Team Project: Invasion of Private Space

We often don't realize it, but we usually have a space around us that we call "private space". It's in close proximity to our bodies and we tend to dislike anyone entering it without permission. This can be best portrayed by using the example of staring into somebody's eyes. While eye contact is normal and even encouraged during interaction between people, it is usually considered to be rude if you do it to a stranger on the bus for example. Whenever this happens, we tend to become nervous and we may try to avoid the gaze by looking away but no matter what we do, it is unnerving. One says "The eyes are the window to the soul" -- so what if we take 3 people and connect their eyes? What if each eye sees somebody else's eye and there is no way to avoid it? What if you literally stared at 2 people's eyes at the same time while they do the same to you. What will you do?
Will you frantically try to avoid them, will you start comparing the two eyes? Who's calmer? Who's eyes are more pleasing to look at? Who can you relate to more? 

This project tries to answer these very personal questions. It's an exploration of personal space,  an invasion of the "inner space" .

Invisible Cities

A storyboard inspired by Italo Calvino's "Invisible Cities"

I was inspired by the language and mood of the book and the intense surrealism that lingered with every place and journey described there. And I believe the same kind of surrealism exists in real life. Calvino's book brings together the world of fiction and truth and shows how integrated they are. And walking down the streets of a busy city, these are some of the thoughts that have come up...
Interpret as you may :)

Project 1 Exploring "space": A "Times Square" View of NYC

 

When we were asked to come up with an idea to creatively express the concepts and human experiences of space, I ventured out into the city to look for inspiration. I soon noticed just how much useless information are available all over the city. Information that dosen't necessarily help anyone in any way. So, out of plain impulse, I started collecting these materials of "free information" wherever I could get hold of some. At this point, I had no idea what I was going to do with these papers. All I knew that I wanted to derive and make something out of them. Later, as I looked through all the material I had collected, I thought of making a collage of the city bringing together its artificiality, as expressed by all these useless pieces of information that mostly comprised of "great deals" "limited offers" and "low prices".  However as I went through the papers, I discovered some nice words that got me thinking how the city also has so many wonderful things. I thought there was a great paradox building up here, especially because I found most of these papers around the subway (where these ads promoting the artificial are mostly seen) and it's also where all sorts of art music and poets linger around filling the city with a lot of colour and creativity. I realized the artifice overshadows a lot of the things which are truly beautiful and original in the city. In the process, I ended up picking out words, and found myself making more of a typographic collage of the city - of the most cliched image of the city (i.e. an image that is as seen and commercial as the ads on display --- the skyline!). The aim was to show how the artifice overshadows the real colours of this glorious city.
    In my next step, I created a total digital version of my collage. No more paper, only the 'illusion' of paper and I colour coded it to show how under the artifice, there were other things hidden. As mentioned earlier, this project was a direct interpretation of what Times Square seemed to be to me and in the third step, I tried to portray how mass commercialization just blurs out all that we could've otherwise noticed about a place.

I'd like to work more on this project and make a series of images based on the concepts of space, human experience and commercialization.