"When you don't know where you're going, all roads lead there".

Roman Saying



Upon hitting dead ends and deep waters i decided to just send out S.O.S s every which way i could think of, that i hadn't already done before.

This yielded two good things -

1. Conversations with a range of people which gave me unexpected insights and new directions.

2. Made me go out on a ledge and take the decision of scouting one last time for a location - since i was feeling stuck with the ones i had for many reasons - and I Found It!

Hospital Road

A 15 minute walk from Majestic bus station, this commercial area is at the very heart of Bangalore's 'people traffic'.
It has a wide range of commercial complexes both built and unbuilt, which house brands, non-brands, street vendors, cart vendors etc, for every commodity from clothing to footwear, hardware, lighting, furniture, daily needs and other bric-a-brac.



A good example of this would be the main square of hospital road, which is flanked on three sides by three 'generations' of commercial complexes. on one side is the Janatha Bazaar, housing handicraft and Khadi emporiums. Opposite which is the row of present day market buildings, propped against the sidewalk, with high-end brands on the first floors and older unbranded shops selling the same merchandise. The illegal street hawkers on the sidewalks. And on the third corner of the square is a cordoned-off construction site for a new Multiplex Mall.
Running above these is a walk way connecting both sides of the street. on both sides of which are citi-walk malls , constructed mall areas for various kinds of shops- similar to tibetan market.






Turning off this busy main street and down onto Iyengar Road, towards Avenue road is a very interesting area.
This area is more than half a century old with buildings that date back to 1958. Primarily a residential area populated by south indians, the rise in the property rates due the commercialization of Hospital rd and Iyengar rd led to the owners renting out to commercial enterprises which are now owned mostly by north indians. The interesting juxtaposition that i found in this place is that amidst the wide variety of these shops, ranging form florists to hair cutting salons, most of them are places that make and sell sign-making services, from hand-painted signs to flex and vinyl printing and cutting, led-lit and laser signage, they are all produced here.
The older residential buildings in this area are now being demolished to be replaced by newer buildings to house these sign-makers and other commercial businesses.
This current scenario makes for many interesting sites to look at, which could be used as bases for my work.







Through this area a two-step project plan-of-action became clear to me :

1)One of the basic aims of my project is a very fundamental question in itself- how does image in a space affect people?

coming from a conversation with Aniruddha Abhyankar, who has been working with and in public spaces for a while now, he pointed me towards using basics to begin.

Considering the wide cross-section of people that come through this area - it would be possible to explore the idea of 'image' in a very fundamental sense - sans context.

breaking it down to basics such as
color,
line,
shape,
the beginning is made possible by carrying out small experiments everyday on the sidewalks and crosses using simple elements:
for eg: painting a blank white/red/black etc. square in the middle of the pattern tiled sidewalk and to record how people react to it, whether walking patterns would change and so on.
A number of these experiments should give me an insight as to how people really do what they do and why.

2) While these exercises provide me with insights that conversations cant, and also get me accustomed to working in public spaces, I have picked out some sites at which i could use these insights to create and execute more contextual 'layered' experiments :

- The idea of various image making techniques and what they signify. Where they come from. Their primary intent and what all else they are used for.Their juxtapositions in spaces and what this says about our current time and place.

In this one area one comes across every kind of image made by a cross-section of techniques.
Lithography posters
Computer printed bills
Flex prints and banners
Hand-painted walls and signage
LED-lit sign boards for branded stores to locally made LED signages and decorative items.






Some ideas:

- Cut Up technique using old discarded flex and billboard signage to make new (possibly subverted) imagery.

- In order to create a dialogue make the people part of the image - live image creation : This will capture both dialogue, reactions, as well as bolster the element of fiction that i am looking to capture.

- The idea of "The Treachery of Images" inspired from Rene Magritte : To take photographs of places and things ( maybe ask people what they would photograph, to remember/iconize/signify this place by) and install them at the original site. - try out different techniques -


Some interesting sites:

An old demolished theatre, now a barren piece of land with a few vestiges of its past, and some new posters.


A corner of what seemed to be a busy ice cream point, right outside this theatre, which is now derelict, with the remains of some old posters.


The square towards Avenue road, a place where books, posters, charts, stickers and other such visual devices. Also the site for the avenue road post office which has now been shifted and vacated.





The beginning of Iyengar road offers many blank spaces .
The sidewalk near the over-bridge, at the beginning of hospital road.