundaries of art and design. So we give you the first issue of our magazine – Tungsten.

For all those bright moments and ideas – hopefully you pick up our magazine every four months and flip through it discover all those brilliant artists and projects.

Flip and disover.

A foreign artists’ interpretation of a beautiful and mysterious sect of sadhus in India.

CONTENTSWHAT’S UNDERWAY 01Libera Artisti

With an upcoming graphic novel and tv series, Kishore Mohan talks to us about what’s underway.

DESIGN TURK 03Seb Weilders (Shueti)

Fix heartbreaks, broken toes and books, all with the power of duct tape.

HANDS ON 05How to fix your life with Duct tape

SPOTLIGHT 07

Explore art, photography and motion with Green Hearts.

A man with seven stories to put a blip on your radar.

SEVEN OF THE QUARTER 13Pandarang R.

Four artists, one gallery. Take a quick sneak peek.

THE GALLERY 15Viewer’s paradise

A comic every 4 months keeps you on your toes!

MY LITTLE COMIC 20Kishore Mohan

OCTOBER 2012

Green Hearts

TUNGSTEN | ISSUE I

TAG ALONG 21Hemanth Kumar (Bobby)Making music in every way, whether it be amps or soundtracks -presenting Bobby the guitar guy.

When, why, where, how. The design event of the quarter. This installation cannot be missed.

BLOW BY BLOW 23The Deconstruction Project

That little something extra in the design world to catch your fancy. Curtain calls and shadow play.

FRINGE BENEFITS 27Evan Hastings

THE ODD BALL 29 BLAFT Publications

Mad scientist experiments and truly inspired moments. Explore a new world of books.

If it was in the contents page, it wouldn’tbe a surprise. Here’s a hint, its vectorlicious.

OFF THE WALL! 31Abhishek Choudhury

Don’t get lost in the wide world of the internet, take our cues.

TIP OFF 33Our Recommendations

{{Writing a graphic novelis an expression of personalartistic style.

LIBERAWHAT’S UNDERWAY

RTISTI A company that gives you three different art styles, animation, graphic novels, TV shows and so much more – Now that would be the simplest way to describe Libera Artisti, a company founded by three amazingly talented friends who decided to explore their passion for art. Leaving behind the shackles of the corporate office, they went into making art full time – and if we might say so, they’re pretty damned good at it.

By Kanika Kaul & Mithra Murali

Autopilot, the graphic novel is their brainchild and its origins

start inside the confines of his car. Kishore Mohan describes his

corporate job as “two very, very long years” at Technopark in

Trivandrum which he took to help pay the bills that playing a masked

vigilante didn’t do. And to say his office was a while away was an

understatement at 20 miles–it was almost a pilgrimage. And on one of

these long drives back, Kishore almost ran into a buffalo trying to cross

the road. Luckily, he missed. But this led to a train of thoughts about

what would happen if he did hit the animal? The owner would be mad,

what if the owner was riding the darned beast – but then again, who

rides a buffalo? Then it struck, and in his words “There is one fellow

from our mythology that rides

on a Buffalo! Yamaraj, the God of

Death!” This eventually lead to a

story, it “became the story of the

Suku, the hapless auto-rickshaw

driver who ends up having to

play chauffer to Yamaraj.” It was

much later that he finally sat down and wrote the whole story, but

as each story has its beginning, this is the beginning of their journey

towards finishing Autopilot and their lungi tales.

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TUNGSTEN | ISSUE I

Writing a graphic novelis an expression of personalartistic style.

“LUNGIS, COCONUTS, and CRIME.”If you have read Autopilot, you must have come to adore Cocoman, the

crime fighting mallu wielding his deathly coconuts. The artist tells us

“The story starts off in an alternate Kerala where masked vigilantes fight

crime and protect the civilians from criminals and strange monsters. We

wanted to design a set of superheroes and monsters that were coherent

with this world. And who can represent Kerala better than a superhero

who drapes a lungi like a cape and fights crime with coconuts?”

Conceptualization can be a bitch, and most often than not, everyone

needs some good solid research – and

graphic novels are no exception. A whole

500 days of research and development went

into it, starting off with Kishore’s own sweat

and blood, “ninja traveling across the state

collecting data from the places based on

which the worlds in the story are created”.

Locked up in his study, he read up on historical events and made up

some fantastic mythological explanations. Then the great war of the

‘art-styles’ started, with Roshan and Sinu burning the midnight oil to

develop a style they all completely agreed on.

No escaping hard work then; although, the fact that they love what

they’re doing probably made one hell of a difference to all that

research. Autopilot has ten issues, and right now, Kishore is working on

the script for the seventh. “It’s going a little slow, now with the TV series

happening in parallel. Intellectual Property Rights is sometimes harder

than rocket-science for me to comprehend. Thankfully, our publisher/

producer Dragonmill is taking care of all that stuff for us.”

Kishore clarifies that it isn’t Autopilot per se that is being made into a TV

series. The spin off animated series borrows Cocoman as its star and it

gives us their alternate “coconutty” history

of Kerala. Jam-packed with all the tales that

they couldn’t tell us in their graphic novel,

it’s going to be a show to watch out for.

As they didn’t want to let it go and they

just happened to have a fantastic team

of animators in Dragonmill, the stories

resulted in a TV series. But as we try and dig some more details out

of them – curious people that we are – Kishore resists our charms and

tells us, “It is too early to be talking anything more about the TV show.

Frankly, I am not sure how much more I am allowed to reveal right now.

Let’s just let that be a tale for another day.” That just seems that there

are more surprises in store for us concerning the show!

Who can represent Kerala better than a superhero who drapes a lungi like a cape and fights crime with coconuts?” {{

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DESIGN TURK

Shueti had the opportunity to meet and assist a variety of directors

and artists from who he learnt a lot. His favorite teaching: you

draw on your paintings, film as a photographer, photograph as a

painter. Shueti was notably nominated for his short film at the Amstel

Surf Film Festival and also at the German festival NOFF, he also earned

first place at the ART ON FOAM for Quicksilver, and won the Face-Off

Video Festival in Los Angeles. As for now, through his films, he seeks

to find new depth in aesthetics and to experiment with ‘new visuals’.

His mysterious surreal short film ‘Aghori’ (you can watch it on vimeo)

caught our eye, and we tracked him down all the way from El Salvador -

where he’s enjoying himself currently – and pulled him away to ask him

questions and crown him this issue’s Design Turk.

Seb Weilders (a.k.a.Shueti) is a filmmaker, born in the Netherlands in 1968H.He developed a passion for extreme sports and street art; later, he studied graphic design while taking photographs and filming his friends during his spare time. He then graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam.

visualessentials

AGHORIS LIVE AMONG THE DEAD

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TUNGSTEN | ISSUE I

Shai did everything without music. I had even more respect for him as it was cold and the floor was wet, this made it worse and he scratched himself a few times on the sharp surface.

How would you describe yourself? How did you get into film-making?

I try to definitely stay positive and try not to take myself too seriously.

Have you been to India? How was your experience here?

I have. It’s crazy and beautiful!

How did Aghori come about?

When I was very young, my neighbor

brought a magazine from the states.

It had the most amazing pictures of

sadhus, it was mind boggling to see

human beings in such different way

of life compared to what i was used seeing as a kid growing up in the

Netherlands.I never forgot those images and it created an urge to see

more: I think that was one of the main reasons to start traveling. I met

a sadhu and from there I became more interested in this mystery…

dedication…it ended up with a tribe called Aghori. It’s sort of macabre,

but dark things can be bright too if you don’t fear them. The Aghoris live

among the dead...

In brief, could you describe the pre-

production and planning for Aghori? How

was your experience on the set?

Haha well there was not really a set...

nor a big crew. It was me, Steven Tips

(the assistant director) and Shailesh (the

dancer). It took me almost one year on

and off to learn the technical aspect, plus preparing and arranging the

trip. I was also the DOP, Producer, Editor, Grader and visual effects artist.I

wanted to have an serene emptiness an ‘forgotten place’ where the

Aghori dedicates himself to meditation and sitting in a trance flipping

from reality to the unconscious worlds (hopefully it makes some sense.)

We shot it in a remote area of a desert, so we had to walk for a long time

with our gear and funnily enough, the speakers were broken. So Shai did

everything without music...I had even more respect for him as it was cold

and the floor was salty/wet, this made it worse and he scratched himself

a few times on the sharp surface.

How did you get in touch with Shailesh Bahoran, the performer? Could

you tell us about him?

Well, Shailesh is a friend of mine and I met him a long time ago

in Holland, he was breakdancing in a mall. Our minds are very alike and

he breaths dancing…apart from that, he is a very creativity driven person.

Has Aghori won any accolades or been submitted to any festivals?

I’ve have just been nominated for the Dutch online film festival but to be

honest, I’m kinda crappy at promoting myself. I still need to put some

more efforts in that, I guess, and enter more festivals.

Do you travel much? Where all are you traveling presently?

YES! I love to travel and at the moment I’m in El Salvador.

There’s a Kumbh Mela being organised in India on 27th January 2013

after 11 yearsr in Allahbad city. Thousands of Aghori babas (among 60

million+ devotees) are expected to attend. Any plans to be there?

Wow! I’ll probably be working on a new project around that time but

man, it would be great to be there…who knows?

{

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No one wants to see that nasty

thing. And believe me; people

notice it no matter what you

think. So do the only thing

possible, get out some invincible

duct tape and slowly wrap it

around your toe. (Warning. Your

nail MAY come out when you rip

out the duct tape. Good luck)

Insects of the 21st century are

well prepared for your fancy bug

repellents and other contractions.

The only way to go is to catch

them completely off guard and

be old fashioned. Pull out the

duct tape and place it near the

walls, the windows, and maybe

on top of your head. And then

watch the creeps get stuck.

Are you an inspiring home video

maker?

Do you need to make someone

believe you’re home when you’re

not? Then this is your answer.

Pick out some clothes you don’t

like and slowly wrap duct tape

over the clothes (using a bottle

inside the clothes). Take out the

bottle and then stuff the duct

tape with cotton. And there you

go. A body stunt double to scare

people with.

Toe Nail Fungus Fly Paper Duct Tape Body

Stick ‘em up

For all those people with a ‘can-do’ attitude and a penchant to do some really weird DIY – SURPRISE! We have a list of some pretty strange things people have suggested as possible DIY solutions for various problems in life and they all apparently have one solution: Duct Tape.

HANDS ON

{5

TUNGSTEN | ISSUE I

Are your precious completely out

of date games falling apart? Well

here’s a way to prevent things

from degrading the natural way.

Use the strongest adhesive tape

known to man and save it. If you

don’t know how – oh you poor

thing. You take the tape and you

wrap it around the case. And

then you slowly…oh wait, no,

that’s all.

This particular DIY is brilliant. The

innovation is brilliant. You go to

your local thrift store and pick

up a cooler and then you figure

out the measurements you want

your cooler to be. Then you make

your cooler as padded as it needs

to be. Then you go out into the

world, and pretend you made it

from scratch.

Laptop sleeves in the market

are just not colourful and tape-y

enough. Use the pattern that

been illustrated and after taking

measurements, make four duct

tape laptop sleeves and stick

them together. And presto.

You’ve got it.

If you have a book that has a

broken spine, you can match

the duct tape with the colour of

the binding and wrap it around

the spine. Not the whole book

though. That would just be tacky.

Nintendo DS Case Cooler Laptop Sleeve Book Binding

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SPOTLIGHT

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TUNGSTEN | ISSUE I

Sankalp Agarwal might

blame it on the

extraterrestrials, but

his friends Ajay Koli and

Siddharth Mate convince

us that it’s a passion. These

three IIT Bombay students,

collectively calling themselves

The Green Hearts, share a

common love and fascination

for photography: beautiful

framing and fantastic edits

make up their vast repertoire.

And now this great group is a

whole year old!

So how exactly did they

decide to come together?

When asked what made

them turn to photography,

Ajay says, “We study inside

a technical institution. So,

as artists we are always on

a lookout for some talented

and creative individuals. We

were following each other’s

work from sometime. So

when we created something

together, the output was

grand. Then, a desire to

do something big brought

us together to form The

Green Hearts. We needed a

medium to express ourselves.

A camera is like a toy for

us where we experiment

& exploit its usage at the

same time. It adds a feeling

of keeping everything real.”

Their pictures though,

border on surreal and Nature

is their biggest and most

loved inspiration, if their

name isn’t a dead giveaway.

“Imagine a being with nature

flowing through its veins. An

amalgam of birds, trees, hills

and leaves. Its heart would be

GREENHEARTSBY KANIKA KAUL & MITHRA MURALI

We have this one ongoing project where we send encrypted messages in our photographs to undercover aliens. It’s a big conspiracy, you know.{{

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green,” elaborates Sankalp.

First and foremost, this group

enjoys combing together

scenes of natural beauty and

adding unusual elements

to the photograph, mainly

playing with element of light.

You can’t help but wonder

if there’s a hidden meaning

to these photographers that

they are carefully planning

to portray. But if your mind

is wandering along the same

train of thought you’ll have

to figure it out yourself.

When you put IIT and art

together, you expect some

brilliant results. And these

guys sure as hell deliver. The

campus and the facilities they

have access to help to push

their creativity and provide a

good and highly inspirational

working space. “IIT gave us a

very peaceful environment to

develop ourselves.” Science

and art are two different

but non-distinct aspects of

their being. And knowing

the science makes the art a

lot more enjoyable. We’ve

all heard of artists making

the transition from a field of

science to that of art, but

it’s quite fascinating that

these group of artists aim

to make a link between the

two. IIT is known for their

vast and green campuses and

that space is perfect for the

kind of work that they like

to bring out. Their portfolio

is a testament to their keen

eye for capturing moments

that seem like they were

suspended in time.

But it’s not just science

that gets them going. Their

photography leans heavily

conceptual ideas and this

needs planning and a whole

lot of inspiration. The

photographers may look

entirely spontaneous, but

while dealing with light

and nature, it needs to be

recognized that they are

experimenting with very

volatile elements. But they

take the phrase ‘Light is

a photographer’s friend’

to a whole new level. So

the planning not only

comes for figuring out

the practicalities – science

probably helps a great deal

here, but inspiration is also

a big part of pre-planning a

photograph. Nature would

probably be foremost on their

list of inspirations, but they

also derive from their day to

day experiences and music.

According to the artists,

music is a great influence

“We want the viewer to

connect to our photographs,

the kind of emotions and

thoughts we have when we

click a photograph come out

as colors during the edit.”

says Siddharth. And looking

at their photography you

see what they’re trying to

express in their photography,

you can see the remnants of

a mood, a feeling, a song,

a place, a memory drifting

around in the photograph,

reach out to us, to affect us.

Seeing personal meaning

in these photographs isn’t

a particularly difficult task

as it does tend to bring

out emotions in each

photograph. One of the

most apparent features of

Green Hearts’ photography

is a feeling of reality being

blended with the vast

expanses of the artists’

imagination. And to create

this sort of mood, the artists

venture out with some ideas

tucked away in their creative

pockets. As Sankalp very

smartly adds “Sometimes

we just dig them up or fish

for them on location.” Who

can argue with that? If these

artists never took liberties

with being creative and

spontaneous, we’d probably

be looking at something

devoid of the emotion that

is apparent in their current

photographs.

The artists are also working

on another project called the

365 project, which is mainly

being done by Ajay.

A camera is like a toy for us where we experiment & exploit its usage at the same time. It adds a feeling of keeping everything real.

SPOTLIGHT

“NATURE. LIGHT. SURREAL.”

{{

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TUNGSTEN | ISSUE I

10

Where he takes one photograph every day, most of them

being self-portraits. Both of the other artists, Sankalp and

Siddharth also add to it whenever they have the time. The

point of this whole experience to help evolve the artist inside

and then take a photograph that still evokes the kind of

emotion that is persistent with the kind of photography that

they do on a daily basis.

To get inside the artists head a little, we got their reactions

to a group of (not so) random words. For Sankalp, the word

science associates to flying saucers. We’re starting to believe

him about the whole alien thing. For Ajay, it means to

understand the universe. How does that even exist at the top

of your head while playing word associations? Sankalp links

explosions and art – this completely feels like a future idea for

a project. Was that a sneak preview? Lastly, Tungsten reminds

Siddharth of “2.57 minute intro of Echoes”. Yes err. That was

exactly what we were going for when we named our magazine.

To catch these great artists who were a pleasure to interview,

you can explore their Facebook page ‘The Green Hearts’, the

output was grand. Then, a desire to do something big brought us

together to form The Green Hearts. We needed a medium to express

ourselves. A camera is like a toy for us where we experiment & exploit

its usage at the same time. It adds this strong feeling of keeping

everything real.”

SPOTLIGHT

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TUNGSTEN | ISSUE I

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12

7LITTLESTORIES

BY PANDRANG ROW

What is a great man? The only

one I’ve met is David Ogilvy. This

was in 1986, I had joined Ogilvy,

Benson & Mather one year before

and was working in Madras.

David was visiting India and said

he wanted to meet all the people

in the office, but two and

three at a time.

So Radha Mukherji, an account

director with 6 years experience,

Geetha John, our film executive

and yours truly were shoved

out of the office early to go to

meet David, who was staying

at Fisherman’s Cove. We were

given dire warnings to be on

time and when we got there,

we understood why.

David Ogilvy, the man whose

name was on the door of our

agency, was standing – bare-

foot – on the stairs of Fisherman’s

Cove, in his famous red sus-

penders. He was waiting for us

– three wet-behind-the-ears fresh-

ers who had collectively spent

barely a third of the time he had

spent in advertising.

That’s humility and that’s the

mark of a great man.

The first day that I walked into

Ogilvy, Benson and Mather,

Suresh Mullick, the creative direc-

tor caught me and gave me an

aphorism that has stuck in my

head; “An agency is a great place

to learn . . . but nobody’s going

to teach you anything.”

When I worked at Enterprise,

I think the only reward I really

wanted was to see Mohammed

Khan smile. When he saw what

he thought was great work,

Mohammed used to smile, laugh

and chortle. Then he’d bounce

around the agency showing the

ad or line to everybody. It was

the ultimate reward.

A few months after I joined

Enterprise, I was hanging around

the agency late in the evening,

when Mohammed came to look

at some ads. He took a look

at the ads and turned to the

servicing guys, “What’s the size

of this ad, guys?”

“200cc Mohammed.”

“This ad is not f%*king 200cc.”

“No Mohammed, it is

Mohammed.”

“Bullshit! This isn’t f%*king 200cc

– bring me a ruler.”

A ruler was duly brought and

Mohammed measured it.

Sure enough, the ad was 5

millimeters too high.

I was amazed and it was my

ambition to achieve that sort of

ability to spot detail. And it was

my proudest moment when I did

achieve it some years later.

After years in the creative industry, Pandrang Row has seen it all and heard it all. And with those many stories bottled up, what could we ask him to do but DISH?!

An agency is a great place to learn...butnobody’s going to teach you anything.{

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TUNGSTEN | ISSUE I

I was amazed and it was my ambition to achieve that sort of ability to spot detail. And it was my proudest moment when I did achieve it some years later.

There are some moments that tell

you more about your boss than

any other time.

Once, one of Mohammed’s

favorite studio artists made

a crude, sexually suggestive

comment about one of our

art directors. This guy was a

specialist at illustration and

spray-painting (this may be a

lost art) and was crucial to most

of our layouts, but as soon as he

heard about what had happened,

Mohammed marched into the

studio and threw the guy out.

Sacked. Immediately.

That tells you exactly where he

stands on an important issue.

And it sets a standard for all

of us to follow.

Our client at Vadilal was an

incredible man. He used to

insist we use real ice-cream –

his ice-cream – for all his ads.

Once, due to a series of mishaps,

including a freezer that didn’t

work, dry ice that didn’t land up

among other things, one of our

art directors had to shoot using

mashed potato for ice-cream.

Mohammed wasn’t around and

the transparency was sent

to the client.

Amazingly, he took one look at it

and sent it back, saying simply,

“This is not ice-cream.”

I think being a model has to be

the worst job in the world. You

live off your looks and when you

do that you have to take a

lot of grief.

So often, I’ve stood next to my

art director, looked at a girl

standing three feet away and

said, “No, her nose is too long.

Doesn’t work.” Or, “Look at her

legs man! Like tent pegs.”

I don’t know what it does to their

egos, but I can tell you, I always

thought it was quite a horrid

situation. On the other hand, if

you are making a living with your

looks, you should learn to accept

professional comments about

your look, it’s kind of a cleft stick.

{ {

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TUNGSTEN | ISSUE I

Artisthttp://www.aakashnihalani.com/

Aakash Nihalani

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TUNGSTEN | ISSUE I

Artisthttp://sanmanmohite.blogspot.in

Sanman Mohite

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Illustratorhttp://linesmancreation.blogspot.in

Abhishek Chaudhary

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TUNGSTEN | ISSUE I

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INAPPROPRIATEBy Kishore Mohan

}}

music madefrom scratch


We hit the jackpot when we met two customers waiting in

Bobby’s before we got to meet the man himself. Customer

Sudhakar is a musician and a teacher in four different

music institutes in Bangalore. Here’s the kicker: Sudhakar had a

fracture in his hand that never healed fully so he can’t play on regular

bass guitar, so Bobby made him a customized guitar. With a smaller

neck, the guitar is unique with the customer’s own taste included. He

was impressed enough to bring in the second customer we met, who

had come all the way from San Francisco. seemed mighty pleased that

Bobby not only makes the instruments but also makes the amps and

the pickups and all by hand. In his words “In the states what happens

more often than not is people buy stuff and just plug it in. But this guy

really just does everything.”

Then the maestro Bobby came strolling in and we got to have our

one on one time with him. With the way he describes his routine,

you’d think he lives and breathes guitars. He mentions that he does

events and other projects. Last week he’d just finished an NGO project

documentary and created the sound bite.

The way he got into the business may not be all fairy-tale, but it

was rough enough to start him up. He made his first guitar out

of desperation. After his father told him to back out of the music

business, he did what he had to do and became a self-taught guitar

maker and learned how to play.

Hemanth Kumar, more popularly known as Bobby is a musician, businessman and he also happens to have his own line of guitars, amps, sound mixers! Holed away in a house in Yelahanka, lives the former mechanical engineer and our team met him one evening.

Sudhakar had a fracture in his hand that never healed fully so he can’t play on regular bass guitar, so Bobby made him a customized guitar, with a smaller neck.

TAG ALONG

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TUNGSTEN | ISSUE I

He says he’s been tinkering around with things since he was a child

and always had a technical background. After getting his mechanical

engineering degree, he says it only helped him design guitars more.

After being a teacher in Gulbarga for a year, he decided to quit the rat

race and start his business making guitars, amps etc. – and this was 10

years ago! Though he tells us, he went a while before making guitars

he was truly happy because he could only afford materials according

to what people paid him. The goal was only to come up with the

product within the budget. And now, he has the ability to balance

quality and the customer’s budget! And that was the birth of ‘Edge’.

As customer Sudhakar has already mentioned, customization of a

guitar is bobby’s strongest point and he tells us that he loves taking

creative liberties. And that’s exactly what people come to him for,

and that’s also when he enjoys it the most. He even made a double

neck guitar and a 7 string bass! Bobby admits that music definitely

influences the way he makes his guitars. He even jams with some of

the musicians before he makes them an instrument; he explains “It’s

about understanding the person in front [of you]. You can’t cater to

every need of a customer just based on your opinions as a musician;

you need to understand what the other people want.” For Sudhakar,

he’d made a bass out of mahogany and according to Bobby “It has

kind of an alien look to it but it suits him, he likes it and as long as he’s

enjoying it that’s like an achievement for me.” The pride and joy of

his collection would be his own guitar. He hints to us subtly “In fact,

there is a guitar I was making 2 years back, out of this material. And

it has some specialities. I couldn’t complete it. I didn’t get the time to

complete it because it’s my own guitar. My own guitar goes through

all seasonal changes. Then it gets ready. So it took me around 2 and

half years to finish it.” And he’s still using it.

Bobby also has a recording studio (that he built himself), and uses it

with his own band and also other bands looking for a space “Some

very good musicians come to me and play their music and once they

play their music I feel grounded so I don’t touch my guitars after that

for a week!” Now that can’t be true because Bobby himself is part of

a band called Audiofile who play a lot of retro and 80’s rock and play

gigs in and around Bangalore.

Bobby sells his guitars directly to the customers and through word

of mouth. And if you do want to order a guitar, give him a month

at least to work his genius. And on a side note, Bobby adds that he

budgets according to the customer and the materials.

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TUNGSTEN | ISSUE I

OUT OF THE PHOTO

LEAPING

BY KANIKA KAUL & MITHRA MURALI

You walk into the exhibit and you’re suddenly affected by the onslaught of the art that seems to coming out of the paintings and right towards. In some ways, this is very literal; the exhibition is collaboration between an architect and a photographer. The installations are interactive and in some cases, even offer the viewer ‘souvenirs’ to take away – as if any were needed to remember the stunning work. We had the opportunity of talking to the two artists to understand their process of work and how they collated the work for the exhibit.

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BLOW BY BLOW

A photo art installation exhibit by two men, one being a

photographer and the other an architect. The question is how did

you two collaborate?

The key to the unique collaborations lies in our refusal to be labelled.

I’m a photographer, while Vikrant is an architect by profession.

But we are both unconstrained by these convenient labels. Over

my 10-year career, I have enjoyed putting things together in the

most unconventional manner, whether it is photography or graphic

designing, trying to effectively blur the lines between the fields of art

and communication, between concept and construction.

Similarly [there is] Vikrant, who has long forged a highly credible

reputation with several of his functional and indelible works. He

endeavours to show the genuine possibility in creating spaces

that emerge through a process of collective dialogue, deciphering

contexts, and sharing of knowledge through imagination,

inquisitiveness and modesty. His attempt is to remain intuitive, and

strive for spaces that are sensory.

So the coming together of two such multi-disciplined, creative and

technical talents was natural and felt that we had the potential to

produce works of intrigue, not least because both of us think far

beyond the conventional. We work through an iterative process,

where ideas are explored through the production of mock-ups,

models, material studies, sketches and drawings.

”The Deconstruction Project”, is quite an interesting name. Tell us

about your idea behind the name and the project.

It is an experiment to discover different meanings by taking apart

the visual tapestry of photographs and delving below their surface

meaning. It is an exhibit, wherein the essence of photographs has

inspired the installations for an enhanced sensory experience. To do

that, we had to literally deconstruct the images and hence the name.

Music was specially created in collaboration with the band ‘The

Circus” for an enhanced sensory experience.

Speaking of your exhibition, what kind of response did you receive from

your audience? Did you have any unconscious worries about your work

being devalued?

The response was tremendous. People loved what they saw. The one

common comment that repeated itself was that the entire approach

was very refreshing and that people want to see more of it. When

we first approached Padmashree Raghu Rai for the opening he was

skeptical. He wanted to see photographs that were being used for the

exhibits. We were like photographs are just one half of the story. The

second one being the 3D experience. He asked us to come the next

day with couple of our exhibits to be taken into confidence for he

does not believe in lending credibility to anybody and everybody.

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TUNGSTEN | ISSUE I

To answer your second part of the question I’d say that we were not

conscious about our work being devalued but were apprehensive as

hell as to how people will react to the exhibits. We were counting

big time on people to interact with our art for the exhibition to work.

In the end everything fell in [to] place. More people turned up than

expected for the opening. But what was encouraging was the word of

mouth publicity amongst the peers on the following days.

When the exhibition was still in process, did you face any difficulty?

I would not say difficulty but a pleasant predicament. By the end of

the fourth day we wanted to extend the show but there were no

available dates.

As visual creators, what do you feel about your work?

At the cost of sounding pompous, I’d like to mention here that our

approach was quite Avant Garde. There was a conscious effort to

drum up mandate for the experimental show on social media like

Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo and Twitter. We had to create intrigue

factor to sensitize people about the show. Friends took to twitter and

Facebook with regular updates about the progress of the exhibition.

There was a viral made for the same.

We took a gamble and it paid off. We intended to do something that

we personally wanted to see as an audience and that is what worked

for us. I’d like to say both, us as artists and the audience got value for

time and money. We are now motivated to produce more such shows.

Since your work could be regarded as unconventional; as artists what

do you think of experimental media?

I’d here like to say that one should not get experimental just for the

heck of it. There has to be sense in all of it. It could be esoteric but

should be engaging. Having said that, our idea of experimentation

was having fun in the explorative process. To be curious all the time,

and not be afraid or deterred by budgetary constraints. You never

know whether one will plummet or soar high strapped with wings

of self-belief and faith till you jump of the cliff. So in that sense

experimentation is a must. If not for anything [else] but to see your

imagination limits.

Do you plan on taking this project forward? Are there any on-going

projects that you would like to share with us?

Oh definitely. Talks are on with various people and galleries to take the

exhibition to other cities. Next on agenda is covering Maha Kumbh

and doing our take on it.

As much as we hope that this exhibit will be touring the other

metropolitan cities of India, in the meantime, you can view some of

their work on their website as well as their Facebook page.

Photographs are just one half of the story. The second one being the 3D experience. }

26

tales in theshadows


Evan Hastings defines himself as a theatrical educator and a poetic performer. He’s a hip-hop dancer, thespian and therapist all rolled into one.

A child actor since he was 5, Evan started off with community theatre

and constantly giving auditions after school for advertisements

and such. It was at the age of 19 that he performed his first play

with the integration of hip-hop, break dancing and acting. (Since then,

it’s become his trademark: all his pieces are infused with the crazy energy

of dance.) It was at the same age that he had a life changing experience

when he was sexually assaulted. That was catalyst enough to put him

on a long path of fighting gender issues and social injustice. Evan

worked with lots of prisoners after this, people who had been convicted

for crimes of a sexual nature. It was to understand their behaviour,

to understand the instinct behind the actions of sexual offenders.

Of late, Evan has conducted numerous courses and workshops in

Bangalore, concerning social inequality, using a technique known

as Forum Theatre. In forum theatre plays, the audience can stop the

play at any time at which they think a character is being oppressed.

We asked him what made him come to India, and what made him love

it so much that he hasn’t left in a long time. The story began when his

friends, Jackson and Arzoo (architects and artists) visited him, raving

about Drishya (Jackson’s NGO for underprivileged kids). They told him

to come and see the work they were doing, and he always thought it’s

a distant possibility. It’s only when a friend in Bangalore was getting

married 6 months later that he found no way out of a trip to India, and

he had a blast. “I worked with the Drishya kids for a couple of weeks

with Mike [film faculty at Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology]

and we did this film and drama course with them. And Geeta (director

of Srishti) came for the show and she loved the show, so she offered

me a job here. And actually I declined at that time. Around 3 and a half

years back. Because I was really committed to what I was doing with

the prisons and schools so I didn’t want to give that up. But then when

the American economy went down I lost my job, I even lost my house,

everything. So then it was like one of those situations like fate. I had a great

opportunity in front of me and I didn’t take it. And then I lost everything

and I had to take it. And I’ve mostly been here ever since,” Evan smiles.

The first time he came to Srishti, he conducted a giant puppets workshop,

on eve teasing, an issue the students themselves brought up. It was an issue

He had a life changing experience when he was sexually assaulted which put him on a path of fighting gender issues and social injustice.

FRINGE BENEFITS

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TUNGSTEN | ISSUE I

he cared deeply about too. It led to a 4-month-course at Srishti called

GenderShadow, a dynamic theatre experience that used forum theatre to

bring up gender injustice. And that was probably like the best thing he’s done

at Srishti so far. The energy was electric. And the response was monumental.

The course continued on a bigger scale under the name ‘Shadow

Liberation’, taking it to an international level and including a forum

theatre platform running online and allowing people from different

countries to intervene. This international event was called Open Stage.

“Many countries have this problem as well, so we used the strengths

of live theatre, its interactive component and the strengths of social

media and digital technology to reach a broader audience. Open

Stage was about bringing those two elements together which I think as

a prototype is really cool because I think that now we are a little bit ahead

of technology. I still think that

the web speed isn’t fast enough

for what we’re doing. We had

twitter, an interface with it, have

infographics displayed about

users over there and how to interface with them. This summer

the MTV Music Awards did all of that. So the things we were

talking about and doing were actually a step ahead of what was

happening in the industry, but we didn’t have the resources to do it.”

Shadow Liberation was trying to make GenderShadow bigger, but the

limitations of forum theatre also came through. It was great for getting

people to start a conversation or getting people to think about these

issues. Evan explains, “The problem lay in this that in order for someone

to understand what’s happening in the scene you have to simplify whats

going on. And then that makes people more likely to be engaged. But

if you give them an oversimplified version of a problem like domestic

violence or sexual assault or something, then they think they can come

on stage and yell at the bad guy and make it better. It’s not actually

like that. So even though we have these philosophies of how there’s

more than one way of dealing with a situation, there are nuances and

everyone plays a good character and bad character. The more and the

complex we show it on stage, the less engaging it is for the audience and

the more we simplify it, we feel like we’re dumbing down the content.

This was a problem with both GenderShadow and Shadow Liberation.

Now, with Ramayana Remix, he’s working with mythology and at a

much deeper level, he feels. He plans to explore the same gender

issues through the relationships of the characters of the epic. He tells us

about Dashrath, telling his son Rama that he wants him to be the next

leader of Ayodhya because they’re living in a dark age and the women

can’t even go to the market without being groped. Dashrath basically

named these social problems that existed and told Rama to role model

a different style of masculinity. As Rama

journeys through the epic he tries to

be a different kind of man and lives up

to social pressures and expectations of

the people. As Ramanaya Remix, Evan

is taking a lot of the same issues, putting them into the Ramayana and

modernising it, looking not just at these gender issues but also at issues

like that of the environment, issues of war, etc. Both GenderShadow

and Shadow Liberation used shadow screens as part of the set with

actors using the shadows to depict inner struggles, and Ramanaya

Remix is using exquisite shadow puppetry and projection mapping

with shadows from both sides of the screen. Evan’s famous for his

over-the-top effects and Ramanaya Remix is not going to disappoint

in the least: rap battles between Rama and Ravana, demons and

rakshashas on stilts, and the battle of Lanka is going to be an elaborately

choreographed break-dancing battle! Catch Ramanaya Remix before

they travel to Calcutta, at Sahabhaga, Srishti’s festival for participatory

theatre in Bangalore from 29th november to 2nd December.

RAMAYANA REMIX: Rap battles between Rama and Ravana, demons and rakshashas on stilts, and the break dancing battle of Lanka.

28

the new age

publishersby KANIKA KAUL & MITHRA MURALI

Our ‘Oddball’ section is dedicated to those who think being normal is too...well, normal. And Chennai-based Blaft Publications are the exact amount of unhinged we’re looking for. They deal with crime novels, experimental fiction, pulp art, folktales and graphic novels. With books like ‘Kumari Loves A Monster’(a poster book about scanty-sari-clad ladies and extra-terrestrial lust) and ‘Where Are You Going, You Monkeys?’ (a collection of Tamil folktales, complete with morally hidden tied-up section where all the naughty tales go), and their of books called Tamil Pulp Fiction! Blaft’s level of crazy is going only one way, and that is undoubtedly up.

THE ODD BALL

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TUNGSTEN | ISSUE I

First things first, what does Blaft even mean? Don’t bother googling

it, the list of weird answers is endless. We asked the people themselves,

and this is the answer we expected and received: “Please don’t believe

any of those internet definitions, they are all bald-faced fabrications and

obfuscations. Actually, the name is an anagram of the musical note B

flat. The B flat above middle C, in equal temperament, has a frequency

of 466 Hz -- a number which holds great mystical significance for

the Blaft team as it is the year of the death of Saint Shenoute the

Archimandrite.” See what we mean? (A little extra piece of information:

they give everyone a different answer every single time you ask them

this question - we’re on to you Blaft!)

A big chunk of Blaft’s published books contain what’s called ‘pulp’,

a mixture of lurid, shocking, thrilling subject matter with an ironic

appreciation of kitsch. There is an entire book dedicated completely

to Hindi Pulp cover art, among others. We decided to use the

Blaft’s team knowledge of the pulp world and asked for Tamil serial

recommendations. “I don’t watch them too much, I think they can rot

your brain. I liked “Naagamma” for a while, but it got cancelled. It had

really great, cheap computer graphics with huge snakes eating people

every episode, and a giant ant-like walking tree thing with six-pointed-

star-shaped feet. Also, spooky forest cult ladies in saris with no blouses.”

Sometimes, being this weird leaves room for mistakes, hilarious or

otherwise. For example. in the first edition of Tamil Pulp Fiction Vol. 1,

at the last minute it was decided to put an image before the first story,

a scanned picture from one of Subha’s books, with a picture of them,

and a caption. Pritham Chakravarthy, the translator, wasn’t available

so Rakesh Khanna tried translating himself, which was a bad idea- he

translated “got put in handcuffs” as “got mauled by a wild animal. He

did show her the book for a final check but she missed it, and it went to

print. Doh! They fixed it in the second printing.

We saved the hardest question for last, and asked to them reveal their

favourite story they published. But Rakesh managed to dwindle it down

to one. “Oh that’s very hard! But I have to say that for me, the one

that’s the most carefully crafted, where everything in the story gets

wrapped up in a tight little package at the end, is the Ramanichandran

romance story, ‘Dim Lights, Blazing Hearts’.”

Blaft’s repertoire is not for faint-hearted readers, and each book takes

scandalous to another level. Read at your own risk!

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TUNGSTEN | ISSUE I

Illustratorhttp://behance.net/abhishekchoudhury

Abhishek Choudhury

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RICH CRAVINGS OF BROKE STUDENTS

Who needs a $100,000 giant killer whale submarine? You do.Who needs an $18000 fighter spaceship bed? You do.Who needs a $1000 suit pyajamas? You do.

From the little things that seem completely useless but also strangely fascinating to those strangely expensive weird things that you have no idea how to use – this website has everything you cannot afford but still want. So on your student budget, go to this website and drool over exciting things and console yourself that you’re actually being sensible.

Check out http://www.thisiswhyimbroke.com/

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TUNGSTEN | ISSUE I

Documents

Tungsten