A Traveller in the Future

The intention of my project was to prototype the future of the city of Delhi as a travel designer. The essence of the city is that it has been built and rebuilt many times in the last thousand years and the whole research culminated in a travelogue based between the years 2032-2062.

January 27th

Listed out the heroes that have been mentioned in earlier blogpost.

February 3th - Learn the model, learn the flaw.

One of the first inspirations for the project made by the artist Villemard. Basically there are a series of illustration about the year 2000 made in 1910 about the city of Paris. I used his model of illustrations as the medium for conceptualizing at this stage.

February 10th

This week the research was on air travel and transport in general.

Reached the following conclusions.

"Flights are actually free and airlines will make money on the perks like in-house holographic movies or sleeping pods.

The plane arrives on the Single Asian Sky network, the automated network that ensures smooth operations and continuos descent of aircrafts throughout.

Smaller planes are known as the Super-quiets and hop between smaller airports.

The solo transporters run on electricity or hydrogen fuel.

No more problems of waiting at the gates, the luggage is delivered and their is non-stop service till the gate. "

February 17th

Cars in the city of Delhi are all automated and run on the Cloud, automated so that there are no accidents and traffic jams are a thing of the past.

All vehicles run on solar energy.

As one goes they see the heritage sites of the city encased in huge bubbles so as to preserve these space as places that are atmospherically regulated and keep the nostalgic sense of the city alive.

February 24th

This week I incorporated the notion of patterns in technology into the project.

Patterns

One to One

One to Many

Many to Many

Either its a system or its not.

The following is in regard to the same;

Most of the systems about the project are thought on a many to many structure.

March 2nd

Trip to Delhi.

March 9th

The work of another hero by the name of Michiao Kaku.

Among noted works is the BBC Documentary about the future.

Part of his predictions that made a lot of sense involved the fact that the future would probably be based around the natural laws of nature. These would involve things like the quantum theory of physics, the atomic theory of chemistry and the DNA theory of biology.

March 16th

Exploring art, especially that dealing with Augmented Reality.

"Although there are the for virtual reality programs, in my future, when it comes to typography, 2D is the new avant-garde, and the art installation our traveller experiences makes him use his physical senses rather than viewing the 3-D projections of text that are so common."

March 23rd

I excluded the following chapters from the final exhibition.

Chapter Seven : Society

If society were to be analyzed, marriage is something of the past, an institution that does not exist.

As the population of the world stabilized at 9.7 billion a few years prior, it has turned out to be one of. People dress freely and live freely. You get a skin and can look like whoever you want to, whenever you want to.

Chapter Eight: Slums

There is construction which is heavy in the slums due to the constant need for these places to be built and rebuilt.

Slum resemble the floored cities that look like those bonzai plants rather than the uniquely different city complexes which are almost transparent in their attitude of disconnect from the rest of human civilization.

The levels are very grey with vegetation of garbage and plastic rather than the green pastures of the upper or middle levels.

March 30th.

Conclusion.

The visuals uploaded are part of the final presentation.

1. Long distance travel through quadriceptors

2. 3-rotor of the future

3. Plantscrapers in the city

4. Augmented reality artwork part 1

5. Augumented reality artwork part 2

Capital Punishment: Simple Infograph

The point of this Infograph is to not go too much into the details of what I have learnt from research and talking to others, but is rather a prelude to the points I have gathered in the next step (a detailed reading). This merely poses questions in the readers mind on whether Capital Punishment really deters crime and whether it is the most efficient measure to be taken.

Capital Punishment Surveying two thoughts.

This poster was printed and put up in Srishti School of Art, Design and Tech (Bangalore) and Jindal Global Law School (Haryana) to provoke responses. The point of this was initially just see how far the debate would go among the youth in our generation. I personally sympathize with the Abolitionists point of view (Anti-capital punishment)

The responses that came from the Law students were all adhering to the same point. Both Legal and Humanitarian comments were pushed forward by them, making an inexcusably strong argument against the use of capital punishment. The students were obviously well versed in the subject and had a lot to say about it. One student quoted J. Bhagwati "The only deterrent to a crime was the certainty of getting caught"

The responses I got from Srishti, however, were something to be reckoned with. On an average, 70% of the responses were in favour of the use of capital punishment, and in particular to the case mentioned in the poster. around 15% were against the death penalty, and the remaining either didn't know who Kasab was, didn't care, or thought that the topic was too 'disturbing' to talk about.

This shone light on a lot of other things I hadn't really taken into account. out of the Pro-capital punishment comments, some interesting points came up; why should the state spend tax payer's hard earned money on someone who obviously has no respect for human life, by keeping them in prison? And almost half of the rest of the Pro-Death penalty crowd spoke of rather misinformed, radical alternatives, such as implementing torture as a tool of punishment or having a monarchist society where all prisoners had to be killed regardless of the crime committed.

Screen performance art

My idea for screen performance art was to develop a  game design for people. I thouht to design a huge game for a futuristic city, charachters as well as situations and missions.
The game is based upon the manipulation of different pop videos and how can an individual manipulate the elements and the music on their own.
Location: The game is supposed to be in a place which is half hybrid of a futuristic city. The player can develop the city on his own. By using their own perspectives and laws, they can fiddle with the laws to make it more interesting. As shown in today's pop videos is which their is a symbolism for a whole new world and new Identities. The building of the city on our own gives the whole new range of opportunities to the player to set a new Identities. Howewver the situations the person faces will remain the same.

The Player: The player will evolve in many different stages of the city. Games Like GTA Sanandreas have a barber shop where you can go round the city in the shop and change your own look. I am thinking of making our own new charachter, with their own new materials, their new looks designed by the player itself. The new look will not be given by a human charachter design.

For example, in the first phase, the player is a safety pin. Now, Imagine how can You use a safety pin and personify it. Think of safety pin as a person, who walks and talks. And in the later stages, the person can develop whoever they want.

The helpers: As the city develops and the game proceeds, the player will face different problems with creating music, As music and a music video is not produced alone, there is a set of helpers which works for you. The helpers will also evolve in certain stages.

The game will develop, with future circumstances as well as facing of present circumstances by the player. How a music video will be made is by  developing the helpers on our own.

Taking the game forward: The game will be taken forward by completing the missions and by reaching the levels of fame.

Plot of the game:

The story begins in 2050 when XYZ (Player’s own set name) returns to the Future City to attend his/her mother’s funeral. Following his Brother Brian’s murder. Upon returning, corrupt police officers frame him for a fellow officer's murder unless he assists them.

XYZ returns to his former allies in his hometown band, working with his fellow helpers to reestablish the city’s the predominant musical band in The Future City. XYZ is also forced to help his neighbor, Carl, a wanna-be gangster rapper with no talent, get started with his music career by ruining the career of prominent rapper).

Xyz is contacted by a mediocre record company producer, who agrees to launch a show if XYZ agrees to work under him.

Later, after huge success of his shows, XYZ, along with the fellow helpers is invited by Woozie to become a partner in the production of a new album, where they are facing harassment from the Mafia-run Caligula's Palace casino. To displace the Mafia, they begin planning to rob Caligula's. Through the story, XYZ meets music producer Larry Hastings  and through him Caligula's manager Brian Fitcher.
Meanwhile the Mafia gang people try to kill XYZ, but XYZ manages to escape.

The Caligula’s manager goes to trial for several times, but the charges are dropped for lack of evidence, as – thanks to XYZ and all the helpers he uses to reach his fame, he puts himself out of all the problems. Because of XYZ’S fame, the manager’s release sends anger and shock throughout the city, triggering the in-game rendition of paparazzi follow up of XYZ.

During the paparazzi follow up and several rumors about XYZ, XYZ manages to produce one music album with 10 songs, and 5 of them are big hits. In spite of all rumors, the big star survives and is held up within the media.

Chopsticks

This is the prototype for my chopsticks with forks.

Sugarcane grown for fuel in Brazil

Sugarcane grown to power Brazil's cars and trucks as an alternative to climate-warming fossil fuels has a beneficial side effect: it also cools the local air temperature, scientists reported Sunday.Brazil’s government plans to boost investment in sugar-cane plantations by 60.5 billion reais ($35.4 billion) during the next four years to ensure an adequate supply of crops for the nation’s ethanol industry. Almost the entire sugarcane production in India is used for producing sugar.


Ethanol can have only a limited impact on India's energy security. 
stamp design for Brazil country:

Process

ALL agree that the crisis is inevitable. In fact, the Oil crash has already began. 95% of all the recoverable oil has been found now. Today about 90% of vehicular fuel needs are met by oil. This means, oil plays an important part in transportation. I started researching about the production of oil, economics, population and political issues behind the production of oil by today’s oil companies. After reading and watching documentation videos by Nation Geographic, I understood that it is very broad subject and multiple interpretations can be made in future.
I then came across that we could obtain fuel from water, coffee etc and such hypothetical concepts fascinated me. These are not so popular concepts but I feel which will be seen in future. Some of the theories are:

1.       Run your car on water: just by adding gasoline pill in water, the hydrogen molecule will be separated and fuel from hydrogen is possible.

2.       Fuel from coffee grounds is possible.

3.       Fuel from sugar cane. A large chunk of the Brazilian cane production is used for ethanol manufacture today. Since cane is manufactured in many countries I feel obtaining fuel from cane will solve many problems in future.

4.       Fuel from the plant algae.

5.       Use our friends to run. The future generation will return back to horses, cows, and bulls.

I had planned to make a book, with fiction illustrations depicting the scenes in the future. The illustrations would be based on facts. But I thought the form was inappropriate and wouldn’t be that impactful. I wanted to apply my research to make people aware of these concepts.  I then thought of making post stamps for the countries in which the above theories will be seen. This will create awareness about the unpopular sources of fuel in coming years.

 (I  will soon upload a better chart of all the stamp collections) 

Concept Art: City

Process:

Developing an idea for a future city involved taking inspirations from real life objects and then coming up with more ideas that could possibly develop into a city about 50 years from now. Inspiration was taken from artists like Dylan Cole and Feng Zhu who work a lot on designing environments in the field of concept art.

I restricted myself to digital drawing on Adobe Photoshop, and did not use any other software for creating all the works. I wanted to explore as many possibilities as I could in the past few weeks. One thing I realized was that this was less about the software, and more about hand drawing skills, which I wanted to sharpen. Reaching a high standard would probably take a few more years, and was practically impossible to reach in a few weeks. Combining that with digital media makes work much more interesting in many ways. But it was a great place to start with.

Initial Sketches

The idea about a suspended city was inspired by hanging crystal lamps. The sketches shown were developed digitally and then work was started to create a possible view of the city. The process involved developing a color palette

Idea:

I imagine that after global warming, the level of water will rise drastically and there would be a lot of environmental changes. Probably in the next 70 years or something the cycle of the moon and planets would change, because of a solar storm. That would cause a lot of changes in the planetary tides, which would ultimately lead to cities that could drown, almost everyday. The change in color of the sky would also be more dramatic

Color Palette Development

Suspended buildings that could take the pressure and the flow of the water was one possible solution. When the water level rises, the building would act like miniature submarines. That way the normal everyday life would happen inside the spherical buildings, without actually being affected by the change in the planet.

The buildings would be connected with flexible material that would allow people to move from one area to the other. Possible vegetation could be done inside. Some of the buildings can serve as gas tanks, that provide air and oxygen to the rest of the city. Few buildings could provide water, and they would have all filtration facilities. Since the buildings are connected, pipelines that travel along with it could travel all the material as well.

Underwater concept

Transport in the city could be possible by means of miniature submersibles that would work when the tide rises. The spherical structure of the buildings would stand the pressure of water from all sides. During the non-tide hours, the builds could probably open up, somewhat like the blooming of a flower.

Monochrome drawing

Developing the final image involved the research of a lot of experimentation with digital drawing techniques and color studies. The final artwork shows the scene of the city during sunset/sunrise. References from real images were incorporated within this.

Final Concept Art

Algae Can Be The New Oil

OriginOil’s breakthrough technology, based on algae, is targeted at fundamentally changing the world’s source of oil without disrupting the environment or food supplies.
Ubiquitous and easy to grow, algae has long been a promising biomass-to-fuel candidate in the eyes of researchers.  Of course, hurdles still exist to make a competitive fuel. 



Benefits of Producing Algae Oil 

Algae is fast growing – each oil-producing cell can mature in just hours Algae is oil-rich — contains as much as 60% of its dry weight in oil Algae is carbon neutral – meaning that it does not affect climate like petroleum Algae is fuel efficient – as much as 1000 times more productive than corn

inspired from how the plant algae grows, one of my design for the stamp:

Run your car on water in future.

Water has 2.5 times more Hydrogen than gasoline or diesel.

Benefits of using Supplemental Hydrogen:

• It is very Inexpensive to produce - the hydrogen is produced from water
  and it uses very little.
• It is extremely Clean - It will actually burn the carbon deposits in your engine and the byproduct is water making it very environmentally friendly.
• It is very Safe -  It is safer than any other fuel source currently being used because it is not stored but rather used as it is produced.
• It is Affordable - Right now you can either build a supplemental hydrogen unit for about $200 or you can purchase fully functional units starting at $247

Most of the research is done inJAPAN.

My stamps design for Japan country:

Most of the research is done inJAPAN.

My stamps design for Japan country:

Could coffee be the alternative fuel of the future? or then we could just fly

Researchers from the University of Nevada, Reno, have discovered that coffee can be turned into an alternative fuel other than caffeine: biodiesel. And you can have your coffee and drink it too.
my stamp design:

Will we learn to fly in future?

Info graphic of the movies

After various attempts to make an info graphic showing all that I have learnt from watching these movies. I had various issues with trying to abstract and incorporate all the elements of each movie. But as I tried finding elements of each movie I realized that a lot of them are not common factors.
This info graphic in fact does not have the time lines I posted about previously. As it did not fit with the info graphic I decided to make that separately. I will be posting those time lines soon. I am now hoping to find a different way representing the information I got out of the movies.
Right now the elements which I have incorporated are time travel and movies where time is an abstraction. Along with time travel there is the usual aspects as to why one would time travel, hey need something that would help them travel in time, what they are changing by going back int ime and what gave them the opportunity to go back in time. Almost every movie that has time travel will have to deal with these main aspects or address them at soem point of time. The issue with this is that although they address it they are  not clearly defined. So as this element is subjective it leaves one feeling unsure about the dissection of the movies itself.
My issue with these main topics is that they are very basic. They do not give justice to the story of the movie and does not give the opportunity to go into the greater details of time travel itself.
Apart from that the aesthetics of the info graphic itself are not satisfactory. 

Carbon fiber chopsticks- Kanak

http://www.paddlinginstructor.com/gear/3948-behold-the-future-carbon-fibre-chopsticks-overpriced-gear.html

further iterations- Kanak Jaitli

The use of chopsticks is an art which has to be learned. So I moved away from the problems associated with the structure of the chopstick for some time. I decided on exploring the amount of food contained in the chopstick. The sides of the chopstick, which hold the food in between then, can have slight dents or depressions in them. Either both or just a single chopstick can have this.

Iterations

The material of the chopstick Kanak Jailti

The material by which a chopstick is made is also very important and in the future this will be the most important aspect.

Currently, entire forests are being wiped out to mass produce chopsticks which are made from light wood in Japan and China. These light wood chopsticks are for a 'one time use' only. Thus, this process is not in harmony with the environment. Aspen wood is used to make disposible chopsticks.

The materials which can be used to make chopsticks in the future can be:
1. Water Hyacinth paper. It is hard, produces very less carbon footprint, and is cheap.
2. Bamboo. Bamboo is eco friendly, pesticide free and alos very cheap.
3. Recyclable paper chopsticks. Industrial designer Chung Ran Hee has made an attemped at this. This method is eco friendly and portable.

After an absence of a clear concept for about two weeks I've decided to work on an installation. I want to talk about the transient nature of time and how it directly effects

knowledge. As of right now I want my form to be a bench. I had also considered the interior of a vehicle but decided a bench would be preferable due to its intelligibility and unpretentiousness.

The simplicity of a bench lies not only in its unaltered form but also in its function. The real world uses vary quite a bit - from sitting on it - waiting for a bus to spen

ding the night on one. But the common thread I want to exploit is the fact that no matter what activity takes place, its always for a feasible, calculable period of time, thus transient. I want this to be my basis to show how over time, knowledge that we had once gained, can one day be lost, disproved or altered. I want to discuss how what we know at a particular period can actually be what we think we know and not the ultimate truth.

The beauty of knowledge lies in the actuality that there is so

much we cannot know.

First prototyping stage- Kanak Jaitli

My first serious prototyping attempt was with the curved fork attached at the side of the chopstick. But a serious fault was the eating difficulty. The food was being interlocked.

Another idea is the chopstick having curved edges. The other chopstick will be normal in its function. Thus, the food can be entangled in the curve and the flat side can act as a grasp.

The areas of my consideration are- 

1. The difficulty faced while holding them

2. The material that should be used when it will be mass produced. (environment friendly)

3. The issue of portability

4. The firm grasp for the food.

hope for something like this

www.inception-explained.com/?1/
I think this has been executed brilliantly.

My mentors:

Shailee Adke : http://shaileea.tumblr.com/

Lima : http://www.grannysloveindia.com/AboutUs.html

A few artist's blogs that i follow

http://anekdesigns.com

http://kirinote.blogspot.in/

The other part

After watching most of the movies where the story is told most effectively using time as an element, I am considering if part of the info-graphic should be on a timeline for better understanding.
Where each movie would have the movie played out in real time and one more which breaks the story down.
By the looks of it it wont be only one info-graphic but two. Where the second one would be a whole list of time lines. Probably timeline of only 3 movies.
The three most complicated so far are
-Wicker park
-The Prestige
-The Momento

Movie break up

This is the basic break up of the movies. These are just three categories in which the movies are going to be broken up into, the more specific details of the break up in relation with time will come into the info graphic directly.

Back to the future-
Mode of transport: Time machine
to secure love
what resulted to travel:
- by mistake: for himself
-to change the future: for family
- to correct a mistake in the past: for friend

Midnight in Paris:
mode of transport: time machine
to find love
what resulted in time travel:
chance: to experience the past

Prince of Persia:
mode of time travel: the sand in the dagger
to save loved ones
What resulted in time travel:
discovered by mistake: to alter a few minutes of the past

Donnie Darko
Mode of time travel: portal
To save the world
what resulted in the travel:
dreams?

Prisoner of Azkhaban:
mode of time travel: time turner
To save a life
What resulted n time travel:
catching up with class

Time travelers wife:
mode of time travel: human body
to secure destiny
what resulted in time travel: a defect in the body. 

Dejavu:
Mode of time travel: science
to save lives
what resulted in time travel:
A science experiment.

Proposal for the future of performance art

In my last blog post I listed a few predictions. This is how I plan on achieving them in my semi-devised performance.

Prediction I

Performances being restricted in a smaller space.

I plan to perform in a box that is a 3’x3’x3’ cube constructed from wooden frames. The rear of the cube is an acrylic mirror sheet, the front is a 2-way mirror, and the top, right and left are fabric planes. The bottom of the box is left open.

Prediction II

Disconnect between the performer and the audience

The two way mirror works on the principle – ‘whichever side of the mirror has more light can be seen through by the person on the other side’. Before the performance begins, the light inside the box is off and the audience lights are on, hence, the audience cannot look through the two way mirror but just see a reflection of themselves.

As soon as the audience light goes off and the stage lights( light inside the box) come on, the audience can see through the two-way mirror and it becomes a mirror for the performer inside the box. Therefore the performer cannot see the audience but himself creating a disconnect.

Prediction III

Simple movement with repetition

In the final performance, there’ll be more focus on movement than words. I plan to keep the performance visually rich.

Also, considering there are 2 mirrors in the box facing each other, the audience will be able to see an infinity effect causing repetition of every simple movement done by the performer. Also, the mirrors will give more depth to the space, as a result making it appear bigger.

Prediction IV

Basic lighting and monochrome

Considering the fact that the box has 2 mirrors parallel to each other, even a single source light i.e. a CFL bulb works perfect and gives dramatic shadows.

The performer’s body is painted grey as I want NO color inside the box, NOT EVEN SKIN. It’s all black and white monochrome.

Crochet

First Stage

Basically I am developing my skills in crochet and then i will get on to making a product with the same hand craft.

Iterations and the 1st phase of research Kanak Jaitli

I have narrowed down to re-designing the chopstick and a spoon. For the chopstick, I look into the difficulties other people face while using it, the properties of the Chinese food and why it needs chopsticks, the history and development of the chopsticks and how, according to me, will it change in the future.

I have done some iterations and research on this subject. This is the first stage of my project.

Questioning the survival of man -Raj Palan

Scott Robertson    Neville Page    Michael Kutsche    Bobby Chiu

These are few of the leading concept artists working in the entertainment industry today, whose work is a constant source of inspiration for me.

The imaginative works of art conjured by these artists have always captivated me, and their constant efforts to push their own boundaries has made them the stars of their field.

These people have an in depth knowledge of composition, anatomy, perspective, colour and light; which allows them to bring their ideas to life through a visual medium.

Having always been a dreamer i feel a strong connection to their works which, has fuelled within me, a desire to bring my own ideas to life.

For this project I am imagining a future in which the climatic conditions of earth have deteriorated and people have started to believe that the time for the extinction of the human race has come.

The dependence on technology and their sedentary lifestyle has made the humans weak and fragile and they are no longer able to withstand the harsh conditions outside.

Due to this some groups of people have started forming cults called evolutionaries which perform experiments on humans to modify their bodies.

Though human experimentation is still not legalized these cults use various means to hide their activities and perform their experiments in hope that they can find a successful way to strengthen their bodies.

The Future Of Performance Art

Theatre is all about communicating an idea or a story to an audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance. And being a talkative person, this had to be my area of research.

I see the present and the past of theatre as its future. So much has already been done; artists have gone to extremes not just to move their audiences but to also learn from their performances. There’ve been performances that last for months together with the artist learning more than the audience. The only difference I predict for the future is not much in the performance aspect but in the stage dynamics.

We’re already living in a time where the artist becomes everything on stage from the props to the sound to the co-performers. The artist uses simple props, costume and lighting to have a conversation about the most complex things. I've noticed a lot of repetition in the movement of the performers in order to bring about an impact. Performance has become more about an instilling experience than mere entertainment.

My inspirations are

Jyoti Dogra : An Indian stage and screen actor. One of my greatest inspirations is her performance 'The Doorway'.

Marina Abramovic : Called the grandmother of performance art. Her physically and emotionally draining performances are mostly about exploring the limits of the human body.
Pina Bausch : A dance theatre performer with some brilliantly choreographed pieces namely Café Muller and The Rite of spring.
Nikhil Chopra : A charcoal artist and performer with performances dealing with daily life experiences and indulgence in multiple personalities.

In my future prediction of this long lived stage art I see the performances being produced in restricted spaces as the large has already been widely delved into. I see the artist controlling the audience not always with a connect (traditionally an eye contact in the predominant theatre culture) but by the intriguing disconnect. I’m imagining a time where dialogues are replaced by sounds or movement, where the performances are monochromatic with something as simple as a single source light.

As a final output of my project I plan on devising a performance hopefully as how I see the future of theatre to be. I will be talking about the performance idea in my next post.