Wires and Walls

[vedathozhurkolleri]

Windows in Underground Tanks Peenya Metro Station, Bangalore September 2015.

This piece began as an attempt to mock the scale of structures such as these and what they stand for. Through the process of execution however, I was forced to grow less hostile towards the space. My interest, through this sustained engagement, was really centred on understanding the existing visual language of the space, and then reinventing this language in a way that would emphasise its rigidity but still offer room for possibility.  

I have found that my own movement along the length of this piece is visible in the transformation of my visual language that, at the time, came to me instinctively. I allowed myself to be led by this instinct in order to disturb the calculated precision with which structures such as these are built up; as if to indicate that there is still some room, between opaque windows, tangled wires, and impenetrable walls.    

[vedathozhurkolleri]

The complete mural

[vedathozhurkolleri]

[vedathozhurkolleri]

[vedathozhurkolleri]

[vedathozhurkolleri]

This is what I go to the metro station with everyday. Since here’s one place I can breach security protocol, I thought I might as well take this photograph. 

[vedathozhurkolleri]

[vedathozhurkolleri]

What one gathers from viewing the process of the making of something would be very different from what one would gather from the finished piece. Being in the middle of my process, and being challenged by the many obstructions that come with its execution, I feel that I need to video-document something of what it’s like to work here. Here is one of the videos I’ve taken so far.    

[vedathozhurkolleri]

Since I’d made drawings of the kind of ideas I had, it was much easier for me to begin. I also enjoyed having multiple surfaces to work on, but having spent three weeks on just this section, I was also overwhelmed by the number of surfaces I thought I needed to cover. I decided to move on to the next section and maybe return to this one after having worked on something else for a while.  

[vedathozhurkolleri]

These drawings served as a means to enter the space with something to hold on to. 

I felt that by creating a series of drawings of the kind of ideas I had for the wall, I would be better equipped to actually begin. These were drawings that I made off site over a week and a half. I thought that a break from site would keep me from letting the scale of the wall intimidate me. 

[vedathozhurkolleri]

Since drawing allows one to develop a sense of ownership towards one’s subject so automatically, I exhausted myself with drawing on site. I’ve found drawing on site limits me such that I only draw what I see because I’m so easily distracted by what I see.  I find the scale of this space particularly daunting, and the windows somehow seem to be taking over the wall. I also noticed that they serve no real purpose (aside from the minimal ventilation they provide through the blinds and the amount of light they let in). Some of them are placed below the stairs in the metro, and others are blocked by the stairs. I’m considering incorporating these windows into my composition, where I could either turn them into doors to rooms, or turn them into boxes.  

[vedathozhurkolleri]

I am looking to occupy this space in the Peenya metro station. We located this space on the basis of the nature of my interventions, where I’m interested in making something that would demand an intimate viewing, which is why I have chosen this front façade. After having worked with paint for my collaboration with Fabrice, I feel even more strongly about this space, where I feel that I could attempt to generate a certain kind of atmosphere in this space, and the windows that look into the station can be used to either exaggerate this atmosphere, or contrast it.   

[vedathozhurkolleri]

24th March, 2015

I find that working with colour allows me a lot more control over what I want to evoke. Through most of what I’ve done upto this point, I realise that in borrowing from elements within the space and exaggerating them, what I really am working with is creating atmosphere. 

[vedathozhurkolleri]

20th March, 2015

I have finished one half of my collaboration with Fabrice. I’ve been working with charcoal upto this point, and I am now beginning to feel very strongly about using paint for the rest of it. We are left with the dead side of the park, and it seems like the right place to introduce this transition. I’m curious to see how using paint will complicate my process.

[vedathozhurkolleri]

12th March, 2015

Fabrice and I are going to be collaborating on a mural in a park in SFS. We were thinking of this notion of having to create a separate area that is gated, almost like a zone, where people can enjoy themselves - and something like this as punctuating monotony - and how this takes its form as a park in SFS. Aside from the practical reasons as to why this may be necessary, we were looking at this more as a phenomenon of how people seem to feel the need to have designated spaces or designated periods of time to enjoy themselves, and it is this that we want to create a narrative of.     

We are thinking of creating a panorama of houses (in black and white) - like a façade of SFS, interrupted by symbols that would represent the park quite literally (like a slide or a swing), and have  characters (in colour) interact with the panorama only at these parks. Simultaneously, we will have some characters trying to intrude into monotonous territory, but the (black and white) humans discourage their advances (by pushing them, pulling them back, etc.), and in some other sections, we will have these humans struggle to drag the characters of colour into their homes.

Over the weekend we will be working on these visuals independently - Fabrice will design characters, and I will make visuals of the panorama. We will be doing this to start our process before we get to site. When we begin on the wall on Monday, we will use our visualisations as what we will start with, but will improvise depending on how it looks on the wall, because both of us felt that we would be able to work more confidently when we're on site, but only tentatively on paper.

[vedathozhurkolleri]

11th March, 2015

I went back to Peenya today. After my intervention in Bombay, I think that I might be looking at structure more consciously than before. My visit there today was more to reorient myself towards Peenya, and to realise that I am back with renewed insights. 

[vedathozhurkolleri]

10th March, 2015

While assessing the locality that we were to work within,  I found that its landscape seemed predictable; so much so that I felt that I could fill the empty spaces with drawings that would complete it. I realized that what made the space predictable was its repetition – as if everything was dictated by a specific structure. On finding decrepit walls that exist almost as if to merely create contrast, I chose to draw windows in repetition to make up for what the larger space saw as something these walls lacked. I thought that the nature of my drawing would appear as a mockery of the space, and my act of building these windows would mimic the act of forcing structure upon urban landscapes.