Aratrika text on practice 1st draft

1. What have you been making?

I have been working on a short film for the EYE-project, titled “where is a portal?”. It is a visual poem about gateways to other worlds I noticed, looked for and found, or were thrust upon me in my everyday life. I have also been gathering self-recorded clips of myself, in my room where I spend most of my time, filmed in moments of moments of joy and euphoria, or whenever the sun is out. Often along with clips of things I see from my bedroom window.

2. How did you do it? (method)

Image-making for me is the first step to discovery and meaning-making. I follow the rhythms of my body and moods to make images and then look back on them and see what they could mean to me, what narrative they create for me and my experiences. They also are a way of discovery and documentation of the world around me.

Project 1:

What:

A 3-minute long, 4:3 film made up of clips taken on an 2000’s digital camera. Titled “where is a portal?”. It is a visual poem about gateways to other worlds I noticed, looked for and found, or were thrust upon me in my everyday life. The footage retains the in-camera colour and light and the sound is the raw ambient sound from the footage itself.

How:

I spent a few days shooting as I went about my daily routines and travels, then closer to the deadline I sat down and looked at the footage all together and see how I could bring a sense of rhythm and flow to the clips so they could inform each other.

Why are you making it?

In the past I’ve leaned more towards making photos than moving images, and in making photos I feel like you see portals, in different places… like you see a still image and it feels like a portal. So I’ve had a lot of moments with photos where I was like: this is amazing, this takes you somewhere else. I’ve also been thinking about portals you don’t just stumble upon but ones you create, as a means to go where you want to go. I was talking to my friend and we were talking about what you want from a portal says something about you and your desires. It’s also an escape from your reality and it tells you about things that you don’t like about where you are currently. It’s also trippy and it feels like an immersive experience. A feeling of going elsewhere; it’s always positive, or optimistic rather. That’s why I’ve been interested in it.

This was also my first time really having to think of a topic and then shooting footage for it intentionally and putting it together. I usually film whenever I feel moved to do it, and then it comes together as a coherent work later. So the theme I’m exploring and my method of making it was new for me to explore. This was also my first time trying this old digicam and shooting with it and discovering its textures and how it really works in action.

Project 2:

What will it be?

A film montage of visuals of me filmed by myself using different (possibly instagram) filters. In these clips I am alone, doing everyday things, often looking into the camera. There is overlaying audio that creates a coherence and narrative.

Why do you want to make it?

I am interested in the ways we choose to depict ourselves, the joys of choosing and building our identities. I have been exploring self portraiture in this way for a while now and want to put the different clips together and see what I discover.

Describe how it would be made:

-Look through archives from 2019-now and download relevant and interesting clips

-Put them into a video editing timeline

-Play around with them in terms of order, duration, colour

-Make note of what kind of themes or narratives emerge, feel free to experiment with various iterations

-If it feels right work on a voice over or sound design to tie everything together

-Imagine how it might play out as a video installation

Extra steps:

-Imagine how it might play out as a video installation

-Play around with TouchDesigner

3. Relation to previous practice

Looking back, at the beginning of the program I had more of a focus on still images and still image self-portraiture (in the sense of having the camera facing my body), which I see less of in my practice today. Me recording myself doing everyday things remains part of my practice that I want to build on and make into an expanded work. I find myself turning the camera away from myself more, but it still feels like a story of the self, just through a different method.

I have gained a new skill of working with video editing software (da vinci resolve) that I have incorporated into my moving image work to use it to build contrast and a narrative of sorts. I think it’s a useful space for me to play around with material that exists in my archive.

I have however been thinking more about things that are happening in the world and my place in it, and how I can intentionally incorporate things that are of growing importance to me in my work. I think my existing practice of diaristic everyday images does have space to incorporate new elements into it, subtly. I do think I’m feeling a shift in myself, and looking for a way to use my work to explore that more, or vice versa (use the shift to explore new forms of work).

4. What do you want to make next? + 5. Why do you want to make it?

Considering this shift I'm noticing in my every day life and worldview, I feel like my work hasn't caught up to it yet. A lot of it has been feeling moved to act and change my daily life around because of things happening in the world and in my home country of India. I've started feeling my connection to these events and my role in them in a significant way, differently than I did before. I suppose I could say I feel myself getting more "radicalised". And now I'm thinking about what spaces already exist in my practice to incorporate these new parts of myself.

Anything you make has the influence of the world around you in it. But it's something I'm trying to consider more intentionally in my work. For example, my work Portals... one way I read it is that it's about dissociating, escaping reality in a way that brings you pleasure. It's a theme I'm still interested in exploring, and would like to play around with to see how I can reconcile it with other subjects. Instead of, say, starting an entirely new practice from scratch, I want to see how these new ideas can enter my already existing practice I have built.

So what I want to do next is spend a lot of time playing and sketching, maybe trying different media like collage and photo and text and see what that brings up for me. I want to get out of my head and channel my energy into other media and see where that leads me.

I also want to return to my practise of making more photographs. I feel like the program so far has been focused a lot more on moving image, which I want to continue exploring in my practice, but also want to return to the stillness/feelings of extended time I find in photographs. Lesser information in the frame of an image feels like a good step forward for me.

I would also love to look into the logistics and skills it would take to expand on Project 2 in the form of a video installation in a space. Under this umbrella, I'm also thinking about themes of performance, which is something I would like to explore more by learning about other works that interest me in this field. In the context of this project specifically, I'm also thinking about the surface of the screen and the materiality of it, the textures of it. What does it mean to manipulate a digital surface, whether the manipulation happens in-camera or in post?

6. Relation to a larger context