Deliberately uncaptioned.
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Voodoo dolls found beside a temple at Kangla.
About my 2nd MFA proposal at the amasoong blog:
This here is the proposal I submitted to Lasalle College of the Arts, Singapore for MFA Fine Arts. That was half a year back. I applied, got selected, bought the tickets, got the student visa. Then I backed out. As they say, story of my life! It has been one of the most important decisions of my life; one which led to a change of my whole outlook and priorities. Anyways, it’s funny how every proposal looks kinda stupid when read a few months later:
Proposal for MFA
From deriving solace in the creation of an emotive entity from encounters with life’s absurdities to researching the very nature of life through the act itself, my art practice has evolved with my understanding of the zeitgeist. Through my practice, comprising mainly of art, design and writing, I try to investigate and analyse the versions of reality we live by and initiate discourse around it.
My understanding of the socio-political environment I exist in, and my consequent reaction to it informs my art practices. Lately, I have been interested in the general course of action that the community I am a part of, and humanity at large, seems to follow. And from my observations I cannot help but notice the possibility of certain patterns in which crucial phenomena in this sphere unfold. A hypothetical impetus preceding both the cause and the effect presents itself. As in the case of a person bribing another, an ubiquitous absence of hope in an equitable arrangement may be the principal factor. This observation intrigues me as, being part of a largely dysfunctional society, I am always concerned with identifying problems and conceiving possible solutions. I aspire to investigate further in this subject using an alternative methodology based largely on the communicative faculty of art; looking for a better understanding on the nature of this phenomena. Such as, what is the possible origin of such a pattern? Is it inherent in our identity as humans to act in a particular way, through a function of our similar genetic makeup? Or is it perhaps induced by the adoption and sharing of memetic practices through culture, media and the increasingly networked internet? Such enquiries bring forward, on one hand, the idea of a collective essential disposition of a human, and on the other hand, the concern of susceptibility of humans to mindlessly follow induced patterns. My intention is to search for answers to these questions. And above all, to inquire if these questions are answerable at all.
Labour effective bamboo lamination technique
We are conceptualising a major project which deals with researching the potential of locally available, sustainably acquired materials to replace petro-plastics, other toxic and limited resources. This project is considered in the context of Northeast India. We are yet to finalise the details of the project; but we have started working on it already!
Using bamboo as a replacement of wood (esp. hardwood) has many benefits to the ecology, as it will directly reduce the rate of deforestation. Most hardwood takes around 20 years to mature as compared to 3-5 years for bamboo. Northeast India is home to various types of bamboo and its usage as a building material is a traditional practice. However in the last few decades, we see a trend of plastic products replacing the time tested sustainable products people of the region has been accessorising their lives with. This causes serious harm to the environment, health of the life forms (including humans), and the economic sustainability of the region.
The challenge is to explore new (and old) alternatives to these unsustainable and/or toxic materials; and upgrade them if need be using modern appropriate technology.
There is already a popularly used technique of laminating split bamboo culms to make solid regular timber, which can be used as a replacement for wood or in various other products. We were very interested in this technique as we were toying with the idea of introducing a line of lifestyle products including furniture (pssst!). Luckily, we found one person who has been using this technique to make furniture in Imphal. Khwairakpam Ibomcha was fascinated with this way of using bamboo, esp. in Taiwan. He started work on replicating this technique here using basic machineries, some of which he designed by himself.
He is using the popular method where the bamboo culm is split and each strip is planed on four sides and then laminated to form sheets. We learnt through him that this process is very labourious as each strip is fed through hand in a crude 2 sided planing machine he made, and the remaining two flat surfaces planed by hand. Each strip is planed this way before laminating to get flat boards used in building furnitures. In an industrial setup this process is mechanised using a four-sided planing machine which consumes lots of energy/fuel and is not affordable for most small scale industries operating here.
↑ Conventional bamboo lamination technique
Due to the amount of labour his process needs, Mr. Ibomcha is not able to sell his products at a reasonable price in spite of bamboo being much cheaper than the wood used in conventional furniture.
We were in a bind. We were not interested in producing sustainable ‘luxury’ products for a niche consumer base. What we wanted was a real alternative to hardwood, which can compete with it and surpass it. Identifying the problem as one concerning the method of processing the bamboo, we proceeded to research on other methods relevant to our situation.
We came up with this method illustrated in the accompanying pictures. Here we use a bamboo species with a thin walled culm. We cut the nodes out and split it into strips of roughly the same size. After scrubbing the strips clean, we glued the strips together under pressure as such without planing. This is possible because the strip is thin and the difference in the curvature of the concave and convex surfaces is negligible. The resulting board is leveled using a band saw and then sanded. This method dramatically reduces the amount of labour needed as leveling is required only once on the resulting board, hence solving out problem. We have already made some prototypes using this technique and it sure looks great! We are now working on extending the size of the timber by employing a running bond pattern while laminating the strips. Then we will put it through some tests to measure its strength and compare it with wood.
Once finalised, we will be releasing all the details of this method under a copyleft license for all to use! In fact it will be part of a database of open-source sustainable and responsible design and techniques we are working on.
…
I admired the musical achievement of Phou-oibi but as a dramatic production, it riled me. Will the Meitei theatrical practice make an effort to examine the politics of myth-making when it decides to invoke mythic versions of women for the umpteenth time? When will it allow itself to be aware of the problems inherent in employing the idiom of representing women as a symbol of nature, beauty, valour, protection and forgiveness? When will it stop performing itself out as a beautiful, insular aesthetic experience and suffocating inside the campaign for its own uniqueness?
…
“If women allow themselves to be consoled for their culturally determined lack of access to the modes of intellectual debate by the invocation of hypothetical great goddesses, they are simply flattering themselves into submission (a technique often used on them by men). All the mythic versions of women, from the myth of the redeeming purity of the virgin to that of the healing, reconciliatory mother, are consolatory nonsenses; and consolatory nonsense seems to me a fair definition of myth, anyway. Mother goddesses are just as silly a notion as father gods. If a revival of the myths gives women emotional satisfaction, it does so at the price of obscuring the real conditions of life. This is why they were invented in the first place.”
- Angela Carter, The Sadeian Woman: And the Ideology of Pornography
Something to ponder on in context of the aftermath of Richard murder case.
2012’a biggest moon.
"In the 19th and early 20th centuries, writers offered the real thing; that was their task. In War and Peace Tolstoy describes the battleground so closely that the readers believe it’s the real thing. But I don’t. I’m not pretending it’s the real thing. We are living in a fake world; we are watching fake evening news. We are fighting a fake war. Our government is fake. But we find reality in this fake world. So our stories are the same; we are walking through fake scenes, but ourselves, as we walk through these scenes, are real. The situation is real, in the sense that it’s a commitment, it’s a true relationship. That’s what I want to write about."
Haruki Murakami, in a 2004 Paris Review interview with John Wray
Art’s great nudes have gone skinny
Italian artist Anna Utopia Giordano has created a visual re-imagination of historic nude paintings, had the subjects conformed their bodies to what the 21st century considers an ideal of beauty. The results are revealing—and quite shocking in what they say about the modern attitude toward women’s bodies.
