DESIGN STREET: First Chennai Urban Art Installation – commemorating the Child in You

During my travels, when ever I saw the creative of use of public space, like 'The Morning Line' below in Vienna, I used to wonder,why such activity does not happen in our own city. Yes there are installations… permanent political and religious Statues or in some small corner an Art Installation like the one at the corner of Harrington road, which sadly no one notices anymore.

'The Morning Line' installed at Vienna June 7th - Nov 20th, 2010  

So it was a pleasant surprise when I heard from Kishore of ArchitectureRed that they are going to do one installation called “Stack It Up” for CRY in commemoration of the “Child in You”. It is a temporary installation designed to be erected on a prominent public space, in order to create awareness among the public on the crucial issue of children’s right to education, which I could identify with.

STACK IT UP
Image courtesy: Tahaer Zoyab, Triple O Studio

I do believe that…

A)         Education for every child is a must if India has to reach the next level of growth, economically as well as cohesively within the diversity that we have.

B)         We need many more Urban Art installations in the Public places of Chennai City, as it will go a long way to promote a public appreciation of art as whole.

So do support it if you are in Chennai, on 23rd – 25th Nov, 2012, by visiting.... Marina Beach to look at it.

NOW A BRIEF NOTE ON URBAN ART INSTALLATION AND SOME IMAGES OF INSTALLATION ACROSS THE GLOBE. DON'T MISS THE 'GANGNAM STYLE' VIDEO ART IN THE END BY A GREAT SCULPTOR.

Installation Art: A brief note

Stack It Up
Almost ready for visitors - Marina Beach,2012

Installation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Installation artworks have been constructed in exhibition spaces such as museums and galleries, as well as public and private spaces. The genre incorporates a broad range of everyday and natural materials, which are often chosen for their "evocative" qualities, as well as new media such as video, sound, performance, immersive virtual reality and the internet

Installation art came to prominence in the 1970s but its roots can be identified in earlier artists such as Marcel Duchamp and his use of the readymade and Kurt Schwitters' Merz art objects, rather than more traditional craft based sculpture. The "intention" of the artist is paramount in much later installation art whose roots lie in the conceptual art of the 1960s. This again is a departure from traditional sculpture which places its focus on form. Early non-Western installation art includes events staged by the Gutai group in Japan starting in 1954, which influenced American installation pioneers like Allan Kaprow.

Text Curtsey : Wikipedia,click here to read more...

Urban Art Installation

Now here are some interesting Urban Art installation across the globe...

'Expansion'

Would we still be able to exist if we were authentically 'un-contained'?”,

 says Paige Bradley - Sculptor

CLICK HERE TO KNOW MORE

The Cloud Gate aka The Bean by Indian Born Sculptor Anish Kapoor
at Chicago USA To know more about it click here 
IMG Curtsy http://www.chiboysblog.com/the-cloud-gate-a-k-a-the-bean

The B of Bang, Manchester UK 2005 

By Architect Thomas Heatherwick
From "Note on Good Design"
CLICK HERE TO KNOW MORE

Another installation in Vienna

Released two days back on 21st Nov,2012, the new media Urban Art video by Anish Kapoor "Gangnam for Freedom" for in support of Chinese dissident Ai Weiwei....

Finally I leave you with a Time lapse Video clip of its making and the 'Stack It Up' team...  weathering strong wind and rain to complete the installation at Marina Beach for your viewing pleasure...

The ArchitectureRED Team
CLICK HERE TO SEE ONE OF THEIR PROJECT

Here is an interesting article about the installation at Marina beach in Times Of India Today... "New attraction at Marina for next 3 days"  

___

Shashi

ॐ नमः शिवाय

Om Namah Shivaya

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A Note On Good Design Part II

UP, CLOSE & PERSONAL : Felix Dennis – A live tapestry of Pills, Publishing & Poetry

A very interesting and, in my opinion, quite truthful verse about poets by Felix Dennis which caught my attention, few days back. I started to do a little research about the poet and it turned out to be quite an epic story in itself. As I got to know more about the Poet Felix Dennis, who is in fact a publishing Giant with flagship brand like THE WEEK, got me thinking more and more about how writing poetry affects people from different fields and class... but before that, here is the verse...

POETS ANONYMOUS

_________________

My name is Felix and I am a poet

I became a poet five years ago

Following an illness. Of course that's no

Excuse - the illness, I mean. I know

We know about the world poets inhabit -

The wreckage their behaviour brings to wives,

Husbands, children, etc. How the habit

Sours and decimates our loved-ones' lives

Eating up time we could be spending

Late at the office, earning a crust

To pay for our children's mobile phone bills.

Or watching TV with the family. We must

Be honest with ourselves. Think of the horrible

Embarrassment of a loved one forced to say:

"Well to be honest, he/she is a poet."

The appalled silence as the turn away.

We know all that. How we break promises

To take up stamp collecting. We know it,

Locked away in our own selfish world.

My name is Felix and I am a poet.'

__________

Felix Dennis

Following a life threatening illness in 2001, Dennis took up poetry. Within a year, he wrote his first book of verse “A Glass Half Full”, published by Hutchinson in the UK. The launch of this book was accompanied by the first of Dennis's UK-wide poetry reading tours entitled “Did I Mention the Free Wine?” Audiences are offered fine French wine from Dennis’s cellar whilst watching Dennis perform his poetry on stage.

He says,” "When you're writing, you're in a totally different zone... I can start a difficult poem and look up at the clock and see to my astonishment that three hours have passed... Instead of taking crack cocaine, going out with ... and boozing, I'll sit down alone in a room and have just as much fun, if not more."

In his young days he was quite a controversial figure, with prosecution (due to Hippy OZ magazine publication), partying as well as interesting time like staying with John Lennon in his ‘Imagine’ days. On his crack coke addiction days, Felix now says,” It was complete madness - I'm very embarrassed about it. I had a wonderful time, I'm not going to lie, but I shouldn't have done it.”

On poetry, he attacks the "closed shop" of the poetry establishment that looks down on his work, and poets whose work is too obscure to have any popular appeal. "It's total snobbery. They can't make a living out of it - so they make a virtue out of writing incomprehensible gibberish."

Mr Dennis has another big project underway - to plant a huge forest in the Midlands.

"I've been busy for years, buying land, often under pseudonyms, and planting trees on it. All the money is going into it when I die - and in the end I'd like to think that it will be 20 to 30,000 acres."

Text and Image Curtsy: BBC News Post by Sean Coughlan

Now a little info about Felix Dennis ...

A Brief Note

_________

Felix Dennis (born 1947) is a British publisher, poet, and philanthropist. His company, Dennis Publishing, pioneered computer and hobbyist magazine publishing in the United Kingdom. In more recent times, the company has added lifestyle titles such as its flagship brand The Week, which is published in the UK, the United States and Australia.

Maxim Cover Curtsey Wikipedia

Dennis started his career as a street seller for the underground counter culture magazine Oz in 1971. Dennis went on to found his own magazine publishing company in 1973. Dennis was quickly promoted to co-editor and became involved in the longest conspiracy trial in English history over the "School Kids" edition. Following acquittal by the Court of Appeal, Dennis went on to found his own magazine publishing company in 1973. In 1987, he co-founded Micro Ware house, with Peter Godfrey and Bob Bartner, a company that pioneered direct IT marketing via high quality catalogues. By 1992 the firm had 3500 employees in 13 countries with worldwide sales in 2000 of $2.5 billion. In 1995, Dennis Publishing created Maxim, a title that became the world's biggest selling men's lifestyle magazine and global brand. In 2006, Dennis wrote a best-seller on how he became a multi-millionaire in How to Get Rich, published by Ebury Press.

Some More Interesting Facts:

Dennis is credited with having been the first person to say the word C*** on live British television, on the 7 November, 1970 edition of David Frost's The Frost Programme. As a result, most "live" transmissions are delayed by 15 seconds.

Dennis is planting the Forest of Dennis, based in Warwickshire in the UK's West Midlands. Over the last ten years, Dennis has established a young forest of native deciduous trees, covering one thousand acres with approximately 600,000 saplings planted to date.

Dennis backed Julian Assange by pledging bail in December 2010; the money was lost in June 2012 when a judge ordered it to be forfeited, as Assange had sought to escape the jurisdiction of the English courts by entering the London embassy of Ecuador.

TEXT Curtsey: Wikipedia

____________

Shashi

ॐ नमः शिवाय

Om Namah Shivaya

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Pina Bausch

A great Dancer Choreographer

WHISPERS: Love, Destiny and Death

I have been very busy for these few months on my work front as well as I was not in the proper frame of mind due to some personal tragedy, in recent times, to actually sit down and write some of my thoughts and Haiku. But then the Indiblogger event happened which reminded me that there is always some time to do things that you are passionate about so got me to write these Haiku and verses. So you see a lot of pent-up emotions are here to explode and now all those thoughts and feelings are rushing back to surface... hope you could relate to it all.

Pain leaves traces of what

It was; Love, what it would be

In drifting apart

___

Destiny is thread

That weaves the tapestry of

Life, in broken hearts

___

Love is clear mirror

Of soul; unveiled beyond dust of

Memories and lust

___

DEATH

_____________

Every sound of silence

In its solitude

Reverberates through

A whole life - unlived

All that a flower

Springs forth, in flowering,

Is the beauty of the fall.

Remember, a day soon will dawn

When even the memories

Will not stay behind

To mourn

__________________
Shashi @ Oct 2012
ॐ नमः शिवाय

Om Namah Shivaya

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Cherry Blossoms

Up, Close & Personal : Indiblogger Meet At ITC Grand Chola

Indiblogger meet is always fun and when they organised the first of it's kind, meet as Anup from Indiblogger informed, - a preview of hotel, in the same hotel, it was bound to be fun. And when it's for one of the most grand Hotel in Chennai, ITC Grand Chola, the seats were bound to fall short and the registration for the event were full even before half of the bloggers from Chennai got to know about it. It was good that Indiblogger increased at the last moment the number of seats from 70 to 75 and I got to be in the most beautiful event so far from Indiblogger "TreatsForTweets".... 

But before I go further with the fun part of the event, let me give you some interesting facts about the most beautiful hotel in town. 

A Sustainable Design:

Opened as the world's largest LEED-certified platinum (Highest in the category) green hotel, is 100 per cent powered by renewable energy. It recycles all its water and generates sustainable energy, through wind farms in Salem (Tamil Nadu – India), for the whole of its electricity needs.

The Architecture:

ITC Grand Chola is themed after traditional Hindu architecture of the Chola Dynasty. This architectural theme is reinforced with 462 pillars, most of them with hand-carved design work. The hotel has over 1 million square feet of marble with 57 varieties of the stone. The intricate stonework in the building was created by 4,000 artisans from Mamallapuram who worked on site.

The hotel is comprised of 600 rooms, which include 522 rooms and 78 serviced apartments. The hotel has a total of 10 food and beverage destinations, including the Peshawri, which serves cuisine from the Northwest Frontier, and The Royal Vega, a vegetarian restaurant. Others include Madras Pavilion, Cafe Mercara, Nutmeg, Cheroot Lounge, Pan Asian, Modo Mio, The Pub and Tranquebar. The Leisure facilities will include a 23,000-sq-ft Kaya Kalp Spa, outdoor pools, gyms for each of the three wings, and a shopping area.

Now coming back to the event... The huge hall, where the event was happening was stunning and the arrangement of seats gave us lots of room to move around. Now I could understand the reason for less number of people invited as the ITC Grand wanted to give us lots of room to move about and not to cramp our Indiblogging style... 

This was proved to be true as later on Anup got us to make the biggest blogger train and chug along the whole hall...

The event started, right on time IST and we have had great presentations from GM and other dignitaries of ITC Grand and then it was time for our usual 60 seconds of fame..

This time atleast I got a chance to talk, unlike my last Indiblogger meet at Hyatt. Anyways, once every one has had his/her share of limelight, Anup got into his grove with clarion call of hurr... and pump-ed up the jam with getting every one to form a human train...  Once every one has hitched on to it and settled, we were asked for a repeat performance of UN Chief -  Ban Ki-Moon. Yes! do the gangnum style and here is the result...

But that was not the end of the story, for our master of ceremony - Anup. He dangled some great treats from the ITC Grand Team and masterfully guided us to one of the biggest musical chair that I have had ever seen....

After all the fun and frolic we were all treated to an amazing array of tea, coffee and snacks and then the ITC Team has arranged for us a grand tour of the Grand Hotel. The Indibloggers were divided the team into groups of ten and assigned a Host/Hostess to escort us as well as enhance the Grand Chola Experience. 

My group was assigned smiling Ms. Neelam, who were thoroughly patient with our exhuberance and unceasing question and comments. 

Here are some images from the tour...

The Haiku Gang...

A beautiful concept of iPad to control all your electrical
and electronics in a well appointed room

Iconic Egg Chair and a Haiku team member...

Get.. Set.... Click

Dashing... 

The perfect pose....

The ITC Grand Chola ....

Souvik - our another host

Juke Box - An interesting addition

An exhaust traditionally hidden in a kollam/ rangoli like
structure in one of the restaurants...

I was thrilled to find this M F Hussain Painting
from the Old Chola Sheraton - This is now valued
at Rs 10 Million

And the beautiful decor...

It was a pleasure to interact with the ITC Grand Chola team...

...  attentive to all our questions and queries.

Finally we were back to our hall and waiting for the results of our tweets... and the winner are ...

The Poonam Pandaya Gang..

And from our Team Haiku...

Siraj

But no one was left out... ITC Team gave each one of coupons for a dinner for two, any time till the new year... So in the end folks, it was a great pleasure and FUN-tastik time. Kudo's to Indiblogger Team, Renie and Anup for making this Chennai Bloggers Meet so memorable for all of us as well as giving us the opportunity to appreciate, what an amazing ITC Grand Chola is - Sustainability with Responsible Luxury.

Here I am signing off from our Team Haiku...

 ____________

Shashi

ॐ नमः शिवाय

Om Namah Shivaya

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The Tata Grande Indiblogger meet