What is Art!

Art has three clear purposes it seems. It has to #do with one who makes #art, it has to do with someone who comes in touch with that art, and it has something to do with the impact it leaves behind for #centuries to come, may be the third one is the largest purpose of art.

[Art is adding an exclamation mark after a question. Art is to add random #Hashtags in an artical to make your paragraph look composed.]

More to come...

No such thing as Level Play Field or Even Ground...

You have to learn to master all terrain! 

#embankment #slope #goat #kid #children #play #photography

A den of your own in a public realm!

Soon you will be carrying your very own personal space in your pocket or purse!

Yeh true we all like crowd, faceless crowd rather, even the cloistered ones ocassionaly dream of getting lost in the sea of masses. Social animal they call us though everyone's  "social" is different. In a crowd called social some prefer dialogue, some monologue, some play observant and some like to withdraw in a safe corner.  But for sure everyone's life revolves around this thing "social" and everyone craves for this thing called "personal" (space) at the same time!

Like duality is a natural phenomenon observed in nature, "bittersweet taste for example", this perpetual  duality also transposes and gets reflected in human psyche,  "should I? Shouldn't I?" Hence as social is natural to our instinct, so is the craving for personal.

While we are busy planning our cities and communities we often tend to forget about individual needs and craving for secure personal spaces. A space of their own in a public realm- A need which was never talked about, never asked, never fulfilled and not intended to be given any time soon by urban planners and designers.  If you think you have been considerate enough on this issue as a planner, an urban designer or a landscape architect can you think of when did you last design a chair for a park or street instead of bench? Or for that matter when did you even last see a chair instead of bench in any public space? Why do one has to share a sitting space or bench with some stranger in a park or street, charming or otherwise. A solitary chairs in public space is a rare sight if so exists.

Its unfortunate that a solitary person in public realm usually has threat perception attached to it though this very crowd is made up of multiple individuals, seeking their own private space and identity.

So till the time virtual-reality  and holographic spaces takes over the public plaza and streets and parks to cater to personal spaces, we can have an intermediate solution today-Something like  a "space foam" or "3d reinforced fiber mesh" or a "statically charged reinforced siderweb polymer" or "anything which is light, structurally stable and yes biodegradable with self ufolding,  collapsing, binding or with "Spray ability", any one of these in a pressurised Can, something like Shaving Gel Can or Pepper Spray container.

Imaging you 3d spraying (not 3d printing) your own space, like a Cocoon, a temporary human scale shelter when u feel like running away from the crowd, and all from a disposable refillable container you can carry in your pocket or purse.

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A lesson from a drifting feather!

So, while he was walking slowly, lost in casual thoughts suddenly a floating white feather caught his attention, it was tiny but was in its full glory and was slowly drifting in light breeze towards a nearby fountain in a gravity defying act. Anyway it gracefully landed on the clear sheet of overflowing water and suddely its motion was seized but only for a moment, it was like feather finally found its ground only to realise it was a slipping, drifting ground again. It appeared that this otherwise serious flowing water sheet was happy to receive that feather friend. Though in a fraction of second that feather was mobile again with the flow of water, only to reach its next destination. Possibly "keep drifting effortlessly" was mantra by which feather was living, it was full of life in its lifelessness, and possibly it touched the conscience somewere leaving a life lesson - a lesson of effortlessness even in its full dignity, even in its constant motion!

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Digital art on the go...

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Creating dynamic street environment- A cure for repetitive monotony of city!

If you try recollecting past experiences, you will realize that an element of surprise can help you cope with the city stress- traffic, crowd, or simply say hectic repetitive chaos and it need not be scientifically proven.

So can we think of creating everyday surprises - pleasant of course, but can be weird sometimes - along the much traded route of our cities - a suddenly changed striking colored building, pink or florescent or yellow; a sudden surge of artificial wind in a subway, a sudden burst of soft rock music at bus shelter; a glowing bus or a decorated tree and so on, its like taking street performance to the next level which includes whole environment rather than just performer.

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Public spaces: transiting from interactive to addictive spaces

They talk about interactive public spaces, yeh, but its been long playing with this concept. Landscape architects, sculptors, Urban designers, everyone has done there bit fulfilling their fantasy of what an ultimate interactive public domain can be. It takes creative genius and sometimes state-of-art technology to make it happen. As for now they have succeeded in making the public spaces interactive enough through different tools like interactive sculptures, screens, kiosks, light, ambiance etc. but as a planner of urban space, as artists, as designers, as software developers and so on, we need to push is further, further to transform the difinition of public spaces from interactive to addictive, afterall addiction of public spaces and landscape and nature and parks and plaza is not a bad habit as such!

If that tiny puzzle, that mobile game, that vedio games, play station, that music can be so addictive, why can't a public space with all its hardware,  bandwidth, characters, ambiance, familiarity, nostalgia and infinite possibilities be an addiction. Afterall bringing people to interesting and safe public domain from comfort of their couch is job of those who help design city. Imaging a kid who has spent most of his childhood staring at tv or vedio game screen finally getting in touch with nature getting into public space!

City of Portrait hunters!

City, such interesting place it is with such interesting people. City, where every day is another odd day for accidental encounter with interesting people, subject of inspiration, portraits!

Every thinking face on a street and every thought engrossed expressions on a public transport here is portrait worthy character it seems. Expressions with hints of accumulated experience still hidden behind unfathomable  layers of time, and wrapped under imposed smile, only occasionally revealed by the true talkative eyes. City filled with such inexhaustible supply of interesting characters is a true shrine for portrait hunters whether artists, photographers, writers or movie directors. 

Digital art is so convenient

You can paint or draw on a touch screen, on the go, deriving primitive sense of satisfaction by applying  paint with your bare hand; without need of arranging the paint brush canvas logistics and all of this without getting your hand wet. Only drawback  is that you will miss the fresh raw smell of paint and oil. Go for it!

Art from Archive - I

A decade old or so..

In that very creative moment availability of tools at ones disposal seems immaterial, it was made by oil paints applied on paper like water color that time, probably water was also used instead of oil just to somehow spread the colors on paper, or may be a bit of fabric color as well. One could have created something like this even with charcoal, or eyeliner or toothpaste, or shaving cream, or tomato catch-up or may be with some combinations of them. Its that very urge to create something that one feels is art, getting caught up in arranging the perfect colors or brushes or tool or a perfect setting in merely postponing the creation of Art. 

  

Decoding secrets of good visuals - What makes some images and photographs stand out from the crowd

Some tips, tricks and subjects of images, graphics and photographs which is bound to cast a spell

1)     B&W background subject with semi-transparent bright techno/pop color in      foreground

2)     Picture with range of depth and focus

3)     Green appeal in innovative way

4)     Lush rainy/moist green landscape in terra incognita

5)     Realistic corporate affair capturing the mood of subject and vibes of business  minus ( - ) plastic smiles

6)     Simple things in perspective view

7)     Pattern or geometry unseen before

8)     A well framed shot of pets or wildlife with serious engaging looks

9)     Capturing Interactive and playful pets

10)  Green appeal in innovative way

11)  Bird’s eye view of Rooftop innovation

12)  Well framed commercial subject

13)  Black & Yellow Composition

14)  A well framed worm’s eye view of skyscraper or anything towering

15)  Caves or any undulating interior, lit with bright morning sun displaying    excellent interplay of light and shadow

16)  Translucent colored containers

17)  Hand drawn-water color effect in this era of 3D Simulation

18)  Morning sun rays filtered through simply anything

19)  Innumerable colorful interplay of sunlight and cloud at dawn, dusk further  accentuated if captured in hills

20)  Laughing giggling girls

21)  Asymmetrically captured frame of symmetrical building or symmetrical  something

22)  Translucent building glowing from inside - filtered hint of colors further acts  as charm

23)  White doodle on black background, call it old school blackboard nostalgia or  whatever!

24)  Futuristic ambiance and setting seemingly within reach in near future, not  just another fancy unreachable idiosyncrasy

25)  Anything overwhelmingly luxurious and classic specially interiors

More to come….

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Let me show you the true artist in you!

No art is as inclusive as fine arts or call it whatever. 

It seems every single person is born with artistic talent specifically more pronounce and visible in the field of fine arts, abstract art or call it whatever, an artist even in you, whether you consider yourself an artist or not that is irrelevant,  proof is your childhood notebook filled with weird characters drawn by you and spoiled pages of your dad's diary and all the tattoo that you made on your hand, graffiti on your school desk and crayon spoiled walls of your house where you spent your childhood days and that creative surge when you were staring at the damp basement or loo walls trying to infer some meaning out of those grunge damp patterns, or even today if you occasionally tend to draw a smiley face on moist, dew clad surface and so on. Every adult was an artist in his or her childhood so they are today, so are you. 

Every child with his or her genuine creativity, making and living their own dreams in their sketchbook or on wall, vivid and real in their own imagination, a spell-bounding piece of rawness with bit of influence from surrounding, and we are not talking about all the art and craft assignments forced by educational curriculum and competition, those are plastic, manipulated, and imposed, threatening and robbing the very creative rawness of child. We are not talking about biased aesthetic judgement here. We are talking here for example the child's own interpretation of how round a sun should be or how round his dexterity allows him to draw it, not the Vinchi style geometric perfectness of circle which we tend to impose on them. Since art being essentially a true expression of self does not necessarily demands shape of circle to be a perfect circle so it really doesn't matter how well you used to draw a circle to qualify as an artist in your childhood, and since art is beyond the clutch of time so if you draw the similar weird circle today when you are grown up it is still an art and so you are an artist. Another reason is that if making a perfect circle is a qualification criteria for an artist than our computer or tab can do that job better than our master artist. 

So acknowledging the truth of your own childhood talent now you can appreciate the works of kids around better. Not judging them on their perfectness but admiring them for their innocence. You see these kids will grow up one day and change the very definition of understanding of what an art should be. After all its art if you can prove it. 

You might also like to read this post on "design diplomacy"

Interdisciplinary Exploration & Randomness - key to the next big wave of knowledge

It's this notion of specialized segmented knowledge which is hindering the next big phenomenon of world knowledge!

You often see people walking with an air of expertise in certain field of knowledge, they are experts of course no doubt, but the moment you talk about some fairly distant subject, they will say oh that's wonderful but you know that’s not my area of expertise or interest. That’s how we are, stubborn, rigid, and insensitive toward new knowledge, that’s how we have been taught, trained to become a doctor or an engineer or scientist or another specialist soul. A much propagated outcome of intellectual segmentation through insensitive education, teaching designed to produce another of many cogs in the wheel i.e. teaching only to the extent which will suffice a day job requirement and a reasonable income. Though they have various subjects incorporated in the curriculum they are still missing a vital point which we are going to see.

They say Look Mr. "A" you are a doctor, you are not supposed to get into social science, Listen Mr. “B” you are an engineer, you are not supposed to trespass into the field of philosophy, Hey Mr. “C” you are not a physicist so mind your own business of architecture and You Ms. “D for dancer” microbiology is not going to fetch you bread and butter so you better concentrate on different dance forms which we have already listed in Wikipedia. That the languages we understand and appreciate today, this vary language which is hindering the next wave of knowledge! A next wave of knowledge is long due for mankind which is something beyond currently much popular data-mining, analytics and big-data.

Let’s see a glimpse of what this next mutation of knowledge might look like, Mr. Doctor “A” getting into social science finding out that size of family has something to do with survival rate of patient. Mr. Engineer “B” has this sudden realization while trespassing into the area of philosophy that people need products which touches their soul and fulfill their spiritual needs not something which just touches heart and fulfills their materialistic hunger, the Architect Mr. “C” delving into physics and mathematics realizes that his flowery concepts of design aesthetics can have more scientific and lucid explanation and meaning through quantum physics and topology.  Ms. Dancer is enlightened to see the colorful oscillating Nano world through the eyes of microscope and now trying to mimic the oscillating dynamism and moves of cells and microbes and so on!

Contemporary education system is missing out this very basic purpose of learning, their focus is to let the kids memorize the books so that they have a basic knowledge of different field, so that he or she can choose one of his or her subject of interest later on and succeed in their life in the chosen direction. But learning process has to be driven by Curiosity and Absorption rather than Memorizing facts.

Teaching everything or not at early stage of life is irrelevant, what is important here is to plant this seed of curiosity in each child so that they keep exploring and dare to go beyond their chosen comfort subject exploring vast possibilities in later part of life when their education is over, learning when they are grown up in the most productive and receptive period of life, when they are capable to explore, absorb and learn at an unprecedented speed. 

Next wave of knowledge is not about eminent scholars, literary figures or authoritative wisdom, new wave is soon to be triggered by the random individuals scattered across the globe, through a random fusion of currently highly segmented streams of knowledge, knowledge which would be driven by those individuals who will dare to explore the knowledge streams beyond their scope of specialization, streams alienated from their own domain of functioning, no matter what. Go seek anything you never cared for, explore anything you never paid attention to, go seek if you will, if your educational background permits you to do that, if you feel it’s important, if you dare to do that!  ROR of "Randomness" with calculated risk is much higher than the "Calculated surety", every daring business knows that, every successful person adores that, same logic applies to the field of knowledge. If you try to connect the dots of your own learning process, it’s not an accident that you somehow catch hold of best of the websites and online resources truly randomly, on a random time of a random day, it’s not a coincidence it’s a "inevitable reward" of "random exploration" - imagine if you are able to control and master this accidental learning process. This is what coming “Next” in knowledge!    

Solar : ReNu(Able) Energy

Lets Go Solar!

Why urban infrastructure O&M system needs increased autonomy?

An exemplary case of PPP project - surface transport !

Though there are already provisions which suggests autonomy in O&M contracts to certain extent at present, but apparently there is further need of functional, financial and decision making autonomy in operation and maintenance (O&M)plan including concerned O&M agency, regarding any given infrastructure project, specially were public safety is a concern, an autonomy to the extent beyond conventional scopes of O&M contracts.

Why this thought even worth consideration and review? Because lack of autonomy can restrict O&M agencies to take prompt critical decisions or can encourage them to unnecessarily prolong, manipulate or ignore some of the important decisions and actions demanding urgency and which are vital for health of project and safety of users and which might otherwise get delayed caught in the complexity of paperwork. For instance, an expressway O&M agency can escape from taking responsibility of mishaps and causalities blaming it to faulty road design by the original infrastructure design agency involved, while design agency can shy away from responsibility saying safe operation of system is in scope of O&M agency or may be it is due to bad maintenance, meanwhile life of commuters would be constantly at stake. But with higher level of autonomy O&M agency can take vital decisions and actions on their own like- post functional design modification in case of expressway, infrastructure retrofit, conducting safety audit and associated changes, life safety installations and safety enforcement measures which can prevent those traffic accidents for example. Also autonomy comes with implied accountability, so now the O&M agency while enjoying the autonomy will also feel a sense of responsibility both morally and legally towards minimizing and preventing those expressway mishaps and can be held accountable in case  such events occur and their performance can also be linked to their monetary gain/ penalty provisions, credit rating ranking, pre-mature termination of contract etc. hence creating a scope of active, innovative and higher performance standards in this new O&M environment.  

There has to be increased level of autonomy for O&M agencies to innovate and to take certain fiscal decisions on their own, which might be vital for public safety and absorption of unperceived growth, autonomy of technology integration to leverage technological opportunities which might have been unavailable at the time of conception and design of project, autonomy to conduct required design changes and retrofit based on peculiar first hand regional experiences gained in course of operation. Of course this strengthened decisive power of should come with certain administrative supervision and stakeholder’s say.

This allocation of autonomy seems justifiable because no one else knows the actual functional and fiscal health of said project, regional and local constraints and infrastructure gaps etc. better than those who are operating and maintaining the said project and assets 24X7 and are in constant contact of end users, knowing it better than even those who originally conceived and built the project. Autonomy if constrained or hampered or for namesake, specially at policy and post functional level, scope of O&M assumes a mechanical and procedural significance and restrict itself only to the often under-perceived operational efficiency and safety level just to the rigid, predefined performance standard with little scope for innovation in terms of physical infrastructure modification, procedural and strategic retrofit and scope of maintenance remains only limited to restoring the degraded infrastructure to its somewhat originally perceived state. O&M will have to be much more than the established notion of routine work as prescribed in the O&M manual or as described in present scope of contract. A wholesome O&M process specially in urban and regional infrastructure projects has to be a dynamic process, a learning experience, continually reinventing itself as per dynamic regional growth, absorbing economic changes and technological advancement, streamlined to the long term vision of regional growth. 

Historic City of Varanasi and tourism heat map along the edge of river Ganges.

Image Source: Google Earth & Sightsmap

Still untapped potential of raw satellite images for city planners!

Urban Planning satellitexted

Satellite view of urban alphabet

Love exploring cities from the eyes of satellites! they tell stories which were never written, imprints of time still visible, you see a city, you see it growing, you see where its going, you learn where it comes from. They say you need to travel if you want to learn, you confront with knowledge and experience while travelling. Some tools like free or else satellite imageries were not available for planners decades back or even recently, by the time it arrived for planners as a tool, GIS and satellite image interpretation etc. also accompanied and hence all the focus shifted towards degitising the whole world including your neighborhood street and front yard, making layers after layers, though they sure help planners in many ways, but you know at times on feels that in this whole process of mechanization and automation and interpretation, the shear beauty of raw, as it is satellite images and views are loosing its significance. 

The naked and raw satellite images of earth like as seen in google earth can tell things and give clues which even high level high resolution satellite image interpretations can't tell, the judgement of human eyes and brain, not just the computer processor, once in a while for sake for fun learning at least. Urban planners, transport planners and so on planners need to see and understand the random behaviors of random cities across the world, travel wont be possible and you don't have enough time to wait for that as well so go explore a city, any city or settlement or villages on google earth or something, every time you will go there you will learn something. Don't get simply spoon-fed by other's version of what that particular city is  all about, go learn yourself through your own version of experience, through satellite images, if you are not familiar with the streets and terraces and vegetation of a city from its aerial or satellite dimension, your all efforts to become a good planner is halfhearted. Explore to understand and share with the world or simply use this learning in you next city planning or development project. There is always more than you can explore there!

ARTnDESIGNSTORE

All your design needs

Abstract Art, to Graphic Design, Home Décor & Interior Design to Product Design, Thematic Sculptures and more.

http://artndesignstore.blogspot.in/

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Said to be the most photographed in the world…

Golden Gate Bridge

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Urban underground art : perception and mainstream absorption!

A case of graffiti culture in a city environment.  

Some say its vandalism, some find it an art, some say its irrational some say it’s cool, some see it outdated, at places it’s in vogue, reasons can be many, from fun to revolution but result is one - Graffiti. In this varying landscape of purpose and perception, there is always an apparent struggle to conclude what is right and what is wrong in an urban environment. What with graffiti? Why this perpetual struggle between city administrations and those who create such art-pieces, some anonymous, some leaving their stamp.

Graffiti is an art form standing at the edge of law. Some do it for thrill; some to put across their message, for some it’s an outlet, some do it for recognition and some to revolt against established values and norms. Even after decades of existence there has not been any consensus on the subject. City administrations are either strictly against it or will shy away from the subject saying that they have larger issues of city infrastructure, education, poverty and all at hand to deal with. Go ask a planner, what with Graffiti, what to do with it, you will find them clueless, though some of them might tell you few ways to curb this phenomenon.

Why graffiti culture exists in first place? Unless we try to understand the psychology of underground art, we can’t find a reasonable answer and solution to it. May be it’s the very imposition of rule to curb this behavior, triggers and sustain this behavior. Thrill of breaking the law, mixed with artistic skill, daring move and motivation by some cause, results in graffiti.

Isn’t it good to have wonderful artists in your city? But an artist needs to express and if you won’t give them enough opportunities and enough canvas they will express themselves in any manner, anywhere,  even if it’s a wall, and in this case public properties become soft target. Art itself has no boundaries, but we divide it in good and bad, civilized and vandalism. Piece of art by those few artists who have enough opportunity and money to display their work of art in an upscale gallery becomes a civilized and socially accepted art while the similar piece of art or poor or better if expressed on the walls of city streets and subways and any abandoned structures in form of graffiti gets a tag of vandalism. Can we do something about it?

There are few cities which provide long public walls at sea shores and other specified places specially for making graffiti, for those underground graffiti artists, who do not have to remain underground any more. They are making wonderful graffiti, day and night on these public canvases provided by city administrations, they don’t have to paint the subways and public structures anymore. Temporary, though they have a place for their creative outlet. We can always have some control strategies in place to check the nature and subject of graffiti to respect the feelings and sentiments of citizens.   

They say Taki or someone invented it, I think it exists before the dawn of civilization, remember those wonderful paintings from prehistoric caves? Its basic instinct of human being to express, expression in tangible forms, expressing it for good, to document, to leave it for generations to come, tools doesn’t matter, modes of expression is irrelevant and changing constantly. From prehistoric caves to modern urban wall they have expressed it and they will find out ways and means to express in future. So, it might be a good idea to start thinking of some city level policy intervention measures to provide an appropriate and recognized platform for easy and legalized creative expression, rather than negating its existence and simply trying to get rid of it.   

Planners and city administrations need to come forward and suggest strategies to integrate underground art in their city development plans and urban landscape. Making this form of art publicly acceptable and giving it mainstream recognition by taking illegality, obscenity any kind of provocation out of it. They need to propose strategies to recognize urban talent which has remained underground till now, and propose plans to nourish them by channelizing their talent in right direction and at right place. Simply creating and imposing the anti-graffiti law and trying to maintain the same is not the answer to this ever growing phenomenon, we need to channelize that creative energy in the right direction and at right places by creating favorable environment and instruments in city landscape.

                                                         

By: Anoop Jha