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