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Concept

Much of contemporary engagement with diverse image-forms – in terms of their spectatorship, circulation or censorship – is founded on an illusion of pure choice. In this project the modern consumer charts his own navigation through the dense forest of images he must cross in order to attain the elusive ‘experience’. It is also true however that the options available to him are in fact a yield of an assimilation of his being performed by a series of automated systems – machines, in essence – which diagnose his personality on the basis of a series of other choices he makes: the sites he visits, the products he orders, the music he searches for. In this, the machine accepts the abstraction in front of itself (a stranger, a ‘nobody’) and recomposes it into an identifiable, ‘indexible’ human being.

The present installation is an attempt to lay this system bare through its replication in a material, real-world context. The various components of a digital exhibition platform will manifest as actual, physical objects within a designated enclosure.

Once the spectator makes his choice, he will be able to view the films or walk away; restart the system and arrive at a different curation by providing the machine’s questions with alternative answers – an element of pure, visceral corruption. All the spectators who receive similar curatorial plans will then be offered the opportunity to interact – in real life – about the list of films they watched, or did not watch, while being largely unaware of the various other films on offer.

About Lightcube

Lightcube is devoted to the diagnosis of contemporary methods of film exhibition and to the dissemination of culture beyond its mainstream-specified boundaries and metropolitan focus. Around 250 single screenings have been held across ten states in the past four years. Its Dhenuki Cinema Project shows films in villages and small towns, with the eventual aim of enabling the residents to film their own narratives.

Lightcube also collaborates with various cultural institutions and activist groups to forge different systems of thought and inquiry, which are then presented through publications, festivals and workshops.

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Strung together, these abstract geometric shapes turned from hieroglyphics to runes to letters of an alphabet. Held together by the magnetic pull of sound, they turned into constellations for the tongue, weapons for the imagination, and tools for the storyteller. They became words while images turned and tangled with technology to create pictures that were shape-shifters themselves. Because often they pretended to tell the truth when actually, they were playing around with it.

And so the real world was transformed, by words and images, in the eye of the beholder.

Tradition suggests there is a contest between words and images. Because ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’. Because ‘words can be like x-rays if you use them properly’.

Yet the truth is, words must be read and images must be beheld, and in the eye, the twain meet. They’re two dialects of one language: the language of the imagination. Two codes, both seeking to understand, interpret and communicate — this is not as much a competition as it is an elaborate performance.

Look. Linger.

Read the story in the photograph. See the picture in the words.

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A group of eight to ten children in the age group of 10 and above, including two blind children, selected by the Tara Trust worked together in three phases to create this large abstract work of art. The goal was to introduce the children to art with a fresh perspective. This new way of experiencing art and accessing it included exercises that touched upon all the senses. Experiences of power and vulnerability—a subject all children have been exposed to in their lives—was the guiding theme to relate to the exercises.

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The project is a unique way of offering children an opportunity to share their ideas about their geographical region as well as their world. The project has been conceptualised as a catalytic event through which youngsters get a platform to exhibit their work.

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From Afghan refugee to Pakistan citizen, to becoming an asylum seeker fleeing persecution, Barat Ali Batoor records his own perilous aborted journey from Balochistan through South-East Asia to try and reach Australia.

Chennai-based Karthik Subramanian uses moonlight to record the uncertain and delicate connection between man and nature in an ecologically fragile region, the Sundarbans.

Sagar Chhetri grapples with issues of identity and inclusion of the Madhesi people that vexes his Nepal as it tries to rewrite its constitution.

Bangladeshi photographer Sarker Protick explores the more metaphysical realm of individual existence and experience through Time, Light and Space.

Kolkata based Smita Sharma uses her personal anger and sense of outrage to tell the stories of rape survivors and victims in India hoping to give them voice, remove stigma and initiate a social discussion.

Of Sri Lankan origin, based in France, Vasantha Yogananthan attempts a contemporary retelling of the epic Ramayan. Between fiction and reality, he deliberately blurs the lines through multiple aesthetic approaches to compose the layers of this timeless story.

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Express & Aspire

For the past 18 years, Samar S. Jodha has been conducting the Express & Aspire Workshops on a pro-bono basis with underprivileged people in Asia and Africa. Each workshop goes beyond honing the creativity of the individuals to help raise self-esteem, impart life lessons and offer possibilities that are hard for these individuals to otherwise imagine in their difficult circumstances. Awards, exhibitions and fundraisers are some of the other outputs emerging from these engagements. Past beneficiaries include Schools, Communities and Local NGOs.

Artist who over the last 20 years, has been using Photography, Film, Installation Art to address various issues such as Development, Human rights, Conservation. Among several significant projects in India and overseas, Jodha was invited by Amnesty International to install “BHOPAL: A Silent Picture”, in a 40-foot container during the London Olympics. He is a regular speaker on TEDx.
www.samarsinghjodha.com
#expressaspire

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The Serendipity Arts Festival invites all to submit their selfies and be a part of the Festival! Curated by Dinesh Khanna, Selfie: A Self Portrait hopes to encourage people around the world to post new and creative selfies! Wherever you are, however you may be placed!

Here is an opportunity to be an artist and have pictures selected and displayed at the Festival for everyone to see! With the phones being a part and parcel of our lives, the idea is to question what makes the self-portrait now.

Submit fresh images as well thought-out self-portraits

3 Simple Steps:
1. Click your selfies
2. Post your selfie:portrait on Instagram @theselfieportrait
3. Don’t forget to tag with #theselfieportrait

All the ‘creative’ selfies will be shortlisted and the participants will be invited to show these at the Festival in Goa. The only condition is that the selfie has to be shot by the person themselves and with a phone camera.

The selected images will be exhibited as prints, whereas the Instagram feed will be kept live right through the Festival.

The curator intends to make the artwork an interactive one as well. The audience may click a selfie, upload it on the feed and with the help of an already installed printer, print their images and put it up on the wall of ‘Selfies’.

The performances under this project are:-

1. #theselfieportrait
2. #selfie (by Tom Stayte)

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