Jaaga Journals
Jaaga Journals is a daily video journal of things that happen at Jaaga. It’s my job to capture on video and publish all the wonderful craziness that goes on there. If you would like to volunteer to be part of this project (to shoot, edit, overlay music or anything that you think up of) please get in touch with me at archana[at]jaaga.in
CitySignals
The rapid urbanisation that Bangalore is witnessing is a cause for much concern as well pride. Amongst the cacophony created by this process of change, the city appears to have lost its voice. It seems to have lost the ablity to connect with the people who reside within it. This project is a collaboration with sound, video and movement artists in a bid to create a live performative dialog with the city and its people. We hope to create an awareness of the citys’ spaces and their significance to its people through our efforts.
The Manjunauts
After the last signals faded over to the dark side of the moon, the unbearable news of their lost space-craft trickled down to earth, breaking many a teenage heart. You or your uncles might remember the failed, joint NASA-ISRO rescue missions, and those desperate prayers offered at Tirupathi. Armed with some old video MACHINES and VCR tapes rescued from obscurity THE MANJUNAUTS, presumably lost, given up on, have resurfaced. They have recast themselves as an orchestra, when the time comes they will return to their roots as space explorers, but for now they are here to FUNK US OUT. The Manjunaut Trio, like the Jackson Five, the Gundeja Brothers or the Corleone Family are a tight unit. Video Machines, Harmoniums, toy piano’s and customized software are played and tinkered with – recreating those trips to the asteroid belt that your grandfather always talked about.
The Bobbleheads
VJing with the Bobbleheads on the 4th of April 2009 at the Goethe Institut, Bangalore was a fantastic experience. Tanvi Rao, Suman Sridhar, Kamal Singh and I featured with this newly formed electronica act. Must say it was a super fun experiment for me to play with 6 projectors in a perfect-for-VJing auditorium. And better still, we opened for one super amazing German electronica act – Mouse on Mars. These guys absolutely rock!!!
Photocredits: Arnab Dey
Underground Mondays at Maya
I also sometimes VJ at nightclubs and love seeing these spaces come alive with video projections. Starting off with a couple of gigs with DJ Bipin and Roberto Narain way back in 2005 at Taika, I plugged in with the super talented DJ Nuerotesque (aka Rahul Giri) for a brief stint at the Underground Monday scene at Maya mid 2008.
[[=image UndergroundMonday1s.jpg size=”small”]] || [[=image UndergroundMonday2s.jpg size=”small”]] || [[=image UndergroundMonday3S.jpg size=”small”]]
Posters designed by Shilo Shiv Suleman
Nameless Now
Nameless Now, an electronic music and video-art project, is an amalgamation of original sounds – spoken word, electronic music, and inventive visual sentiment. Coming from distant geographies across South Asia, the artists in this project rely on advanced online digital technology to communicate and collaborate on developing the conceptual direction and content programming. This nomadic audio-visual experiment plays with the performance space and context directly and ‘in the now’. The audience, location and culture of the space where each performance is held is the thread with which this group weaves its electronic magic. We interpret where we are through the uber-modern electronic medium in a hyper real-time audio-visual immersive sensory mode, which makes for a state-of-the-art creative experiment.
Lounge Piranha
I worked with a Bangalore-based post-rock band called Lounge Piranha from around early 2005 till late 2008 . This project was my efforts at live video performance art. The aspect of performance art came mainly from the fact that the video projections were assembled, edited and projected live at the shows. While the band created sound with musical instruments, I created projected visuals with my laptop. My background as an animation film designer fromNID really came into play here. A live installation aspect came from using theater techniques specifically with lights to create the mood and ambiance for the bands’ performances. My last performance with this band was as part of their Going Nowhere India tour in September 2008. See a video of one of the shows on the 7-city tour here >>
Animation
I studied Animation Film Design at [*http://www.nid.edu NID] between 2000 and 2004. It was a crazy ride and I learnt animation the classical style – cel or hand-drawn animation. I love it. It makes sense to me as an artist and over time I hope to use my learning to tie up with my interest in performance art with Lounge Piranha.
http://www.youtube.com/p/83116C4653A03B0D
Archana Prasad 