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“Ecocentric” exhibition with the students in RMZ EcoWorld, Bangalore

 

3 weeks of workshops with Srishti University for Art, Design and Technology students resulted with an exhibition opened on 14.12.17. in the complex of RMZ Ecoworld in Banglaore, India’s most rapidly growing city that has it’s devastating effect on the environment. As Bangalore is known as Silicon Valley of India, its population is growing at amazing rate. RMZ IT Park, with office spaces, health activity facilities, shopping, dining, amphitheatre and art gallery, promotes itself as “work-leisure sustainable environment where natural and architectural forms are symbiotically integrated using responsible planning and precise engineering”.

Site specific installation “Ecocentric” juxtapositions its organic aesthetics to human engineered pavilion that proudly announces its ecological concept. A small forest was created, mulched with coconut leftovers from Bangalore street vendors. After that it was inhabited with multi-plant life that was “fed” by the custom frequencies from small speakers placed in the soil.

LCD screen was informing public on ecocentric activities dating all the way back to beginning of 20th century, proposing sound as a genuine organic fertilizer for the plants.

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Knock Off 1

In the future, time is not measured in ages of informational and technological development anymore. Time is now measured and understood as ages of geological and climatic change.

We arrive in a world that is already comfortably settled into the new ways and sensibilities of the climatic revolution.  Before, the world pivoted through the power of machines, simulations and statistics. Now, humanity’s every step is dictated by weather anomalies, wind currents and the rising and the ebbing of the tide.Finally knocked off our perch, the human species comes second to the raw force of nature.

 

This blogpost was written by Rudradutt Ranade (Creative writing) as an Ecocentric project assignment on nature, environment, extinction and apocalypse.
Texts are collaboratevly illustrated by Ishan Srivastava (Digital Media Arts).

 

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Mr. Sundeep´s EIEIO Farm

Ecocentric students and visiting artist went on 5th December to field trip visiting organic farm a little out of Bangalore on the road to Mangalore. The farm produced organic vegetables and herbs on a reasonably moderate scale, and was managed by a family of three, who continually shuttle between the city and the farm.

Group was initially given a brief about organic  farming  before taken around the farm. The owner spoke about organic  farming, and helped the group to formulate some ideas that could be invested in the final installation. Owner,  Mr. Sudeep took the group trough the Groundnuts, Avrekai, Toor Dal, Coconut, tomato, passion fruit, papaya, mango, and avocado.

There was also a small herb garden and a single bee hive for cross pollination which housed the indigenous species Apis Cerana Indica. This species, having adapted to the Indian subcontinent has developed ways to avoid being eaten by Bee Eaters by flying in a random motion, which confuses the bird and reduces its chances of catching the bee. The mistake that people make by breeding the Italian bees (Apis Mellifera) in India is that these bees only know how to fly in straight lines, and therefore are an easy catch for birds.

In the afternoon group participated in a farming activity, where Avrekai and Groundnut seeds were planted.

These seeds have been prepared with a special bacterial powder beforehand, to ensure growth. Also, harvesting Toor dal was conducted.

From this experience group learned the practical process of growing plants and also the patience and investment it requires in order to grow and maintain farms.

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Ecocentric

Project Ecocentric is part of the Srishti Interim, headed by visiting artist Kruno Jošt and ecologist Lana Novosel from Croatia and permanent faculty Prakrithy Pradeep, a permanent facility in Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore, India. Ecocentric is a four week project that spans from 22nd November to 16th December 2017 and is part of Srishti’s Interim conducted at N5 campus of Srishti University, Bangalore, India.

Project Ecocentric is informed by a growing need of artistic responses to the questions introduced by Anthropocentric concepts (and practices) and its counterpart ecocentrism. The premise throughout the last few centuries was that art is a form of communication between humans, and more recently between humans and machines. Ecocentrism is grounded in belief that, compared to the undoubted importance of the human component, the whole ecosphere is even more significant and consequential; more inclusive, more complex, more integrated, more creative, more beautiful, more mysterious. Ecocentric, thus, explores and finds ways to create art made by humans for plants.

The project includes research, dialogue, recording images (moving and still) and sounds, note-taking, editing and implementation. Students and visiting artists visited the nearby Avalahalli Forest on 29th November, the Art of Living ashram on 1st December and Ee-eye Ee-eye Oh Farms on 5th December as part of field trip exercises. Field trips help research and document different practices in connection to human and plant/animal communication, and questions the viewer’s position in the art operating systems.

Human communication is often misrepresented as a sign of intelligence that caters to our need to dominate over other forms of life. We keep forgetting that other species also use communication and sound, which is even noticed in the plant world. India’s deep verbal history connects worlds of humans and non-humans.

Students: Aditi Boggaram (Public space design), Antara Raman (Visual communication and strategic branding), Arianth Tejas Belliraj (Contemporary art practise), C Nikitha (Industrial art and design practise), Gajal Jain (Industrial art and design practise), Ishan Srivastava (Experimental media arts), Kshitij Chaudhuri (Industrial arts and design practises), Lakshmi Mrugendra Behere (Industrial arts and design practises), Matthew Arnold Mata (Contemporary art practise), Neeraj Saraswat (Film), Rudradutt Ranade (Creative writing), Shraddha Rastogi (Experimental media arts), Shrishti Kedlaya (Industrial arts and design practise), Swarnima Bavadeep (Industrial arts and design practise), Tirtharaj Paul (Visual communication and strategic branding).