It's All About The Experience

So how is it that a blind man can dream?

It’s a very interesting question, is it not?

It is the question that opens the debate once we’ve finished preparing ourselves for another incredibly enlightening Tuesday class.

A blind man’s dreams depends on the stage at which blindness hits him. If he was blinded at a later stage, what he sees in his dreams is limited to what he has already seen. His image never develops further. So if he was blinded when he was ten, he would continue to see things from a ten-year-old’s perspective, with things looming above him.

If he was born blind, however, he would dream through his other senses. His hearing, his smell, his touch – it would be an experience. And that is exactly what we, with all five senses intact, forget to do.

Experience.

Our facilitator talked of a campaign in Ahmedabad where they took a few blind men on a walk through a very renowned heritage site, and the normalcy with which they described things, in complete contrast to how we would rather laud it’s amazing architecture and diverse cultural significance, is what strikes me. The sad thing is that the moment we are given eyes, he says, we immediately forget to see.

The world, he says, is not made for everybody. It’s only made for those seventeen to twenty-five year olds, those healthy bodies, those quick minds. And not just for them in total, but more for the men than anything. You can’t see an old man crossing the road within the span of two minutes, can you? Nor can you see a little child climbing a flight of stairs, not especially with steps so huge.

Contemporary art is not made for the viewing pleasure of a blind man. That is where it falls short. But performance art rises to the occasion where contemporary art does not.

Today’s class was to be about performance art, and all that it entailed.

What an interesting topic, no?

Very, I should think.

But yes. Performance art.

Today, he says, you’re going to be doing a piece of performance art of your own. Make groups of two or three, and come up with a concept. You are to enact it out during lunchtime.

Ye gads, I think.

This was not going to be good for my minor fear of large crowds.

But okay, it’s all about stepping out of your comfort zone, is it not?

So I, along with Tushar Pant and Anukool Raman, look at each other, exchange a contemplating look, decide, and then crowd around my amazing beaten-up Mac to begin the wonderful process of brainstorming.

And finally, after a few uncomprehendingly half-witted plans that we immediately dismiss as utter rubbish, we come up with a fascinating concept that we're finally half-satisfied with.

Lies.

Or rather, how one lie builds up to a second and a third and a fourth and so on until you’re covered in layers and layers of lies that weigh you down and cover you up, before you finally decide to give up and break free.

You lie until you’re smothered and then you can’t take it anymore, you just have to shed your baggage.

We couldn’t not do it; it was too damn good to pass on.

All three of us would be included in the performance. One would sit in the middle, doing absolutely nothing. The two others would be his conscience, before and after. The before conscience (me), would stand to his left and then begin to wear clothing after clothing, layer after layer, until she was completely covered from head to toe, before she sat down to the side and weighed her head down. And then, the after conscience would rise, and shed clothing after clothing. Layers would fall off until he’s left only in a T shirt and shorts, free from his lies, free from his inhibitions. Following this, he would settle down again, and thus would be our cue to depart.

Lunchtime was an interesting experience.

I’ve not really risen in front of an audience all that often before (my stage fright does tend to cause a few problems sometimes). To stand in the middle of the basement and put up a spectacle is not something I’ve ever done before, nor something I ever even expected to do. Not ever.

But let me tell you, there was a change.

In my thoughts, in my perspective.

I don’t know how to explain it, but it was the experience that brought about the change, and that is exactly what needed to happen – I needed to experience, and learn from the experience.

Performance art is all about the experience.

It was so incredibly invigorating.

Later that day, we were exposed to different works by various other performance artists like Marina Abramovic, Dada and even Lady Gaga with her meat suit.

It was so enlightening, really – the lengths to which the audience goes, the lengths to which they are willing to go to when it comes to something they have the power to mold, to disfigure, to change. Every single performance conducted by my fellow course mates ended completely differently than how it was expected to have ended, especially considering the reactions of the watching audience. Even ours, it was considered more a theatrical performance than a performance artwork. Some others, they were treated like games, while some, they were taken to have meant something completely different. In a way, a performance art is made by what the audience makes it, yes, but it is quite mind-boggling when you actually experience it with yourself as the artist in this case. You don’t know how it’s going to turn out.

It’s all in their hands.

It was another stimulating class with another stimulating exercise. I don’t even know what to expect from next Tuesday now, this is totally baffling.

One thing’s for sure – I’m definitely not going to get bored.

Until then, I suppose.

I bid you good day. 

At Wit's End

So we arrive at day two, and let me tell you, it’s definitely not any less as interesting as the first one was. 

How, you ask?

Well, this one – it was all about art.

Now you might protest saying that the previous one was all about art too, how can this one be any different?

This one, my friend, was a more philosophical exploration of art and all that it entailed.

So it’s a sunny Tuesday morning when we walk through that significant orange door and settle into our respective chairs, bags in hand but definitely not as cautious as were the class before. Well, by 'not as cautious', I mean not expecting to be surprised out of our minds, that is. We were expectant of a deeper look-see into what installation art entailed.

Well, we were surprised.

Should be getting used to that by now, I suppose.

It’s not like it was a humungous surprise, though. It wasn’t a completely radical change in approach to the entire course structure. We weren’t lobbed at with bags of thread and bamboo and asked to make an installation out of it, right then and there. It was more of a mental exercise, to be clearer.

What is art, in relation to you?

And so Narendra (I am in awe of his wisdom – I am not even kidding) begins to speak.

You look at art like you would your significant other, he said. Think of it like a relationship. At first, you may be attracted because of its beauty and intrigue, but you really ought not to stop right there, for that is a poor base to build a relationship upon. No, you must go deeper than that. See what the artist is trying to say. Observe. Experience.

Don’t just stand and stare at the layer of ice. Peep through the solid and see the ecosystem underneath.

At least, that is what I discerned.

I’m not going to talk any more about art, he says. After this, it’s all about installation. But you must understand how to look at art. How to experience art. Art is your significant other. Regard it like you would him or her.

And with that in mind, we settle down to watch an interesting documentary.

A very interesting documentary, indeed.

It’s called Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, and it’s the biography of a very controversial installation artist named Ai Weiwei that came to public notice around the year 2008.

What an enigma.

He was a rebel, you know. He was a rebel who was intolerant of corruption, injustice, and most especially, dictatorship. An artist and an activist by profession, as he grew with age, he began to get into an increasing number of clashes with the Chinese Government, mostly for their totalitarian ways – key incidents include the controversy that surrounded his reluctant contribution to the design of the Bird’s Nest (2008 Beijing Summer Olympics), the demolition of the Shanghai studio which he chose to treat as a celebration than as an event for mourning, the citizen’s investigation into the Sichuan earthquake’s student casualties (the details of which were kept confidential by the Chinese government), his assault at the hands of an unnamed Chinese police officer (this was firmly discounted as rubbish), and countless other measures that he undertook in order to battle the authoritarian government.

One thing that particularly sticks out for me, however, is his exhibition with the sunflower seeds.

Sunflower Seeds is actually made up of millions of small works. Each are apparently identical but are actually unique. These seeds are actually handcrafted and painted by specialists working in small-scale workshops in Jingdezhen, China. Far from a wholesale production, each piece is really a product of patience and dedication. Together, there are a 100 million, and each seed is a part of a whole. It, in the words of the curator of the exhibition, is a commentary on the relationship between an individual and the masses.

Never have I seen anything so poignant and thought-provoking.

In fact, the entire documentary was such a shock to my belief system. The surprising thing was that he was not afraid, no matter what happened. When his blog was shut down, he took to Twitter. What he was arrested for a few months and let back out on strict confidentiality agreements, he was back to speaking out within the next few. When he disappeared with no trace whatsoever, his ideals continued to live on in the minds of his supporters, continuing to spread caution and awareness and bringing people around to the truth.

He is perhaps one of the most influential artists I have ever learned about in a long time.

And so, as the credits roll across the screen (accompanied by a very cheeky video of him singing a Chinese song that had us all giggling into our hands, thank you, Ai Weiwei), we sit there and contemplate. And in order to help with our serious contemplation, our darling facilitator decides to go all 1-2-3 on us and split us up into three random groups, all with one particular question to ponder.

To group number one, he says, tell me who an ‘artist’ is.

Group number two, he says, you have to figure out whether it is essential for an artist to be an activist.

While group number three, he says with an amused smile (I am in group 3, yes), your task is to figure out exactly what a ‘non-artist’ is.

And so we’re faced with a puzzling dilemma.

What is a non-artist?

But before that, what is an artist in the first place? Can’t define one without the other, really, we think with a shrug of our shoulders.

And we descend into chaos.

Lateral thinking, someone shouts. Courage of expression, adds another.

Ages of debate later and we come up with a reasonably valid answer.

Problem was, once it became open to debate, we realized that our discussion was almost identical to the one that occurred between the members of group one.

Well, wasn’t that fun.

Group one passes nice and easy, and so does group two, but then it comes to us and we are immediately accused of relying on group one’s debate to fashion our reply.

Well, I never.

S’not our fault we came up with the same answer. Really.

But no sir-ree, it’s the principle of the matter, we must eat this group people alive for their blatant disregard for debate ethics.

Blah.

I about died sitting there in front of everybody’s incredulous/mildly reproachful gazes. My ears were burning and my knees, they were literally shaky. My god, embarrassment galore. I never want to face that again.

Probably will though.

Eh.

But yes. Back to philosophical debates on art and all that it entails.

We end up with three solid definitions, as class winds to an end.

An artist, according to group one, is an individual who consciously expresses themselves with motive, medium and methodology.

No, group two says. An artist is not essentially an activist, but an activist is an artist when it comes to the work he does.

And finally, a non-artist is a person who does not express with an intention of aesthetically expressing.

That last one’s a bit rough (I do not recall the exact wording, and for that, I apologize), but I suppose it’s pretty close. Only a word or two off-center, I think.

But whatever.

So class comes to an end, and we’re just about to wrap up when he gives us one last question that bamboozles us to no end. ‘Will an artist still be an artist if the viewer fails to recognize the art?’

Think about it, he says, and then allows us to leave.

God, I think.

This is going to bring me to my wit’s end.

Here’s to expecting more of this, in the near future.