Blahberings

2010-04-22T03:34:00.000+05:30

Diploma Project Proposal

2010-02-23T17:41:00.001+05:30

This is my initial Diploma Project Proposal

You will be able to follow my work and progress on this project on dhanyaa.tumblr.com (the weblog is being set up as I type this - so check it out in a bit won'y ya!?)

Diploma Project Proposal

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Taboos + Pop Culture + Generation 2.0

2009-10-04T12:30:00.001+05:30

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Taboos + Pop Culture + Generation 2.0

View more documents from Dhanyaa Balakrishnan.

2009-08-31T00:03:00.001+05:30

Presentation Taboo Popculture Gen2.0

View more documents from Dhanyaa Balakrishnan.

Ummpphhh

2009-08-06T01:47:00.002+05:30

Finally!

2009-04-01T10:31:00.008+05:30

So finally I've come back to my blog. I've been so anti-social lately - it seemed too comfortable. Anyways, this weekend - 4th to the 6th, I'm showcasing my final project work from my narrative course in school (for once I can (and kinda want to) show off my academic work!) with my peers from the same course at *1 Shanti Road* . Will share the invites later today or tomorrow!

So, we had to create alter egos, their lifestyles, characteristics, their stories and create something - anything! So I went beserk and created a character inspired from the 40's - a cabaret singer - with a happily twisted love tale beneath her legs.
Oh! For my course? I designed a dress - decided to jump into character, sing and shoot!

p.s.: Credit post coming up next!

Narrative as Drivers - contd. from the previous post!

2009-01-20T23:18:00.010+05:30

Continuing from the last post - my latest for the installation - the prototype for the character(s) and the bags in which the books will be carried.

Although I do apologize for the not so great images (esp. the ones of the bags - for sure will put a better picture up when they are done with the illustrations on them).

I've always enjoyed spending long afternoons with corrugate paper,maida glue (the first ever time I'm using this - my mom suggested it and I couldn't suggest anything better - I'm loving it - I'd heard about this type of home-made glue only from my neighbour who'd claim he'd fix his kites with this magical goo), fabric paints - ooooh the gold and the silver powders and their binding liquids, but surely if it wasn't for the cold mosaic floors, the slowly deteriorating hand and brain co-ordination (yes, yes I am going to blame the *digital* lifestyle a bit) and a bigger room, ohh!!! bejeezers! I'm happy I've logged in my cribs and complaints - boy am I glad I got to do all this fun stuff all day long, and guess what I'm making more of these fellas, and with different emotions - will keep you updated!

Till then, the almost, not-so-confused soul signs off with these images...

The funky jute bags!

The *Grumpy Goo Trunka*

p.s. : the lips, the rest of all the jang bang for the character still need to be worked on, let's hope that by the weekend you get to see 'em all!

Narrative in Art Spaces

2009-01-18T22:57:00.009+05:30

With the beginning of the new year and the new courses that happen at school, I've decided to put up parts of my work from this course. Right now working on a project - Narrative as Drivers - we got to choose a space in the campus, and come up with our story(characters, plots and all that storytelling jazz), and finally set up an installation - creating (or recreating) an experience for an audience or participant.

In this post, I'm putting up some of my initial sketches for my running project, and with the help of dearest joos, who has been helping my *word* my overly-hyper thoughts - the introduction of the story!

* * * * *

It is a midsummer morning, in the forest of eternity,
The thrushes whistle, they go too-tee-twee.
The winds whisper with the leaves, matters completely hush-hush
The leaves themselves hear the news and jump down in a rush.

It is a sad death for the leaves, upon the ground.
They shrivel and die, to pass from reality without a sound.
None live to tell a tale. oh! What tales they could tell!
About scandals in the flora; about gossips in the jungle.

But wait! Hark! A faint rustle like the final wheeze of an old geezer. What is this? A lone green traveler, caught in the undergrowth amidst the roots! A hardy leaf, surely, for he has defeated fate. His certain death seems like a bad joke now, in his comfortable couch near the great roots.

Accustomed as they are to the dry, brown, crisp corpses of the leaves, the roots shudder mildly at the sight of the green body waving peacefully in the breeze. A hushed conference ensues among the old veterans, a dissemination of the recent catclysmic event - the Descent of the Leaf.

"Who are you?" asks the Eldest of them all with distaste. The Eldest frowns, his shriveled body wrinkling further.

"Who are you?" ask the young roots, with awe and delight. Their ends quiver with anticipation.

"Hear me, elders," begins the leaf. "Hear me, oh old ones. I come from above, from the world of juicy red fruits and green comrades. From the world of prosperity, I have come down now, to experience life in the nether regions. You may call me Leaf."

"Humbug!" cries the Eldest. "Everyone knows there is nothing beyond the green skies!"

"Tell us more!" cry the little ones, angry at the old timer.

"The green sky is my home, Grand One! And there are worlds that you know not. There is a world of mad old tree trunks too proud to talk. A world of cheery leaves that socialize with the breeze. There are worlds beyond your comprehension. Worlds beyond your reach."

"Dung and more hogwash!" shouts the Eldest. But the shouts falter with the jubiliant cries of the younglings.

"A story!" The young ones huddle around Leaf, while the Eldest watches from a distance. "Tell us about the worlds!"

"No. Not one story but nine. Not one life but nine." The young ones cheer at the annoucement while the Eldest frowns further. Bad business.

* * * * *

Initial sketches of the characters...

* * * * *

Below is the mood board I made to help visualise the concept better - Images from various artists and designers - majorly from India : credits roll - Raghunandan K., Kavitha Arvind (a personal fav.), Nitin Utge, Diya Shankardass, Indophile, Manish Arora, Aarohi Singh)

Moodboards for Yellide!

2009-01-08T15:15:00.006+05:30

These are a set of moodboards I made for a travel book I designed a little less than a year back, for some reason I thought I would post it up and share with you.

Some of my newer illustrations....

2008-11-18T16:32:00.000+05:30

As a part of a series that's spread over sketch pads and ink spilt tissues.....these are the initial samples

p.s. : ...comment on...

*smirk*

Dream a little dream of me...

2008-09-18T02:35:00.001+05:30

So I sit here in my make believe coffee shop, sitting and imagining the sounds of the match stick on its first strike against the matchbox, the tearing of the sugar sachet and to the many other sounds the clacking sound of the coffee cup on its saucer. The breeze is novel like, I would love if prince charming would walk in the same way, but I’m guessing today he chooses not to.

The simple thought of avoiding the glares of the older women walking across this very coffee shop, staring at every single smoke filled breath I heave out, seems to have flooded my mind. The street dogs are doing as they always do, chasing the flies that once flew over a rotting packet of bread from the bakery close by. I sit here dreaming of days when I could spend all my hours fantasizing every moment and clicking and clacking away on my character filled keyboard of my laptop.

For the many times that I’ve spent in coffee shops, almost always with friends, family, foes, strangers, ex’s and most of all those arbid people one “bumps” into who’s name we never seem to remember, but seem to recollect the exact name of the girl he was doing 3 years back; today was going to be coffee with me and me and me and me.

I wonder, there have been umpteen times my mother has spent hours trying to tell me that I could direct my dreams in any which way I wanted, but as ridiculous it seems, when I’m in my heavy state of dreaming in my half awake sleep, dreams never seem to go the way I want them to. For instance, the many mornings I’ve woken up in a sweat and all my mind would recollect fresh from my dream was one line, “Don’t go there, it’s dark and weary, Don’t go there” – I must have said that at least ten times, but truthfully as my dreamy brain tells me, I must have screamed it a seven hundred and thirty two times. Point being, that moron whom I was screaming to, did ‘go there’ and I did wake up in that sweat to not know what happened in the end!

Of butter sculpted bodies, I begin a new rush of thoughts. The twist and the turn of every inch of that body on me, the sudden rush in my head like a heavy dose of a brain freeze and the intense heat of a melting man, strong in his glory; this feeling I can’t express in mere words, but my mind seems to have collated a beautiful mash up of words, scents, images, feelings – of the more physical and a strange touch of references. The shift of control between two beings in a setting like this is something to look for. The concept of surrender, the idea of accomplishment, the moment of absolute joy and the smirked second of pride are the side effects of this DNA prescribed drug.

I could feel a sudden sense of emptiness. I feel a bit uneasy, a sudden overpowering weight over my back. This creeping allergy called guilt. He sensed my vulnerable self from miles away, in my trance he chooses to grip me. For all the times I’ve copied in a math test to the last time I easily spit a few nasty words at my closer friends. He drags me down, with a conscious effort to make me sick in my stomach. Small things I know, for some of the bigger sins wouldn’t have let me fall into these creepers in a coffee shop as this, would he?

Images of my mother, images of my neighbours, images of me when I was 6. Sounds of my father coming back home, sounds of the aircraft landing, sounds of my grandmother’s veena. The slow smile crawled its way back onto my face। The feeling of falling asleep in the homemade cradle hanging off a ceiling fan, even though engraved in my memories purely because of stories from my parents, took me to the exact make belief sense of comfort. So as I spent my time sitting on this not so comfortable wooden chair, I sank into a bean bag like space, someplace I could easily go into, but have the hardest time getting out of. This is where I run blank. Almost surreally with no connotations or denotations to anything I was feeling or wasn’t feeling – just blank.

p.s.: I'm not quite sure if this done yet....

p.p.s.: I lately seem to be obsessed with ending my every post with a "p.s."!

Tuna one jumps over the fence....

2008-09-12T11:32:00.000+05:30

Tuna one jumps over the fence....tuna two jumps over the fence... Zzzzzz ....tuna three jumps over the fence...tuna four jumps over the fence... Zzzz...

I can feel the sun warming my torso. My coat feels little frizzy, thanks to the unforgiving rains from this morning. I can smell cheese and toast as my dreams revolve around that can of tuna – damn what a killjoy!

In my state of lazy dreaming, from the not so frequent views I get as I sleepily open and close my eyes, I can see the leather feet stomping up and down the house, they seem to be screaming about something to the rubber feet in the other room. These things always seem to be in a rush, always communicating with their high pitched voices, I don’t quite understand them anyways, not like they totally ‘get me’! These weird looking beings that feed and clean me seem a bit insane all the time. Although I should say they do seem to share this unbelievable understanding that I have with tuna.

This ritual of stretching and constant basking on the warmed part of the carpet across the hall is religiously followed every morning, and during the white smushy stuff, that’s really cold takes over the window for a good few months when then it’s time to stick to the room stocked with the more valuable things in life and the tuna of course! This needs to be followed, as far as my mother goes this is the meaning of our life! This is what we are meant to do. And before I forget, for some reason we are supposed to run away from dogs! When I was in my mother, I had a test I had to pass and these things were on the paper, unless I gave the right answers, my mother says I wouldn’t have come out to bask in a sun such as this.

I could use some milk to drink, maybe I should stroll out and chase some flies or do you think I should probably scare some old woman on the road? My life is filled with such heavy quandaries and these beings, just because they are a bit larger than I feel they have so much to worry about!

Whoa!! I smell something, something too familiar. Wait, this has never happened in this house since the cat from the chicken crazy house came to visit me! This feeling is similar, but surely not the same! Jeez sometimes I wished I could kill this curiosity, it kills me when it makes me do things like this – get out of my most comfortable position on such a morning and actually see what this is! This curiosity thing actually does kill me – everyday!

Yaawwwnn..... My paws feel a bit wonky, the backyard door seems a little too far, but what is that smell? What is that weird familiarity that’s kicking in? What’s with the damn silence in this house suddenly?

The ‘rubber feet’ being is making the same high frequency sound that it made when the crawly thing moved in to this house. Gosh! If it is another crawly thing that’s moved in, I’ve had it! These crawly fellows I tell you, have the stubbiest of paws, I mean no fur and worst they take everything that’s mine and put it in their mouths!

Okay this is just getting more awkward by the minute! The ‘leather feet’ being is saying something to me and for some reason.... whoa!!! Easy! Easy with the picking me up, as much as I love lifts to the other rooms mind holding the weenie down there like that, won’t you?! So where are we going? Towards the backyard door I see! Good, saves me some serious walking! I notice something wrapped in a pink fuzzy towel! It has a tail, just like mine! Wait, wait OH MY GOD, this can’t be happening, it’s a HER!!

It’s a ‘her’ like me! Okay, I know that sounded really wrong, but it’s like my kind of fuzzy, fur coated tailed being! I haven’t seen one other than cousin Pobo; I’m just hoping she doesn’t turn out to be as crabby as her! Maybe all ‘she’s’ are that crabby type, I know my mother turns to become one of them when Pobo comes around or when the sleaze bag from the corner comes by.

My mother tells me I’m 44,874 years old, which means I’m in my teens, and in all the 44,874 years I haven’t felt this queasy in my stomach! And don’t you blame the tuna I had last night!

She is beautiful, so angel like. She’s asleep I can see that, I like that, her eyelashes long and gorgeous, and her fur seems so yummy! I’m sure she’s seeing the tuna jump over the fence too, unless her kind is into the sardines!

‘Rubber feet’ being is saying something, annoying thing keeps talking all the time, and please she is asleep! Your yakking is going to wake her up!

Rotten tuna!!! She’s waking up!!! No more lift time, let me down leather feet! Let me down now!

She’s cold, I can see that, but more than anything else she doesn’t feel home at all! I go around the little curled up lump that she’s lying in, a few circles just to register her in my head!

She’s opened her eyes; her lips are trying really hard to say something...

“Boy am I glad to see a face like yours, it’s been a while...”

That is all she had to say, those words kept ringing in my head the whole day, the hours passed till the sun set and the chilly breezes took over, she in her pink fuzzy towel and me in that warm spot across her. My head was overdosed with this almost alien and yet comfortable fuzzy warmth as I saw her fall in and out of her sleep.

Tuna one jumps over the fence....tuna two jumps over the fence... Zzzzzz ....tuna three jumps over the fence...tuna four jumps over the fence... Zzzz...

p.s.: I'm not even close to satisfied with this piece of writing...the pressures of the world outside my head have pushed me to post this up :)

Of kids and kittens...

2008-07-31T16:03:00.000+05:30

The sun didn't feel like setting. I waited in a comfortable seated position on a black leather chair. The television was on a monologue trip - not too loud, but clear. I kept glancing at my phone, noting every minute that passed by - a very everyday 17:30 routine I carried on for every afternoon I knew I was home earlier than him. I could hear the beach converse with the pier, I could hear the people greeting their beers with love, I could hear the rumble of a skateboard on the pavement, I could hear the majestic gulls gossiping, but I couldn't hear him slap his pockets for his keys, nor the slight squeak of the door behind him. This is the kind of silence I disliked, but secretly enjoyed.

I had been pampered, protected, taken over and loved by him. He was my tent and fire on a night in the grasslands with drizzles. For every moment that I can track back in time, the upper hand was mine, but for the majority of times with him, I was slammed back down to become the little naive kitten - almost always shy, careless and stupid - only with him was I ready to go back to my candy store dreams.

I knew he wasn't going to be late, I knew he would come back knackered and I could replay and picture that content smile when he knew he was home. My mind would play movies, short clips, and scene after scene - how I would peep out of this chair look at his tired smile and jump onto him as I would onto my cushions - this would run in loop like an old Mysore movie tent house. A man he was, in every clichéd and stereotyped novel sense.

I was in a surreal world of reality and no concept of time. These thoughts flooded my mind like the fresh smell of jasmine and holy ash on a not so warm Sunday morning, in a typical south Indian home. It felt like the short naps my short Saturdays were filled with on my mother's lap. This wasn't home but a feeling of it; a strong one.

Lost in this parallel space, I was deaf, blind and dumb to the 'real' events, handicapped in one sense. The warm and familiar smell engulfed my dreams suddenly; I couldn't tell when and where this suddenly kidnapped me. Two rugged palms held my waist, and a head plonked on my lap and I almost jumped out of my real and unreal world, but felt the anchor pin me down. For a brief second, that almost felt like a movie pause of a whole minute, I wondered if I had gone that mad, that these hallucinations were so real that I could actually feel the chilly palms of this man on me!

I woke up, to a man, the man on my lap – shoes still on and yawns that he shared with my lap, of a newborn puppy. He mumbled something, sounded like a 7 year old boy with the head heavy as a 24 year old. I couldn’t sort the confusion, my mind in a quandary, not knowing what to pay attention to, the mumbles that I was supposed to decode? The mother like feeling I had towards this child? Or still be baffled by what had gotten into my boy?

His built, almost butter sculpted body squirmed. He goo-goo-ed and gaa-gaa-ed warm words that sounded like the first words a dolphin would utter – a higher frequency and a language that didn’t sound alien but not so familiar. He whimpered, caressed and loved me with words that seemed to come out of the first beautiful squeeze of a new pillow.

He crawled into my lap, closed his eyes, folded his knees; smiled like he had just taken a pee after a long night of drinking. I stroked his hair as the 7 year old spoke to me, told me about his day, as a child who finished his first day at school would do when he got back home. His retorts, comments, opinions came flying out, like the first set of crackers I would hear on a Diwali morning; almost faint yet in heavy excitement, beautiful and yet boyishly overdone! He finished and I sat looking at his eyes gloat about his achievements for the day, he caught me looking, and this time I didn’t shy away; but he did!

The Man! My Man! Just did what? This should have been my thoughts; but I hate to disagree. No guards were up, as a child falls with no thoughts of the falling itself; he fell, fell into me. His fears and responsibilities where what I thought made him who he was, and drove me to almost putting him on that pedestal that I could see from miles away; but in a sudden twist of faith, my fears of him not being that figure in my life vanished. He was just like me, human, filled with extreme emotions, naive and naked.

Overwhelmed my eyes swelled, with a clear image of my thoughts for him to see.

The kitten came back to life, the 7 year old vanished. The game of hide and seek began.

He carried me into the room and laid me down. He laughed and didn’t giggle; the smile became the one that belonged to that figure. He lit me a cigarette, and we lay there, sprawled on a squeaky bed and conversations continued – the roles she played before were back on the silver screen of their lives, the figure was back on the pedestal.

The cigarette and her smoke laughed and gossiped of the last sixteen minutes that had passed, as my lips narrated the story and the incidents passed on like a Chinese whisper in a crowded market.

p.s.: again for another section of my creative writing course - "innocence"

The slightly raised eyebrow...

2008-07-25T02:06:00.001+05:30

Come to me, let me show you the way to the lighter side of my life. The one who's more joyous, where the excitement grows either in happiness or in absolute fear! Come right in, and don't tell me I didn't warn you, but I'm taking you with me.

(Guided tours might be a cliché, but who said I'm calling this one?)

So I clear myself of all the pressures, the excitement, the pain, and most of all the metaphors I cannot own, clear it away from the everyday eye. My outlets through the in between spaces, of absolute shadow - the shade - the dark following and most of all the one who mimics the 'real' are the areas of absolute comfort. I sail through them, in joy and sheer pleasure, watching the other crumble slowly without even knowing it.

Yes! The perverted remarks, the nasty opening lines, the humoured response, they are all the "other side" as the lame and ignorant call it. The other side? I doubt it, so integrally part of every 'soul', coming out of every living being that even has the slightest of thoughts to survive in this 20 faced world! - So easy...

I see sides to everything, I question the nice guys, I question their values, I question their opinions, for who sets them? Who claims them to be the right of right and not the wrong of wrong? I am not a drawing on one side of the paper! Of course I'm going to have the "other side"!

Getting back to the show. I'm not promising to have the common sense of feeling the lie - the showing of the pseudo for a stranger who probably thrives on it. I ignore it. Or I slap it back, if I know you can take that blow!

The devil of course has a heart, a heart that shows love and that cares. I'm not being sarcastic. The devil's evolved, moved into a space where she tolerates no mask, but doesn't mind being one - where she plays you with a smile, because she knows the end isn't going to be exactly what you wanted - but maybe more, she doesn't promise that easy. Confront her, she will enlighten. Run away, she will chase you more. Ignore her; she'll share a deal with your shadow, before the sun rises.

So play with her, enjoy her, within you and others. The emotions she shares with you from her pockets, are all just you my friend, the obvious – the hidden – the perceived – the forced – and most of all the perfect permutation and combination of all that is exactly you – no frills and no sugar.

So how about you understand my smirk NOW?

p.s. : a part of my creative writing course - title shoot off - "the demon in me"....

Art Vaa...?

2008-04-03T11:39:00.000+05:30

Some of the "art" I've been doing for the last couple of days...although most of them are all first drafts eesshtiill....well loosely based on my city of Bangalore - my love for this city will never die~

I'm a rainbow too.....

2008-02-12T13:03:00.000+05:30

IMG: Cheeky Cherub - Mira Malhotra

Sing along sweet munchkin.....

I remember when I was in my foundation year, we were *forced* to do this excercise - hate lists - personally through the year I was just lazy, but post that one fate afternoon with an overdose of the not so nice side of me (biological reasons) the day I penned atleast 294 hates and was surprised - I am so ignorant. Not like I've done too much to change my status - I've just learned to accept it and live with it....atleast for a bit. So I've been writing hate lists for a long time now. They numbers aren't so shocking but the things I've been pulling out lately all seem to have an underlying pattern.

So, in this post I type - all the weird things - I do - in all states of my very volatile mind and see if there's anything that even makes the slightest sense either with hate lists, ignorant me or just ANYTHING - maybe even you.

Blog Posts - Begin on notepad and finish on notepad - Ctrl + C === >>> Ctrl + V

Daydreaming - Usually in the heart of a conversation with another poor soul being passionate about something that doesn't even get me to respond in appreciation or disinterest.

Disbelief - In most things that are 'everyday' - I know I look 14, am 20 but still believe I'm a good dose of a shot of 6 and 29!

Love & Hate relationship with almost everything - Mobile phone, my new shoes, idiots, ten faced monsters, high pitched voices, cliche - CLICHE, laze & crib syndrome and the bored.

The Sense Making system - I wouldn't want to call it eve's dropping (I am ignorant, remember?), but phrases from arbid conversations around me - and the final mash-up of all stories which would probably give Bollywood/Hollywood or any wood for that matter a shot at fame!

The book reading mishap - Everytime I take a book to read either at a coffee shop, on a bus ride to my studio, or even in my house (not in my room) - the moment an "interested & curious" intellectual walks by to see what you are so doused in and ruins the whole conversation with the book by starting another LAME conversation with almost no connection.

Gestures - I love throwing my hands up and around as I speak, speak to a poor lost traveller trying to tell him to move off the pavement and it's not for people to walk around in my City. From the action of an "almost slap", the smacking your forehead when someone ELSE is being stupid, the I need to use to restroom expression and a little finger dance to go with that act, spanking the naked non exsistent ass of a 16 something girl, the pulling out of the mobile phone even if it didn't ring or vibrate, at a traffic signal, and my absolute favorite of all - the half hearted 'I almost squished your boobs' hug!

The power of the "woman" - She can actually make herself live with the most disastrous relationship in pure belief that's he's the LOVE - the madness of denial at it's peak - not always just because this misused word called LOVE, but just so that her beautiful bubble of dreams even if not true burst - even if it's just in her head!

The dumb barking dog - Something so fun about this very friendly creature - our best friend - especially when he/she chases you for a whole mile and a half trying to sing along with your loud bike engine!

There's so much more....and I will keep typing them down on NOTEPAD and putting it up on the blog!

Till then let the meditative smog take over your lungs as let the almost roses fragrant your head......

CO - what?

2008-02-11T21:44:00.001+05:30

I was just looking at some of the photographs I'd taken over the last year and a half - and I should say I'm more than surprised at the way I've looked and captured COntrast & COlour!
Will write more in the next entry....

Noob!

2008-01-30T22:11:00.000+05:30

My first baby step into the world of blogging. It never occured to me (actually it did, and I knew it, but for now let me fly on this cloud huh?), - I could do this, just like everyone else! I'd always believed blogs were either for philosophy, work updates or sob stories, it always seemed to be part of the outermost circle of my life. Reading a friend's blog would be such a task, after countless conversations of constant plead to read their blogs. Even if I did type the url and waited for it to load, I would run through it and let it pass by just as how I would pass a traffic signal (I come from Bangalore, India!).

I'm a student of design, a student of visual communication design, design research and innovation are part of this menu - - - and having this dominate my world, I didn't even venture into reading a blog?
I know, for me to read this now after typing the last few lines out, sounds scary. Well I did it. Yes I know. At least I'm trying now ain't I?

After so many failed attempts at starting a blog, and actually updating it, just as how my brain updates all the apparent useless information; I'm starting off with the ever curious and absolutely vulnerable noob status. To be very frank after all this typing it doesn't really sound all that bad.

So to noob's like me all around this world and other worlds and to myself - Here's to blogging!