Name: Anuja Shukla
Year of enrollment: 2012
Focus area/Program: Aesthetics & Critical Studies
Program Advisor/ Mentor: Dr. Vasanthi Mariadass
- PROJECT TITLE: Why did you choose this project and what was involved in the decision making process?
TITLE: Memory Lab
My area of basic interest is storytelling and I felt by choosing memory lab I would be able to develop a connect between my stories and personal life. Also, it gave me all the freedom of playing around with different mediums, so I could explore more and broaden up my views.
- SUBJECT: Reflect on the subject matter of your chosen project and the breadth of research that you have conducted on this subject?
We had three different movements for the memory lab. The first one included three steps to grow. In the first step, we had to pick out one instance as far back as we remembered and represent it. I took up a memory from my childhood explaining my obsession with butterflies and drew an illustration as well as attached a sound file to it. But I couldn’t conflate them together. Likewise the execution grew to a short animation and then a storybook with the steps. This first movement was a basic introduction as for how one deals with memories. I specially found the meditation before the exercise very fascinating. When we tried to delve deeper into the past taking control on the breathing, instances that I never remembered consciously began flashing by. Not that they were very significant or something but I was shocked I still had them somewhere in my mind. Also, they were so dear that they always made me sad afterwards.
The second movement included the subject of historicity, where taking up an ancestral object we had to relate it to our historicity. I decided to to take two objects, one of them being my music diary from my grandpa, second a book of Russian stories. These objects had to be displayed within a frame, so I decided on a biscope which would play a story based on the power of music. All except the mechanism of the biscope was fine. It was very labour intensive. The only way to see the working of a biscope was through the internet. I got lot of ideas from the audience as well. The third movement went quite slow as we were partners with students of URI. Also, they were photography students and me being miles away from it, it became quite difficult to conflate the project together. But towards the end we figured out ways. Again they were quite contrasting and this project was sort of a failure but taught me a lot. Only way to learn was through regular feedbacks from people around.
3) AIMS/OBJECTIVES/CONCEPTS: How and to what extent have you achieved the aim and objectives of the projects? Describe the main concepts driving the projects.
I could do the ideation well during the first movement but failed to push it forward. All my ideas assume a fullstop really soon and I need to work really hard on pushing them forward. especially during the last project, even though my partner and me were working on the same idea, the execution came out to be very different and it didn’t seem like a project done together. Without the storybook, it would have been very difficult to even figure out who my partner was. I always wanted to work laterally on ideas and revolve around storytelling. I think metaphors are a really nice way to describe but at times it doesn’t work. Its good that I know my major drawback by now because of the feedbacks and crits.
- AUDIENCE: Are you addressing a specific audience with your work within these projects? For example, a specific community, your peers, members of your family, a corporation or business,educators, patients of a hospital department, government agencies?
No as of now there was no target audience. Though the work was mostly childish but it didn’t address only a particular group of audience.
5)FORM/MEDIUM/PRESENTATION: What are the forms and methods of presentation that you are working with? From the work you have done so far, have you gained any insights on your approach to making, doing and documenting?
My mediums were very distinct from one another all the three times and each time I learned where I lacked. The first one was a storybook and a puppet, which was simply kept on a table. I could have worked on the aura of my memory too, or could have taken forward that story from a story book to a performance may be.
In the second movement, the mechanism of the biscope was a major pain. I could use gears next time to make it efficient.
The third project didn’t show the collaboration that well. Also, the executing methods were very distinct. I need to communicate more often with not only the partner but faculties and peers.
- RESEARCH METHODS: What kind of research methods have you used to research the projects work in depth, and how has your research informed your process?
Mainly through the articles that we got to read and on the internet, the works that people have already done in this area, we got an idea about the thing. Since memory lab was open to all sorts of interpretations, the end products were very varied.
- REFERENCES: How useful were the references you explored so far- the artists, anthropologists, designers, writers or other practitioners?
Reading their work gave me not only an idea of the thing but knowledge, that amazed us. For the last movement, we exchanged a few links and that helped us a lot in the process and execution.
- POSITION & RELATIONSHIP: How do you think your projects would function in, or be positioned to contribute to, similar contemporary fields of production?
Like I mentioned, they need a huge break out. I think the ideas could go but the execution should be done in decent manner. There are a thousand ways of representing ideas, even laterally and before giving in to one method, I should be able to choose the best from many.
