Social Furniture for Public Space
2015 | MTP | Sarrika Dawar
product design, shared spaces, community interaction
The project “Share-able” aims to re-establish the connection between the public spaces and the people and also among the people in the public spaces. A set of modular and unstable human scale structures, meant to be made stable by sharing. These unstable structures are a kind of social furniture which invokes some kind of social activity among strangers - exchange of words, sharing, concern to help or even an argument. Thus giving a social and playful dimension to the public space experience. The project was successfully implemented at places in and around the Department of Design, IIT Guwahati thus transforming them into active social places.
Life Around Abstracts
2019 | BTP | Prabodh Sharma
exploration, speculation, experience, indian aesthetics, surrealism, strange loops
Life Around Abstracts is an experimental art project based upon exploration and understanding of experiences majorly driven by visual and auditory senses. The experiment has been divided into three components: illustrations, articles, and the human component. It is based upon the concepts of Indian Aesthetics (Rasa and Dhvani Theory), Memory-Image concept (Projection Theory), and in connection with Surrealism and Strange Loop(s). The output that has been generated, is based upon the experiences that were encountered over the course of this project journey.
Day Zero
2020 | BTP | Nishita Sudhir
dystopia, totalitarianism, social constructs, graphic novel, illustrations
For years I’ve wondered, where are we going? What is our future headed towards? Through the medium of a graphic novel, I am exploring a dystopian world, within the framework of a totalitarian government. The protagonist is a representation of our collective thinking right now and represents my ideologies and emotions. The events of the graphic novel are set after the events of the present day, after a huge chunk of the world population is gone as a result of war and climate change
Study in Distributed System
in Nature and Blockchains
2018 | MTP | Abhishek Chauhan
nature, blockchain, systems design
The main idea of this project revolves around the encapsulation of our understanding of science and applying it to the various design forays. Nature has been inspiring humans for ages. We in our study have gotten inspiration from the natural processes as they occur and derive to employ certain principles of operation. The idea is to explore the various ways in which we can be inspired by natural processes and use them in manners that we have used the concepts of nature before.
Imagining Biocentric Futures
2020 | BTP | Anupam Sai
speculative design, system design, participatory design, biocentric, biodesign, animal sociology
Human beings have designed the world by keeping themselves as the center of existence, and most of the world organizes itself from a western point of view. More often than not, it comprises capitalist and consumerist ideologies. Mass consumption and irresponsible usage are causing a depletion of natural resources. The waste generated from the current mass means of production and consumption is a major cause of climate change and animal extinction. At a time like this, we need to organize ourselves to have a much more holistic and non-exploitative relationship with our environment and not a disruptive one. Our nature is creative, it organizes itself to create conditions to be self-sustaining. Nature is conducive to life. This project follows a research-led design process through which I aim to study animal behavior and organization to speculate scenarios to create systems/narratives/products to invoke a biocentric way of thinking in people.
Food Connect:
Exploring food as a social medium
2015 | MTP | Sarrika Dawar
food, social medium, langar, doul gobindo, community kitchen
Life around Food is an exploration to study and revive the role of food as a social medium. The project was carried out in two parts: Studying and documenting the two old institutions where food plays a central role in communicating social and religious messages – Langar, the community kitchen of Sikhs and Bhog, the temple food at Doul Gobindo. Designing a food system for today’s context with the intention of reviving our relationship with food. Using food as an object of exchange to create social bonds and value, preserve the diversity of Indian culture and ensure the passing on of this cultural knowledge and tradition to future generations. Besides the conception of this system, the packaging of food as a medium of exchange that envelopes not only the food but also the intangible feelings and emotions of the sender was also proposed, these intangibles are what make the food authentic, communicable and a memory to be cherished forever. Hence the name ‘Food Connect’ was adopted to promote the project’s aim.
Enhancing Museum Going Experience for Assam State Museum
2018 | MTP | Mohijeet Das
game, visualization, interface, installation
The future lies in the hands of the young and I agree that this saying hits the nail on the head when it comes to children visiting museums. Children are never too young to learn about our cultural heritage and the collections that represent its physical manifestation. Museums simply need to be more enjoyable and more appealing to children. Therein lies the greatest potential. Many people claim that museums are a place for children to have fun, and museum visitor researchers are well aware that this fun experience often leads to learning outcomes. Learning knows no boundaries, and museums can be considered as learning landscapes for children. If learning is viewed as a process of change in knowledge, attitudes, and values, then museums provide an ideal and provocative learning environment. Learning in the museum happens when children connect with interesting objects or experiences. This project is an attempt to understand the different factors that influence children’s experiences in the Assam State Museum and design a solution that would provide a better learning and engaging experience to the children visiting the museum.
Design Solutions to improve Mental Health through everyday experiences
2019 | MTP | Surya
wellbeing, everyday design, interactive products, personalisation, emotions, experience design, tactile texture, stress release, fidgeting, product
Considering the fact that mental health reflects in everything a person does, there is a scope for improving the wellbeing of people in this fast moving world of evolving technologies and changing social culture. Taking the increasing number of suicides and mental health issues happening nowadays , it is necessary to stay mentally healthy. This project is an exploration of mental wellness and its related facets through our everyday experiences, through the products we use, the spaces that we live in and the experiences we get from our surroundings. The entire process will consider creating mental health awareness and methods to improve our approach towards mental illness. Taking the objects that we use in our daily life, a new design approach is made considering the actions of a stressful mind and ways to relax it through these products. Textures and materials are explored in this project. The expecting Design solution will create experiences to the users which will help them to stay mentally healthy. The final outcome of this project is everyday product concepts with additional stress release features and tactile texture application. 1) Coffee mug with fidget in handle part: this product helps user to engage in fidgeting actions using the small ball attached to the handle. 2)Texture application in computer mouse: Tactile texture sticker concepts for an additional feel and personalisation of mouse according to different users. 3) Easy footrest: Footrest which allows user to rotate or move the top part. Texture created on top of footrest with stones which gives a natural feel to users. The project “Design for Wellbeing” explores the involvement of design through different mediums in mental wellbeing. It is found that there is a scope of new products that help people to tackle basic psychological issues like stress and anxiety through new design approaches. Design can bring new perspectives to psychological issues which people face in their everyday life.
Performance and Performitivity
2020 | BTP | Angela Matthews
performance, choreography, set design, dramaturgy, kinesthetic empathy, rituals, masks and roles
People are becoming increasingly stagnant. A lot of the modern technology we use during large amounts our lives allows, or even requires us to be stagnant. It isolates us, despite the promises of social media. In earlier times, people used to connect through rituals, song and dance. There is a certain experiential quality when content is felt by the body, through movement and action as opposed to just seeing, reading or listening. Through moving, being and performing there is an opportunity for empathy, realization and immersion. The project aims to explore performance as a medium for people to interact with each other in a more visceral, direct and intimate way.
The project will also attempt to take a dramaturgical approach to explore ways to invite people to break away from their current performance, or way of living, and enter different or alien performances. By detaching from the roles that they play (knowingly or unknowingly, whether they choose to play the role or whether the role is demanded of them), people may be able to question their roles, their authenticity and/or achieve a respite from the roles they play every day.
Farrago of Information
& Bias in News Coverage
2019 | BTP | Shruti Toshniwal
news, bias, gatekeeping, coverage, statement, data visualization
A lot has been talked about the agenda-setting political behaviour of many popular news publishing organizations of India, especially during the last decade. These talks, however, are driven by people’s personal opinions and accusations which certainly do not qualify as credible evidence of bias by these organizations. But the solution can neither be to follow any selected news source, nor to be less informed. It is, to be aware of how the editorial decisions of the sources we choose might be shaping our views. Therefore, there is a need of a data visualization which makes information more accessible and allows readers to form their own opinions. This project visualizes and compares the differences in news delivery by the news organizations of India - Times of India, NDTV, and India TV. The designed visualizations aim to highlight the presence of biases - gatekeeping, coverage, and statement, in the news coverage by Indian media. The scope of the present research is limited to the articles by the Times of India, NDTV, and India TV. These articles are the ones posted in the time period of October 1, 2018 - March 31, 2019 (i.e. 6 months) on the respective websites/web-archives of these news organizations, under the 'India News' section.
How do Indians do YouTube? :
A data-driven study of Trending Videos on YouTube India
2019 | BTP | Vishal Kumar + Nisha Gupta
new media, data analysis, data visualization
As we move more and more towards into 21st century we are seeing the digital media in the form of a tool for revolution and misinformation as well. More and more people in India are getting access to the digital landscape and without their knowledge, they are getting trapped in a larger system they are unaware of. Our project is a small study of the large landscape of digital media in India which is unregulated mostly. We intend to study the publically available Trending charts data on YouTube through Youtube data APIs and perform statistical and text mining operations over data collected over 72 days.
Visualizing the Macroeconomic Indicator of Consumer Price Index for India
2019 | BTP | Ashish Khandlikar
data visualization, consumer price index, cpi, data abstraction, iterative design process, new media, india, economy, tableau
The Government of India releases a huge amount of data under RTI. Consumer Price Index (CPI) is one such index released by the government. A Consumer Price Index (CPI) is designed to measure the changes over time in general level of retail prices of selected goods and services that households purchase for the purpose of consumption. It is an important indicator of inflation but it is released in the form of datasheets and tables. It is difficult for the public to make sense of it in this format. Some of the visualization tools that are available, are not as sophisticated as the data they represent. On the other hand, other tools are too sophisticated for the common man to make use of them. Therefore, there is a need for a visualization that is sophisticated yet not very complex. There is a need to clarify things rather than simplify them. The designed visualization lies in between the two extremes and encodes the CPI in five different interactive visualizations. These visualizations allow the users to explore all the groups and subgroups of the Index. There is provision to select any of the 27 states and 7 Union territories. The data ranges from Jan 2013 to Jan 2019.
Draining into Brahmaputra
2011 | BTP | Tanima Das
brahmaputra, river, guwahati, film
A documentary film about the relationship of river Brahmaputra with the city Guwahati.
Space Time Experience
2011 | MTP | Apoorv Tomar
brahmaputra, architecture, cinema, movement, space, time, perception, filmic-architecture, interactive media, simultaneity, cineplastics, scenography, narratives, river, guwahati, film
Parallels between cinema and architecture have seen interesting possibilities in exploring theories and praxes related to
conditions and characteristics of two entities - space and time. In redefining architecture and filmmaking practice, as acts of creating spaces alongside the ability of cinema to function with time, the abstract words 'space' and ‘time’ have come to mean more than what their conventional connotations and associations educate us into. This project studies the inter relationships between films and architecture; in addition to how interactive and narrative media informs and are responsible for the evolving effects and perception of time and space on individual experiences. It also investigates the relationship between movement, time and space; and explores concepts like 'Spatialization of Time' and 'Dynamization of Space' through media experiments
Project Details
Morin Khuur
2014 | MTP | Oko Togtokh
visual communication, mongolian cultural heritage, musical instrument, film
The project aims to explore visual communication as a narrative experience, and stop motion animation. The project looks forward to bringing back Mongolian cultural heritage through the depiction of the traditional musical instrument called “Morin khuur”. Along with this, the project is intended to help my understanding of storytelling, narratives, image-making, animation, music and film making. A larger goal of creating a unique experience using the above techniques, has led to a set of experiments, explorations, and the final result.
Narratives of Virtual Reality
2018 | BTP | Pradeep Vegireddi + Mahendra Varma
new media, narrative, virtual reality
The new age VR filmmaking is still being approached in the 2D format. The focus is much on the content and not on the filmmaking techniques thus the new degrees of freedom possible are not properly acquainted with this project is about exploring new visual grammar for generating Virtual Reality content. The intention was to understand the new medium of Virtual Reality and all its complexities through exploration. Various aspects of narrative theory and Perceptual Virtuality have been explored as part of this project. We tried to integrate various aspects such as Epistemology of Technology, Media Theory, Human Psychology, and other aspects which could be crucial for the understanding of VR as a new medium. Our final prototype could stand out to be an Avant-Garde film in VR which could help to define the visual, aesthetic and experiential grammar of the medium.
Nerkik : A documentary exploration on Indigenous Wisdom of the Mising Tribal Community
2020 | BTP | Deepshikha Pegu
intangible cultural heritage, community learning, rituals, ancestral indigenous knowledge, ali-aye-ligang, mising tribe, mising cosmology, community resilience
The film Nerkik attempts to explore certain cultural aspects of the Mising tribe which are deeply rooted in their indigenous values. A festival of sowing seeds, which goes by Ali-Aye-Ligang, 'the commencement of sowing seeds and planting edible roots', is documented to present community values, practices, and most importantly, community resilience. It also reflects the Mising cosmology and their worldview in the process. The project also focuses on unfolding our perspectives on learning and the methods of learning. A nuanced understanding of the role of rituals and its interconnectedness to ecology.
Video Essays on Film-Editing
2020 | BTP | Deepanshu Sharma
performance, choreography, set design, dramaturgy, kinesthetic empathy, rituals, masks and roles
Cinema is a vast field to study, having over 100 years of rich history. Before the audience views a film it undergoes several revisions, first by the script-writers, second by the actors and directors, and finally by the editor. This project is the study of historical evolution in script-writing and film editing i.e. study of the structure followed by a majority of films and examining how the evolution of non-linearity in the form of narratives breaks the standard notion of storytelling structures and presents a film creatively. It has compiled research in the form of video essays aimed at an audience of film studies or any film enthusiast with the intention to enhance their creativity using the art-form of editing.
Faqeer
2020 | BTP | Mohammad Al Khalid
cultural ethnography, sufism, intangible cultural heritage
It is difficult to define india without using the words diversity and multicultural society. Since time immemorial, India has hosted a plethora of cultures, subcultures and within them hundreds of rituals. As beautiful as it is, a multi cultural society comes with its own conflicts, often due to the gap between different cultures and geographic boundaries. But along with these, arise some unique blends of cultures which are not seen elsewhere. One such case is from the state of Assam. A saint from Sufi school of philosophy, Hazrat Meeran Shah came to Sibsagar region in the 17th Century. More commonly known as Ajan Fakir, his name is still known in the Brahmaputra Valley. Though a Muslim saint, he is known among and respected by both the Hindus as well as the Muslims of Assam. He forged unity among the different sections on the society by his unique devotional songs in Assamese language known as Jikirs. These Jikirs were a blend of local folk songs, Quranic teachings, the philosophy of Srimanta Sankardev. The Jikirs, which also has influences from the geeta, continue to be sung by Assamese people till date. I think that a tale of such an inclusive culture needs to be captured and retold. I aim to create a documentary revolving around this diversity and harmony.
self-portrait.
2020 | STP | Ashish Mathai
Film design, Cinema, Audio-Visualogy, Movement-Time Image, Emotions, Perception
The very concept of film as an art form misleads many people, to consider only the films which resemble traditional art forms which are free creations rather than explorations of nature. In such films, formative impulses are so strong, defeating the cinematic approach with its concern for camera-reality. It is exactly for these reasons that it is not good to be single minded about the potential of the filmmaker. In short, there is no standard definition for what can be considered cinematic. The essence of cinema lies in the fact that how efficiently a filmmaker uses his creative faculties to make the best of the medium's potential. Design constructs spaces, while film constructs a way of viewing those spaces in time. In this way, although design finds its base in fine art practices, it is more easily related to filmmaking in many aspects.
It is important to note that they share basic design principles such as color, composition and image systems. These elements of design help build a solid foundation for a successful piece of design or film. Through experimenting and exploiting cinematic devices systematically by innovative design methods and techniques, this practise-led research attempts to delineate how the aesthetics of film works and is successful in creating ‘illusions’ through artistic tools and emotions.
Life and Learning at IIT Guwahati
2011 | BTP | Satyan Chawla + Tushar Chhabra
film, academic
A short exploration of the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, covering its academics, student life, and facilities.
Sound As Interface
2013 | BTP | Siddhant
acoustic signatures, interactive interior sound design
This project explored, what would it be like if we could custom design our interior sound design and acoustic signature of our spaces of being.
Emergence of Data
2018 | MTP | Ani Dalal
data visualisation, sound, art, information, interface
The problem behind solving problems is the creation of new problems resulting from the isolation of an object from its network and the myopic study, directed by its agenda subject to varying human constructs. To study the nature of data itself without a predefinite direction. Resulting in the study of different data types as a series of experimental experiences that the user can interact with in different ways. The Google Story is a video looking at the way ‘Google’ changed over the years. The image of sound is a generative image creator that converts an audio clip into an image containing volume and frequency information. Sonicwatch has a collection of different tools that splits the incoming audio input into a set of frequency bands which then drives a series of visual switches. A text based chord sequencer. A series of audiovisual experiences and animated video loops are a few of the experiences developed during this project using touchdesigner.
Project Details
Audio Reactive Synesthetic
2019 | MTP | Rupesh Sudhanshu
language, expression, painting, new media, synesthetic, visual narrative, interactivity, immersive, experience design, sound-art, spaces, data-painting, public art, audio, processing, data manipulation
With the onset of the information Age, we have witnessed various cultural shifts in the way we perceive, absorb, process or create art-forms, like paintings, sculptures or music. Since its beginning, around Paleolithic age, when the purpose of art was mainly ritualistic and communicational, art has gone through a lot of transformation in its role and significance in society. For a long time, art-forms associated intimately with a medium to experiment and deliver a visual narrative to the viewer for participation and engagement -in order to experience and get a glimpse of an artist's expression. But, with the adoption and proliferation of digital systems and the global shift towards information, contemporary art is witnessing a recent upsurge in the use of various mixed media to deliver that artistic narrative. Apart from the traditional physical medium -canvases, paper, acrylics, charcoal or oil, in essence, other modalities like data, sound and the technological advancement to manipulate the same, have started to come into play and serve the purpose of delivering the artistic narrative to the viewer by serving within the chronologically developed grammar.This project is an attempt at the exploration of these emergent mediums in the information age, within the domain of visual art, and its innate effects on human experience and engagement. This follows an investigative study and experimentation with the discovered medium and an attempt to deliver a narrative using the same
Exploring Sound in New Media:
Sound as Medicine
2020 | BTP | Avik Biswas
sound, pseudoscience, soundscape, human-nature relationship, synthesis
Sound is a crucial part of our lives. It has its own effects on this universe in all sorts of audible and inaudible levels. Since it is not visible, common people tend not to know about it as much as they would know about light! Keen interest in the field of music and nature has driven me to explore and understand the possibilities and potential of sound on humans and human-nature relationship. Through this project, I want to observe the effects of anthrophony on this world, study to bring out facts from the vanishing ancient, pseudoscientific texts and further find new and meaningful gaps which could be bridged by application of sound in the form of media.
