Vincent Van Gogh, who used brush and canvas to make the Japanese wood cut images, never understood his art.

The tragic hero of the painter and 20th-century art lover was a victim of styles, techniques and methods. Three things complicated his artistic life: his love for Japanese woodcut prints, his understanding of colours as light, and the painting as an image-making medium. These three strands continued to trouble him throughout his life and failed him at every stage of his journey.

In the beginning, as evident in his "Potato Eater" painting and earlier works, his concern seemed to be the quest for post-baroque light and visual sensibility. Perhaps, due to the romanticism of Japanese artworks existing in Europe during those days, it later evolved into an obsession with Japanese woodcut print images, which intensified the intense negotiation between painting as a medium and its technique.

His explorations, ranging from baroque highlights to illusionary pointillism, and the idea of segregated colours forming the image in the viewer's eyes as in impressionism, led to complete confusion and disillusionment. This speaks volumes about the tragic fate of this artist. His use of woollen colour balls to understand the colour palette further complicated matters, as he struggled to comprehend the conventional artistic merits demanded by his profession.

We may be able to classify his works into three stages. The first stage comprises his black and white drawings to understand highlights that define forms in conventional paintings, especially Baroque and post-baroque formalism. The second stage reflects his realization that the light in the baroque style limits colour possibilities, as argued by impressionists who rejected darkness in their work. During this period, he studied colour but could neither decide nor understand the method to achieve it in painting. In his famous painting "Garden with Courting Couples," he showcases the struggle between pointillistic and impressionistic style differences and his confusion.

Perhaps he had not been able to understand or was not convinced about the impressionist painters' argument that segregated colours have the capacity to form a seamless image in the viewer's eyes. Alternatively, he may have believed that he found his solution for this vexed question of colour separations in Japanese woodcut prints, a style he continued for the rest of his life. His first colourful self-portrait as an assertive artist speaks volumes about his newfound confidence. It seemed like he thought he had finally cracked it. Unfortunately, he could not realize the difference between colour separation in print and its perception by the viewer. The third stage encompasses the era he worked with Gauguin, where he finally attempted to separate form from techniques like modernists, only to hopelessly give it all up.

He could not understand why the art world could not accept him as an artist, and he could not realize that for conventional art markets, his works were considered only as images of woodcut prints, while the rest were seen as exploratory paintings akin to the works of art school students who tried out different techniques from Renaissance to Baroque, pointillism to Japanese woodcut images, and modernism to learn the art-making process.

Between those two paintings and over three years: in 1887, during the days he spent in Paris, hoping to understand colours and other contemporary art practices, he painted "Garden with Courting Couples: Square Saint" using pointillism and woodcut image technique in his effort to move away from his dark Baroque style of light and its highlights.

This garden, with two pathways from both ends of the painting joining into one, where couples were courting in love and trees were blooming under the pale light blue sky, marks the opening up of an artist discovering a new world of art and its possibilities. After this painting, he went on to assume that he had cracked the vexing question of the impressionist's argument of colour through the woodcut image's colour separation. His portrait series offers evidence of this confusion. Later on, he realized that the Paris modern art world had moved beyond such confusion. He continued his artistic journey with Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, attempting to be a contemporary artist capturing the movements of form and colour in the human body and its performance. Once again, he found that his relationship with colour, light, and form was slipping away. He decided to move out of Paris to a more natural-rural setting to explore art and its facets as a human desire. He hoped Gauguin would help him resolve his complications. But Gauguin, with his profound understanding of form and colour, could easily identify Vincent's problem. Even as Vincent tried to imbibe Gauguin's style and treatment, he realized his incapacity to grasp Gauguin's mastery of colour and form in composition. Slowly but steadily, his world started to fall apart, and his Starry Night emerged from an asylum where the darkness of baroque, brush patches of woodcut images, and movements of modernism clashed with each other in vibrant colours and forms, representing his eternal agony.

The 1889 painting "Starry Nights," a step before his "Wheatfield with Crows," which was painted in 1890, shows that he still had some hope. Then in 1890 came the Wheatfield with Crows. After three years, he went back to his hopeful days in Paris to the same garden - "The Garden with Courting Couples: Square of Saints." But this time, it was devoid of blossoming trees of hope, courting couples of love, a peaceful and pleasant pale blue sky, and the enthusiasm to experiment with painting techniques of pointillism, and woodcut style. The Garden looked barren, with a post-harvest dried yellow wheat field. The two pathways that joined into one were no longer hopeful of finding a common path, but they were hopelessly reaching out to nowhere. A storm was building in the sky, where his woodcut-style patches were losing out to the darkness of baroque. The garden of his engagement with the art world offered nothing to him except the dark crows of doom looming large. He became hopeless, or the conventional art world was successful in convincing him that he was hopeless in the art world. Although he painted a few more paintings later, this painting became the end of his three years of evolution and the end of his life. The art world of his time considered him an image maker of an existing image-making technique: Japanese woodcut prints. 

Vincent accepted that verdict. In 1890, before his death, he wrote, "I feel – a failure – that’s it as regards me – I feel that that’s the fate I’m accepting. And which won’t change any more."

But in my 16 years of art teaching, I've never found anything as intensive and successful as the life and works of Vincent as tools to inspire students to live their dreams and imagine their art. He never realized that an artist's failures, fault lines, and vulnerabilities that define an artist's life of intense passion are the art, and it is not the popular consumption or the niche understandings of technique and treatments that the market defines as art. Both the market and Vincent failed to understand those three years' journey between 1887's "Garden with Courting Couples" to 1890's "Wheat Field with Crows" - as the metamorphosis of an artist and his art.

Forget the world, Vincent, who used brush and canvas to make the Japanese woodcut images, never understood his art. What a tragedy!

Windows

During a lecture at CEPT University, architect Prof. Vasavada shared an amusing thought about windows. He jokingly mentioned that when clients ask about windows in their homes, he would suggest placing a painting or print of windows instead of actual ones. He questioned why one would want to waste wall space when they rarely open windows due to dust or for using air conditioning. Besides, curtains often cover them, adding to the accumulation of dust. 

Although it was a joke, it reminds us of the sombre reality of windows in our urban lives. Historically, windows served as openings that brought light and fresh air into rooms, transforming dark spaces into bright ones. They hold nostalgic memories and emotional encounters. In fairy tales, windows were the means of escape for captive princesses from fortified castles, and lovers like Romeo and Juliet expressed their love through these romantic points. Their role in love stories is so significant that some beautiful Hindi film songs, such as "mere samne wali kidikki pein...," celebrate the youthful essence of windows in human life. In Arabian Nights stories, Persian windows that opened to moonlit skies, and Sufi songs praising the philosophical role of windows in expressing the reality of life and its metaphysical world, immortalized their philosophical and cultural significance.

Windows in buildings are aesthetically pleasing both from the inside and outside. They represent human needs and aspirations, balancing embellishment and functionality. Externally, they become symbols of social status in architecture, while internally they serve as escape routes from the confines of the built environment.

The famous Hawa Mahal in Jaipur tells another story of gender negotiations through windows—the unseen women hidden amidst the hustle and bustle of cities. Windows also act as secret passages for social and gender considerations, allowing the oppressed to connect with the forbidden world outside while adhering to social customs. In Kerala, a renowned traditional architectural element covers windows, enabling a view of the outside world from within while restricting the view from the inside to the outside. The partially reflective glasses that adorn our cities today have perfected this game.

 Throughout my artistic journey, I have always found these intriguing aspects of human life to be fascinating. In Paldi, Ahmedabad, there was a Gujarati bungalow near Parimal Char Rasta that caught my attention. Its transparent glass windows were always closed, yet there was a play of light behind their transparency. The idea of a fragile, transparent window providing a sense of security to the household amidst the violent world outside amused me. In my art, I have painted windows and explored their role in human life numerous times, aiming to understand the complex connection they have with our lives.

 Gradually, I realised that the role of windows is not a simple narrative between ornamental frames on the outside and functional necessity on the inside. It reveals itself as a highly complex negotiation within civilisations.

 Today, as pollution and dust continue to encroach upon our cities, windows are closing, one by one. They remain shut for weeks and months, and people in urban chaos have forgotten about them. For many city dwellers, windows have become a major problem. They stay closed, becoming a passage to nostalgia, memories, and the last connection between houses and the city—they remain shut.

 

(Photos taken during my recent trip to Ahmedabad with students.)

win

Yaksha - Yakshi, a journey from Sujata

It was in 1988, during my trip to attend a job interview that I first saw these sculptures. As guards of RBI in Delhi, these two tall and strong sculpture of yaksha and yakshi.  It can intimidate anyone who walks past it with its stunning looks.  Although during those early days in Delhi,   the place was still strange to me,  on my way back to home,  I could not stop getting down from the bus near RBI  to have a second look of these sculptures.

Later on, I learned from Lalit Kala academe library that these sculpture of yaksha and yakshi were drawn its inspiration from "Parkham yaksha" and "Besnagar yakshi". During those pre internet eras, there was no other way a computer professional like me could have accessed that information. Years later,  in my study of Indian sculptural traditions and sculptors, I revisited the aesthetic constructions of Ram Kinker Baij's artworks and found a new narrative for these two wonderful works: Yaksha -Yakshini, the journey of Sujata and an artist's love.

                                            Besnagar yakshi                        Parkham yaksha Manibadhra
                                            3rd - 1st century BC                  3rd- 1st century BC

Besnagar Yakshi and Parkham Yaksha represents the early sculptural traditions of Indian art. One will certainly find the influences of early Greek/ Hellenistic sculptural traditions in these two sculpture from Mauryan empire times.  It is said that Carl Khandalawalla, an eminent art critic appointed by the RBI at the instance of JRD Tata, considered these two sculptures in particular as inspirations for the yaksha and yakshi for RBI gate. He thought, the Hindu mythical characters Kubera, the guardian of wealth and his female counterpart, Yakshi the deity of fertility as the most appropriate symbols to represent and guard RBI of the newly emerging nation.

If one looks at these possible Mauryan sculptures, one would not miss the similarity exist in the style, posture, structure and their dress. Its Hellenistic influence also can be identified from its resemblance to the Bharhut yavana relief sculpture dated circa 100 BCE. This sculpture of dwarapala is assumed to be of that of  Menander, an Indo- Greek king. 

Bharhut Yavana

The story of Ram Kinker Baij,  the artist with a political leaning begins here. Although in principle he got the approval of his design in accordance to the curatorial vision of Carl, but later on he decided to  drop the Besnagar yakshi and Parkham yaksha as his inspiration for the sculptures.  In his quest for a form in the context of RBI as the controller of money, that will also be informed by the vision of progress, he thought they do not represent the idea of guarding and its politics. 

In the process, he went back to his sculpture on Sujata, an important lady in  Buddhist tradition . In jataka tales, she is the one who gave milk to Buddha after his enlightenment. He did a concrete sculpture of her in Shanti Niketan's woods.  In this sculpture,  Ram Kinker gave a complete twist to her form. In his interpretation, she became a tall and beautiful lady, who almost looks as if she is turning into a bodhi tree herself with wonderful grace and elegance, something one would not see in his sculptures.  

Although in his sculpture,   the graceful Sujata walks with a pot on her head like the ladies we often encounter in  Indian villages, Ram kinker changed her physical features to that of a tall lady,  whom a viewer always have to look up to and not look at. The sculpture seems like Ram kinker was paying a rich tribute of reverence to the rural women's labour while making equal respect to  Sujata for her contribution to Buddha's life. 

One may also read it as his tribute to the Shanti Niketan's trees that give the imputes for many creative activities.  It is also important to note his placement of a Buddhist icon among  Shantiniketan's other  Hindu iconographies. 

Sujata- 1935

After dropping Besnagar Yakshi, one of the rare Mauryan period yakshi sculptures that also has a cloth-covered torso and the Parkham Yaksha with the Greek Hellenistic sensibilities from his consideration for the inspiration, in search of his inspirational forms,  he travelled down to Sanchi with Sujata. 

 Probably he has rejectect Besnagar yakshi and Parkham yaksha for two reasons.

One, they have the western iconography that he would not prefer for an iconic sculpture in free India,

Two the capitalistic undercurrent in the story of Yaksha and the reductionist patriarchal nature of male gaze in Besnagar Yakshi that considers her only as an operant of fertility and the associated sensuality. 

Yakshi from Burhut, the expressions of sensuality

Coming back to our story, the tall slender Sujata camouflaged among the tall trees of Shanti Niketan, took Ram Kinker to the Mauryan times Sanchi stupa to discover his yeksha and yakshi.  We are talking about the second thorana in Sanchi - Temptations of Mara, that tells the story of a wicked king called mara. In this jataka tale, Mara tries to seduce Buddha with his beautiful daughters along with his army  and gets deated. 

Temptations of Mara

Saanchi, 3rd to 1st bc

In this panel of Jataka tale, one will find at the extreme right corner,  the Sujata standing with her milk pot and fruit bowl. She is standing next to Buddha represented by the bodhi tree. Interestingly, in this panel, she is depicted as nude while  Mara and his seductive daughters remain body covered up to the waistline. The right side of the panel is where the army of Mara stands. The army stands there engaged in their own games, while Mara and his daughters are busy trying to seduce Buddha.

 This is where Sujata introduced Ram Kinker to his Yaksha and Yakshi. Look at the second sitting soldier from the centre and one will discover Ram kinker's  final Yaksha sculpture there. Unlike Parkham yaksha, Ram kinker's yaksha is a stout, powerful and aboriginal figure in its form. Although he is dutybound and loyal, he is there at the site only as a  guard protecting Mara and daughter's wickedness, but in the company of his fellow army men, he remain aloof and non-participant. In him, Ram kinker found his  Yaksha, the loyal and aloof guard of the RBI.  Most notable in this panel is the physical features of Mara and his daughters - the classic Aryan idealisation of beauty:   slender, curved, tall and cunning. whereas the demon army is sculpted as  "fat" aboriginals or Dravidas, a representation one often finds used in mainstream visual culture as a representation of villains.

For strange reasons, in this panel, Sujata was shown with the same features of Mara's seductive daughters! Although Ramkinker found his Yakshi in Sujata for her selfless service and compassion, the virtues that were missing in Mara's daughters,  he could not accept that his Sujata having any resemblance to cunning Mara's daughter's Aryan features to her. He adapted mara's army's aboriginal physical features to her. (Perhaps  the feature of the fourth lady sculpture from the centre.)   Sujata became the chauri bearing yakshi with features far from the Aryan Besnagar yakashi.  

The ten years evolution (delay) of these sculpture tells this romantic story of Ram Kinker Baij, one that has evolved with Sujata. An intricate story of a politically left leaning artist, who had his intensive negotiation with his art and its form.  A journey of love for  identity and its politics. He tells us the story of an average guard in this country through Yaksha; an average aboriginal Indian of discriminated economic and cultural strata, the one who protects the temptations of this country (here for instance the money minting RBI) . Also this guard, even as he fights to protect or facilitate the temptation drama, he never becomes  an element  of that seductive trick himself.  He looks stout as thug and still remain only a loyal soldier,  one  who is discriminated as ugly by the outsider-insider game of  aryan- Dravida visual culture, the  aesthetics of the society of economic affluence. 

 In his Yakshi, although he found  the depiction of   loyal agency of service in womanhood, but he brings in the grace of feminism by abolishing the construct of female form in elite visual culture and its male gaze.  He construct her as stout, aboriginal counter part of yaksha in nude.  Her existence,  one that is  on your face and as a provocative nudity of confident aboriginal female who's dominance in existence disturb the mainstream society.  The nudity of Yakshi and its presence there in front of RBI  went upto the level of a parliament discussion to decide the righteousness of her existence as a confident nude labourer, something that proved the merits of Ram Kinker's political construct of Yakshi, the marginalised female laborer's  body politics.  In his first  Sujata, if she remains an  aesthetically slender lady of elite grace for  male gaze, his second Sujata,  Yakshi  becomes a powerful, confident,  assertive on your face naked  lady of eminence,  who is not ashamed of her "Labour" status. Sujata becomes the  lady, we often encounter in the fields of rural India or among factory labourers. Ram kinker's yakshi becomes the epitome of  the aboriginal female labourer who fills the length and breadth of this country and still goes missing from mainstream visual culture.  Ram kinker, the left leaning artist immortalise her by placing at the most important sight of this country, where money is produced and maintained, one that defines  the value of labour and its associated visual constructs. Most importantly they were built with constructivist style of  art. 

Sujata and Ram Kinker epitomises the love of every artist with his or her socio-political or cultural positions in life that determines one's art and its form.  Ram Kinker Baij's Yaksha and Yakshi at RBI Delhi, defines it. 

Emperor Ashoka tries to  take Buddha's  relics from nagas. Sanchi. Here again we can see  Sujata at second position from second pillar form right

Image courtesy : RBI,ASI and wiki 

Art and the question of authorship and ownership in Internet era

A couple of years back one day I received a strange request from an unknown person from New York in USA to authenticate two works of mine. The work looked exactly of mine except it had some colour fading. It also had my name on left bottom in English as I often do. The only problem was I had no Idea of such a sale or transfer. On further enquiry, I learned that he sourced the work from a struggling Indian art student. During those days Google strangely would prominently show a popular Hollywood actress’s name, if anyone would image search my work. This smart Indian student made use of that opportunity and somehow managed to convince this poor chap that this actress is a big collector of my work. During that period I also had a website where I occasionally used to publish some of my exploration and it is being only explorations with the caption that “none of the works is for sale”. Our smart student made use of all these for his advantage to fleece this investor a cool four thousand eight hundred dollars with downloaded print. Since he began to have doubts about the signature in authentication letter that he contacted me for authentication. The entire drama gave me a hearty laughter. I informed the buyer that there is some colour problem in the print and if he sends me an undertaking to send those prints back and bear the courier expenses for a new set of works with my pencil signature, I will send him a new print of the same works. He happily agreed to that and I did not want our smart Indian student friend to get caught in a serious crime in the US, so I left it that.

This entire episode provoked me into a deep philosophical question of authenticity of authorship and ownership of an artwork. History of art is full of such stories where artist and their family died in poverty while their work, later on, made many others billionaires. If one search in goggle, one will find millions of photographs of the same artwork with million other’s copyright watermark on it. Cropped differently (composition) with colour scheme differently, digitally enhanced the qualities; most of them will make the original work into oblivion. Before one jump into an ethical or moral judgment about the entire affair, one may have to consider some serious philosophical artistic issues involved with image making in this entire affair. Allow me to explain in detail.

What is original in art : Labour/craft or concept?

This is a complicated question. In western art from the days of guild during Renaissance to today’s postmodern artists, a large section of artists would not be able to claim authorship of the craft of labour. Most of them are made to order or supervised. So one may have to safely discount that claim from the originality of art. Then comes conceptual authorship. Largely in an art, there are three ways an artist executes an artwork – translation, transformation and transgression. Considering these three areas are largely dealt by curatorial conceptualization in postmodern art, one leaves very little room for the authenticity of authorship of the artwork. Unlike in film, where director is only one of the authors in the creation of film with due credit is given to others in the process of filmmaking, in art, unfortunately, single individual as the artist often claims the whole authorship. One would not hear the name of craftsmen or other people involved in the execution of artworks. There are many conceptualizations involved in every artwork- technical, spatial, curatorial and finally aesthetical conceptualizations. In other words, it becomes a problematic argument when one considers the authenticity of authorship by a single individual.

Work of art and its image reproductions

As I mentioned earlier, on Internet one will find millions of image reproductions of same artwork with hundreds of copyrights for photography. In other words, the authenticity of authorship gets separated from artwork in its image reproduction as a photograph. Considering both are artistic mediums and artists execute both, one cannot claim the authorship of the other. In other words, one has the artistic liberty for a selective recreation of another artwork in its image reproduction!

From Greek time onwards, this viewer prerogative to reinterpret an artwork as observer in observer-observed and observation triangulation is already a settled subject.

This makes the authenticity of authorship complex phenomena in art world. If an artist makes claim of authorship on a craftsman’s labour in transforming a media( kindly note an artist is not selling art but sells its material transformation ) and a photographer claims authorship of its image reproduction and then a digital media artist claim authorship of reproduction’s reproduction, in today’s contemporary art world authenticity and authorship becomes a complex issue.

From that US-based Indian student (although I do not know who is this character) I started experimenting with transgressing into master’s works to transform them into historical and theoretical artworks for a long time. Still, I am as an old school ethics follower, do not claim ownership of these works. I only claim the viewer’s transformative inference authorship in such artworks. My experiments are still going on getting more and more insights into this complex world of authorship and ownership.

Considering no collector or buyer can claim ownership of art but can only claim the ownership of artwork, in today’s world these collectors cannot claim ownership of its image reproduction, unless and until they commission it or buy its rights. Considering artworks are reproduced in critique and reviews in textual format and it is legal, artists can not take away the viewers inference right in image format as well.

Dalit saints of brahminical south

It is crucial to delve into the historical context to grasp the significant transformations in Hindu schools of philosophy and social dynamics during the 7th and 8th centuries in South India. A prominent figure in this period, Aadi Shankara, hailing from Kerala, played a pivotal role in challenging orthodox Brahmanical Hinduism. Shankara fearlessly rejected the ritualistic practices of mimansa and the belief in multiple deities. Instead, he embraced Buddhist principles of sannyasa and sanga, skillfully integrating them into Hinduism. Shankara introduced the monotheistic philosophy of Advaitha as a community practice, bridging the gap between the Hindu concept of God and the Buddhist notion of void (parabhrama in Hinduism) through the idea of Maya.

Furthermore, the emergence of two saints from Dalit communities within Shaivism and Vaishnavism during this era holds profound significance. Nandanar, a Shaivaite Nayanar saint, and Tirupana Alvar, a Vaishnavite Alvar saint, rose to prominence as religious figures in Hinduism, leaving an indelible impact. These instances underscore a period marked by socio-political upheaval and reformation within Hinduism, particularly in South India.

To gain a comprehensive understanding of the socio-cultural reformation that characterized this era in Indian history, further exploration is imperative. This subject remains obscured by interpretations from both right and left-wing perspectives of Indian history. Additionally, it is essential to acknowledge that during this period, Islam made its presence felt on the southern coast, particularly in Kozhikode.

                          Sri Nandanar

Tirupana Azhvar

book

today on the sidewalks of Mavoor road in Calicut, I took an old copy of Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky and I saw a painful note in blue ink pen on second page " Oh god you took everything from me, do not let me part this book, let not my hunger always win, please...!" Margaret
I had to struggle for hiding my tears and left the book back into the shelf. The book was priced at rupees fifteen.
I am still unable to get over it.

End of internet and the complicated data business

A few years back, I received an invitation to speak at a conference on data networks and start-ups, a time when start-ups were riding high with massive investments, soaring valuations, and profit projections. However, I assumed the role of a devil's advocate during the conference, shedding light on the dark corners that many preferred to ignore in their technological enthusiasm. Some labeled me an alarmist, but privately, numerous attendees approached me for further discussion. Notably, a leading venture capitalist sought advice on when he should consider withdrawing from the market, though I reminded him that I was not a businessman.

It took just a year for my expressed concerns to materialize. The significant meltdown of internet start-ups became a harsh reality. Even today, large data-driven companies like Uber and Ola are grappling to secure new investments to cover their substantial cash burns. Therefore, anyone proclaiming that data is the future of business should be met with skepticism. Such claims may serve to mask job losses or perpetuate a misleading narrative of a technological-data fusion that never truly transpired. The internet continues to resemble more of an amusement park, where individuals pay for various adrenaline-inducing experiences before eventually moving on.

Even in mapping applications, often hailed as the next big data technology, people seek real-world locations and sites, not virtual realms. This underscores that technological progress remains constrained by physical reality and human needs.

The issue with contemporary technology is that it has become ensnared in a web of exaggerated projections without realistic economic parameters. It mirrors the derivative trade within the stock market, where everyone hides behind jargon, formulas, numbers, and images to mask their losses while dragging others into their downward spiral.

In the early days of computer programming, grappling with COBOL, there was a joke about a half-hour system breakdown taking days of analysis and resulting in 345 kilometers of printed program code in the USA. The envisioned data business appears to have fallen into a similar quagmire. Unraveling even a small piece of information demands collating billions of hours of data and millions of hours of analytical efforts.

Studies indicate that a substantial portion of internet data serves amusement and entertainment purposes. Removing categories like pornography would free up 37% of the internet, and in the UK alone, gambling revenue on the internet reached 13.8 billion, with approximately 80% of Americans using the internet for gambling. Removing gambling from the internet would free up another 28% of its data. An additional 10% is estimated to be consumed by film and music viewing. Overall, more than 75% of internet data serves entertainment purposes, with social networks permeating all facets of human activity.

The belief that 25% of the remaining data is useful or decipherable within the 75% of seemingly extraneous data is a far-fetched notion that requires an astonishing level of naivety. Similarly, assuming that 75% of data is beneficial for 25% of legal business is equally misguided. The reality is that technology can be experimental and prone to failure, but business and investments cannot afford such unpredictability. Unfortunately, this vital distinction is often overlooked in the industry.

The heart of the issue lies in the disparity between the breakneck pace of technological advancement and the time required for business investments to yield returns and profit. Modern technology demands capital-intensive investments, while businesses need ample time for market recapitalization and product lifecycle. The relentless speed of technological evolution seldom affords this luxury to businesses, resulting in rapid turnover and limited opportunities for investment recovery.

The emergence of a black hole or bubble in the market is evident, causing growing distrust among the business community toward technological investments. Fear looms large, as significant investments have already been swallowed by this expanding abyss. To recover their funds, more investments might resort to illegal avenues like pornography and gambling, further tainting the already 65% illegal trade space and transforming it into a shadowy underworld. The internet could evolve into a realm society seeks to evade.

This scenario hints at an eventual collapse or government intervention to create another bureaucratic behemoth where technology cannot keep pace. Whether it's a gradual decline or a swift collapse, the internet appears destined for a protracted demise. Contrary to assumptions that these events will take a long time to unfold, economic cycles have compressed to around a seven-and-a-half-year span - the lifespan of business peaks and meltdowns. Consequently, we can anticipate the eventual collapse or meltdown of the internet within the next five to eight years, at most.

bjp

Today BJP has become the Indira Gandhi's Congress in terms of policies, propaganda, party following, socialistic pretensions and crony capitalism. if ludicrous sycophancy and subsequent policy mishaps were the hallmarks of her times the same are brand ambassadors for the present day BJP government. She believed arrogance and fear can instil a long lasting social engineering to create a left of the centre congress, same are the bench marks of this government who believe they are creating a right of the centre congress. They believe majority decides political future of this country. But tragedy for her was the 2 to 3% politically conscious 'centre' who are although insignificant in terms of numbers but had the capacity to swing the power. They always changed the course of discourse in this country. Look at who were against Indira and who are against Modi now. It tells the story.

The worst thing in politics is to believe in propaganda or believe own propaganda and unfortunately Indian political leaderships are masters of that art - creating lies and believe in it.
They don't realise not only communism but capitalism also died. So are its tools.

art education :The purpose of art education is to nurture artists, not necessarily leaders.

"... those who sought a more active role for artists within the burgeoning field of higher education believed they had the necessary expertise to cover content that bridged studio experience, art historical themes, and philosophical issues.

This, after all, was what contemporary artists seriously thought about. It seemed reasonable to surround the artist(as a teacher) with aspiring students who would benefit from serious exchange on topics about art and life. As such, curriculum content could not be specified in any formal way and techniques could not be introduced as prerequisites for creativity: Teaching became conversation and learning focused on individual aesthetic problem-solving. This version of the expert-novice model relied on the image of the artists as a social outsiders engaged in an intense pursuit of a personal vision. Consequently, the criteria for newness were not seen in relation to past or existing image banks or stylistic brands but by a measure of radical difference. The drive toward the illusion of “things never seen” reached a mythical status that kept the social constructed-ness of art practice at bay, at least until the theoretical onslaught of post-modernism."- Graeme Sullivan.

Although the final statement is no longer applicable within current theoretical frameworks, Graeme Sullivan's paragraph effectively highlights the intricate dilemma regarding whether artists/designers should function as institutions of learning or institutions should manifest as embodiments of artistic learning. While it is conceivable to support the credibility of these academic positions—artists/designers as institutions and institutions as conduits of learning—by citing numerous instances found within the construct of "successful artists and designers," it is equally essential to acknowledge that the ongoing crisis in the art and design realm is partly a consequence of these very academic stances. 

The presumed reciprocity between "the value of an outcome and its broader social significance" and the procedural output of an academic process has long been a contentious issue within institutional settings.

Beyond the societal and market influence exerted by artists, the historical role of artists as institutions of learning has often been limited to delineating specific practices for students within their particular areas of expertise. Similarly, academic and pedagogic approaches, characterized by scientific and theoretical frameworks, have struggled to substantially contribute to creative practice beyond validating one's readiness based on the subjective expertise of the instructor. This process further accentuates the artist's (instructor's) role as a subjective institution, creating a complex situation bereft of a straightforward solution.

A strategy for establishing a coherent mutual practice within individual-to-individual, individual-to-community, and community-to-society interactions must evolve within academic contexts. This evolution requires acknowledging one's subjective potential and constraints rather than adopting an authoritarian stance. In the absence of such development, where the theoretical or physical outputs remain subsets of this subjective institution, the growing predicament of individual creative practitioners and their relevance in a society marked by egalitarian technological access and universal values will loom large, casting doubts on the significance of academia and institutions in the future.

Compounding this dilemma is the shift from the pre-nineteenth-century notion of enlightenment centred around meaningful creative practice and truth to the post-twentieth-century emphasis on the statistical significance of meaning and the subjective interpretation of truth. This shift could potentially subject the objectivity of institutional learning to conditional assessment. 

To put it differently, if institutions fail to address the necessity for a harmonious practice aligned with one's life position, elevating this position to an objective of living rather than regarding subjective living as a statistical deduction of truth, counterarguments against the broader goal of the learning process could emerge. Such counterarguments could be rooted in the prevalence of reactionary practices and their apparent sufficiency—a notable example being the widespread prevalence of "cut and paste" approaches, which have inundated the contemporary art and design landscape.

STREET ART – A CONTEXTUAL PERSPECTIVE WITHIN CONTEMPORARY URBAN DESIGN PLANNING AND ITS ISSUES

STREET ART –  A CONTEXTUAL PERSPECTIVE WITHIN CONTEMPORARY URBAN DESIGN PLANNING AND ITS ISSUES

                                                                                  By                

Narendra Raghunath

narendraraghunath@gmail.com

For the last few years, creative painting in urban public spaces in India has received a newfound acceptability. There are many discourses and narratives attached to this process of artistic reinvention in public spaces. For some it is a process of bringing sanity to the clutter of public space, for some it is beautification of the space and for others it is a process of occupying public space with art. This paper explores this seen and unseen connection of aesthetics of form and space as defined in our urban society.

Universalisation of urban imaginations and idea of beauty in the other:

In 2010, the original proponent of Sabarmati riverside project, Ar. Bernard Kohn came back to Cept University and conducted a workshop with students and raised many questions about the present model of re-claiming riverbeds as real estate . Till that point of time, the narrative around the city was: the riverside project will turn the city of Ahmedabad into another Venice– a city of luxury, celebration and water ways. Although half the population of the city had never heard of Venice, the story was sold convincingly and people eagerly awaited its completion. They were not concerned about the large-scale human displacements and environmental violence wrought by such flawed infrastructure projects, where the natural path of a river is resized for the development of realty. I am not getting into any sociological or environmental impact assessment of this specific project or for that matter of any such project, but my interest lies in the construction of beauty, its binary and narrative that are firming up our idea of urban beauty and visual culture.

If one analyses the above story, perhaps the story of every urban imagination about the idea of development, one will find the following four arguments are over emphasised in this construction of urban aesthetics

1. Existence of a superior other and Inferior self

2. Possibility of transformation

3. Necessity of change

 4. Agency of change

Let us understand these arguments in a little detail

Existence of a superior other and inferior self or present:

In our life one is told that the essential requirement for the premise of improvement is always have to be a contempt for the present or at least eagerness for more. Either way, it reminds us of the inadequacy of our present. Historically, advertisement and communications industry have been using this technique for a very long time. Perhaps we may be able to find the antecedents of this argument in our age old religious narratives of heaven and hell. This binary of good and bad and less and more may be an evolutionary outcome of human mind that is required to live in the evidence of time: the past, present and future and its manifestations in a material world.

Good and bad can reflect only a quality and not necessarily quantifiable material evidence, but the binary of less and more often requires a quantifiable evidence of material manifestation. In our priority for good or bad and less or more, this dichotomy of complementary existence of Identities, between quantity of material evidence and quality of virtue develops a self-doubt of superiority or inferiority in individuals.

Value of ethics, morality and its natural subset aesthetics play a big role in this flux of value judgments. In other words the idea of beauty in human life remains a value judgment of quality and quantity. This has been the case of human society from time immemorial. All our functional systems in society, be it nation, state, community, religion, business or economy, they all operate in this area of self-doubt. They confirm the virtue of superiority of good and more above in human life as against inferior bad and less positions.

From the fundamental economic unit- money that derives its value from the principles of demand and supply to the ideas of hope, development, expansion, construction , relationships, faith so on and so forth, one will find the evidence of this idea of inferior and superior being operationalized everywhere. We will find this binary shaping up the body of argument or position and perhaps even in the resistance or rejection of one or all of the above . Take for instance the cases of religion or spirituality or universalization or vernacular, one finds the value judgment of appropriateness is derived from this binary of superior or inferior.

Necessity for change:

Strangely even as the inferior inherently identified with our existence, the superior is always find a construct outside our identities, for example,  the Christian construct of man as a born sinner and the supreme God of purity. Problematically this confirmation of an ambiguous superior other and inferior self becomes the first premise of our imagination and its aesthetics. In other words it assumes an inherit possibility of progression or change in every life. Our physical body growth also confirms this presupposition of less and more as an evidence of aesthetics and it’s scales of beauty. Subsequently in this process the inferior naturally gets associated with less and superior with more. There after anyone and anything that talks about more become desirable and appropriate in society and a desirable approach in life becomes a change towards more or progress.

Now there are four additional parameters emerge in this process of defining superior: idea of acceptability, conformity, progression and failure. Since this value judgment scale is an individual assumption based on the societal construct of relationships among one to one, one to many and many to many entities, the idea of appropriateness in the selection of these relationships also gets defined not only by those negotiations but also by the virtue of need that makes those relationships relevant.

This further complicates the matter as not only does the change become important but appropriateness of such change based on a predefined need also becomes important. Over and above the process has to conform to this idea of acceptability of success or failure in its progression from inferior to superior or less to more.

Possibility of transformation :

But the need and appropriateness will not enable an inherently inferior or less to progress to superior or accumulate more. In this construct, a less or inferior by the virtue of being less or inferior itself cannot become more or superior, it mandates an external intervention to accumulate more or transform to a superior. As discussed in earlier paragraph, one does not exist by oneself in society but one identifies oneself as one between the one to one, one to many and many to many relationships. In other words, one simultaneously becomes individual and also part of a community in our every day life in society. This need based complementary existence of an individual through an external agency of relationship, highlights the dependency of inferior on external agency for its transformation to superior or acquirement of more.

There are two important issues here.

1.     The criteria involved in the selection process involved in the development of relationships

2.     The nature or process of relationships

If one elaborates the above points, one will find the need for the conscious discerning capacity or need for awareness in inferior to build the criteria of selection. In other words even as the system acknowledges the ability of inferior for a conscious selection, it separates the relationship as an external process from the inferior by making inferior’s dependency on an external agency as a mandatory process( here the criteria and appropriateness of relationship). These agencies can be marriage, sex, animosity, country, religion, community so on and so forth. Systems prescribe these external factors as the tools, techniques and methods by which an inferior can progress to superior or a less to more. Although mutually exclusive, claiming ownership of these factors, the system turns these relationships into external tools, technique and methods that are independent of inferior or superior and less or more, so that the ‘other’ or ‘more’ always remains romanticized, desired and aspired for. It insists, even with ability to consciously discern the appropriateness of selecting the intermediary process, one by virtue of being inferior will never be able to become a superior without those external tools, techniques and methods. It takes away the ability of transformation from inferior forever. In other words, one has to employ these specific skill sets derived from those external agencies as an individual effort to arrive at those superior others.

On a further note, one will understand that this is a power game that is being played out with these intermediary agencies. The agencies that possess the know-how or capability to play this game by inventing, accelerating or supplying these external tools, technique, methods as processes will also have the ability to control the entire process of relationships or human life. Or one may say that the agency itself may not be capable enough to manipulate human life, but the one who control the agency will have that capacity. State, law, money, religion, profession, education, planning, architecture, art and aesthetics all become such agencies that control our life.

At this point, if we recollect the initial story of river side project or for that matter any developmental project as defined by society or state, one will start wondering about the visual culture that defines the aesthetics of beauty for us. Or at least one will have to start exploring what constructs that beauty in our life.

Ideas of aesthetics and consequence of beauty:

In late eighties, when Delhi started developing by relocating urban slums to its border areas, the affluent and the middle class in the city felt the joy of abundance both in terms of serenity and cleanliness. But those exclusive affluent places but slowly and steadily started giving away those individual convenient bungalows to apartments, bigger houses for smaller flats, smaller crowds to larger population, limited vehicular traffic to larger traffic jams and sufficient water and power supply to sever water and power shortage.

By mid 2000, the city once again became those urban slums with an only difference that now it was made of affluent poor. The worst scenario was, as some of the studies indicated, many married educated women from those affluent families started leaving their jobs and their independence to look after their family as their maids who helped them to continue in career were also made to exit in that process of beautifying the city by displacing those poor. In other words, in the process of beautifying the city, the age-old patriarchy system made a steady come back in many homes. Tragedy did not end there; the next generation (and perhaps the coming generations) had to travel hundreds of kilometers away from the city to see or experience beauty of nature and breathe clean air. The mountain valleys and river sources in around the city and nearby states also have started getting cluttered with those seekers of nature’s beauty and the uncontrolled tourism. The city dwellers with their idea of nature demanded their idea of beauty, convenience from those places and in their effort to attract the business of tourism most of these natural places got transformed themselves into replicas of cluttered cities tourists escape. The nature and culture of those places became limited to the show case exhibits in shop floors and with the homogenized visual cultures, environment violations, traffic jams and collapse of civic infrastructures those places also have become damaged.

This is not a story of Delhi alone. All across this country and its cities, the story would not be different. Between rich man’s beauty and poor man’s hunger, the game of inferior and superior binary has played out very well everywhere with its disastrous consequence from the idea of beauty in aesthetics. If aesthetics of nature was what city dwellers were looking forward and aesthetics of nature was what those far of places had in abundance to offer, tourism became their external agency of dependence in that mutually exclusive relationship. Those who had the commanding control of tourism controlled them both and perhaps destroyed them both.

Economic liberalization remains another important factor that influenced Indian urban visual culture. Post liberalized shopping culture and its malls became one of the iconic structure of Indian urban landscape that defined the idea of spectacular for its people. Historically in Mumbai lights are never switched off and the power cut is rather unheard of. Where as in rural Maharashtra the power cuts lasts some time as long as 16 to 18 hours. Before the economic liberalization the power cuts in rural Maharashtra used to be only 4 to 6 hours in a day. Post liberalization as the super stores and malls with every inch of it are lighted with power guzzling bulbs and air-conditioning to cool the glass facades came up , rural Maharashtra started losing their share of power. The power cuts have gone up from 4 to 6 hours to 16 to 18 hours and at times more than that. Debt and draught ridden farmers started getting the heat of urban aesthetics. Rain failed them at first place and over and above the power cuts failed them more in their efforts to get the ground water for farming. Further the government set up as much as 11 thermal power plants across draught ridden villages sucking out the last little water that was left in the under ground for farmers.

Post liberalization farmer suicide in Indian villages stands at a staggering 2.5 lakhs or more and majority of them are from Maharashtra. I would not say that it all emanate from those innocent urban design decisions of an architect or an interior designer but when the damage is irreversible certainly one cannot absolve the share of their aesthetic constructions.

Strangely in this power play of inferior-superior binary, even today those 1.5 lakh deaths are discounted as the necessary cost involved for the interest of nation’s progress!

Further it is well known the damage of post IT revolution European glass sensibility driven facades in commercial architecture brought to the Indian cities during 46 to 50 degree summer heat. Professor BV Doshi’s studies in Ahmedabad are well known to everyone. In a globalized world where every decision has its impact, some time even an innocent decision can unleash catastrophic consequences to rest of the world. so are ideas of aesthetics and consequence of beauty.

The urban public space painting: the tattooed architecture:

Keeping all these factors at hindsight, one wonders what defines urban visual culture and this newfound idea of painting on public spaces?

Painting is not an alien factor in Indian architecture or for that matter in public spaces. From the length and breath of this country one can sight innumerable examples of living traditions of painting houses, be it a rangoli or the Worli , Mythili or Gond wall paintings, we have a long tradition of embellishing our houses with narrative paintings or symbolic motifs. This is not something unique to India alone as well, across the world there are many anthropological, sociological and cultural studies that have went into understand this idea of aesthetics that are many times relevant to rituals in those cultures and at other times with a pure aesthetic value doing to human habitat.

As it traverses from a simple aesthetic formulation to symbolic representation and then to ritualistic iconography, the studies indicate a complicated status to these images in human societies.

But if one keeps the inferior - superior binary and the idea of progression in place, one will find the strains of the power play in this process as well. Metaphorically the aesthetics of image becomes the urge of identity or building relationship between nature and self. Evidently it becomes either a celebration or camouflage as a tool to build those relationships by exhibiting elements of culture or negating it. Historically art, architecture and body tattooing had been carrying out this role in human society. In this binary of inferior – superior, each and every elements and motifs has a communicable significance to assert one’s own progression as these aesthetical productions.

In aboriginal cultures often bones, nails, and marks of their prey becomes the symbol of valor or power structures and extensive body tattooing becomes the mode of camouflage or embellishments.. We may find lots of similarity in the objectivity of the idea of valor and identity in aboriginal culture to contemporary cosmopolitan tattoo culture.

But the complexity emerges with urban tattoo as visual culture when one places the developments in 20th century art movements along with these aesthetical expressions. Even if one consider it as the continuity of Hippie movement and their obsession with aboriginal cultures and its practices, one will find it difficult to comprehend the objectivity of a tattoo under a steel gray Armani suit and its expression.

Further if one keep this image tattooed body juxtaposed against the recent phenomena of urban wall paintings to clean certain areas under responsible citizen’s initiatives called Bombay rising and Bangalore rising etc, where a group of people clean up an area in urban spaces and paint its walls to claims it as beautiful, the idea of urban aesthetics of beauty becomes further complicated.

Further if one considers the process of institutional groups and Paint Company sponsored groups that are spouting across Indian cities and painting different images among cluttered urban spaces making it further cluttered to claim artistic beauty adds further complication to already complex phenomena.

Theoretically art is viewed at three levels: innocent, initiated and informed. The first set of people is the one who has a gaze of interest in art than a particular engagement. For that person representation of identifiable reference in artwork and its validation is all that they seek in it. More than they love an artwork they love the sight.

Second set of people is the one who validate an artwork for its conformity to aesthetic principles. They understand the nuances of history, theory and its principles. More than they love art, they love art for its conformity, concurrence and its social and historical location. In other words they love their command over the subject.

The third set of people is the one who can identify with a work; one who can take the path of an artist. Even as they traverse through the nuances of art history, theory and its principle, they imbibe the ability to create a critical perspective on art. More than they love art, they partner with it.

Although first two are important, but after the post 20th century criticality developed in art, an artist who practice in contemporary art will have to work with third group- one with critical eye or one who is informed.

Keeping this position at hindsight and take the cases of urban tattoo culture, one will find it easy to bracket them in the first group with innocent eye. They don’t love tattoo as art but they love the sight of it. We have to leave at it. But that is not the case of these contemporary artists who paint the public spaces. When they claim it as an art, the criticality of their act will become important. The following points are important in that negotiation

Erasing an architectural façade or turning architectural form into a canvas:

Considering architecture itself is a rooted artistic form, does these paintings become part of that art or which one will become the primary art form? Architecture or painting on it?

How is this displacement of one art form for the exclusivity of the other is critically positioned?

What is the critical negotiation artist is expressing when one turns a positive space of an architectural form into negative space of a painting on it?

How is it different from the socio-political aspect of colonisattion?

None of the contemporary street arts seems to have addressed any of these issues or have taken a critical position on it. Their arguments are also not different from those who champion the power game of progression from inferior to superior. Start group from Delhi, have famously said in one of the discussion forum in Bangalore that their art serve the beautification of cityscapes that otherwise would have been filled with filthy poster and fliers! In other words their idea of aesthetics is no different from those affluent who have displaced the poor from city for their rich man’s beauty ignoring poor man’s hunger.

The visual language

Another critical area is the language. Graffiti came in the west as a response to over designed serenity. So in other words these painting in the cluttered Indian urban space cannot claim the historical or theoretical relevance of Graffiti language and its expression. It cannot claim the ritualistic or embellished expression of Indian traditional wall paintings as well, as it requires a cultural and historical connection between the painting, inhabitants and its dwelling or home. If one take a close look at these street art that are taking place in Indian cities, one will find the design influenced contemporary western narrative illustration form in it. More than a style value or the innocent sight value, they do not convey any critical argument in these art works. Even as many of them copy Banksy’s social critique format, they seems unable to put forward a strong argument to defend the language of art as they wanted to call it like Banksy or for that matter Jean-Michel Basquiat by differentiating their distinct artistic language. The contemporary Indian street artists stay either at innocent view level or at the maximum initiated view level, they do not offer criticality of any sort.

Conclusion :

In a post 21st century and post post modernist anthropocene age, an artwork cannot remain without criticality or critically neutral. Today every image by the virtue of being an image itself with its meaning making ability will become historically and theoretically conscious. Even if one keeps the evangelised position of criticality away from these artistic productions, considering the long history of artistic production in this country, one cannot absolve oneself from its socio-cultural and historical location in visual art and its language. Unfortunately this post “art boom crash” trend in Indian art seems to be devoid of any such positions. They all seem to have located their art in the trajectory of inferior – superior binary and getting reduced to mere tool operators of an unknown agenda. Often the boundaries are blurred between a commercial bill board and these street art works and at times much worse, when these groups  uses these works for their publicity campaign or their funding agencies names., they end up as one and the same .

A public space is a collective responsibility even if it is not a collective ownership. Every act in that space has a socio-cultural and economic and political consequence. Even if the artist for an argument sake positions himself or herself as neutral in a public space, but by the mere act of locating that neutrality in a public space will convert their act of neutrality into a socio-political act. An artistic work cannot take place devoid of this knowledge. We have seen, if one does not delve into the criticality of one’s own idea of aesthetics and beauty, how those aesthetical or beauty construct in the binary of inferior and superior can be of a catastrophic consequence as seen from the examples of Delhi and Maharashtra listed above. So art and artistic production cannot claim innocence in public space. If it is located in public it has to be a critically evaluated production.

As of now when these artists turn Indian urban architectures and spaces into canvases, don’t seem to be producing art. They are producing tattoos for innocent eyes on urban architectures in public spaces. It is time they evolve and develop criticality to their work.

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