This piece was written as part of the accompanying catalogue for the “Anahat Naad” performance by the Srishti community at the Ars Electronica festival in Linz..
In March 2005, nine students joined the "Kabir Lab" course. The lab was born out of the three-year Kabir project initiated and undertaken by artist-in-residence and filmmaker Shabnam Virmani, and the rich trove of research unearthed by her along with associates, musician Tara Kini and media professional Rumah Rasaque.
The lab began earlier, with a one-week "deep immersion" preview in February, where they were re-introduced to the amazing poetry of Kabir, that became all the more evocative and powerful when manifested through the sublime music of the late Kumar Gandharva and the legendary folk artiste Prahlad Singh Tippanya. The students questioned issues of caste and identity, materialism and spirituality, and poetry and music through an intense stream of film vignettes, music clips and creative/performative assignments. The treacherous post-lunch slack was transformed into a bustling class through group singing of Kabir songs.
The full-fledged Kabir Lab offered students the opportunity to dig deeper into the research done by the Kabir team, and the challenge to create new and meaningful artefacts and products using the potential of contemporary media and their own art/design skills - in a way, further iterate the oral tradition that has kept Kabir's ideas and poetry very much alive, centuries after his death.
Amaranta Nehru was excited to join Shabnam's Kabir project in a small way by working on the "Ulat Bansi" section of a proposed "graphic novel" being visualised by artist Orijit Sen. Kanyika Kini took on the mammoth challenge of organising all the research into a coherent pattern, and developing an interactive, screen-based system of accessing it that would be intuitive and pleasurable. Kunal Sen chose to persist with his passion for animation by opting to create a "music video" (in animated form, of course) for Kumar Gandharva's celebrated Kabir song, Ud Jayega Hans Akela. Mrinalini Tandon and Narayan Gopalan decided to remain within the domain of print media, but explore unusual approaches & methodologies to "propagate" Kabir. Patience Rustomji, who was extremely moved by Tara Kini and Shabnam Virmani's own musical performances of Kabir, wanted to find ways to widen the audiences for their performance. Shashwati Balasubramaniam also wanted to work with the song form. Smriti Chanchani took on the challenge of investigating artefacts as a means of expressing Kabir's ideas, and curating an exhibit in collaboration with other artists. In this, she was joined by Abhishek Karmakar.
The students were treated once more to many more video and musical vignettes from Shabnam and Tara's journeys, and through these got a sense of the incredible spread and diversity of the oral tradition surrounding Kabir. They read about some of the deep yogic and tantric concepts that Kabir sometimes refers to, and enjoyed his legendary simplicity and complex wit. This time, they also had to acquaint themselves with current work and concerns of media artists working in their area. They went on a week-long field trip to Malwa, the homeland of folk singer Prahlad Singh Tippanya - in time for his son's wedding - and were also privileged to meet and spend time with one of the authorities on Kabir today, Linda Hess, who was also there for the wedding.
Many of the student projects described above have been carried forward into their individual diploma projects (some in a changed form), and are part of the Tana Bana exhibit at the Ars Electronica. They attempt to bridge the oral tradition with new media - in ways that are ambitious, perhaps audacious - yet attempt to retain the original connection with the grassroots in some way.
As the course coordinator, I have enjoyed their journeys as much as they have, perhaps even more. One of the most meaningful insights I've had whilst seeing them struggle between the traditional and the avant-garde is my realization that everything starts out by being new one day, and that which survives longest becomes tradition. Once we perceive these not as opposites but as different bands on a seamless continuum, the contradictions fade away. Which just reinforces my conviction that the key obsession of art & design is with constantly changing our frames of perception, and through that, revealing the different realities that are, in fact, all the same.
Arvind Lodaya, 2005
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