'Road to Thousand Lights' - Performance at Rangoli Art Center, M.G. Road, Boulevard, Bangalore.

Ever since we crawled out of that primordial slime, that's been our unifying cry, "More light." Sunlight. Torchlight. Candlelight. Neon, incandescent lights that banish the darkness from our caves to illuminate our roads, the insides of our refrigerators. Big floods for the night games at Soldier's Field. Little tiny flashlights for those books we read under the covers when we're supposed to be asleep. Light is more than watts and footcandles. Light is metaphor. Light is knowledge, light is life, and light is light. 

~Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider

'Road to Thousand Lights' is my second project for Live Art Lab which was based on concept of RE COLLECTION and RE P(L)AY of changes in city and especially in MG Boulevard, Bangalore which is transformed into new Space. Rangoli Art Center being a place for cultural exchanges so I thought the subject will be apt for the performance.

Through this work, I wanted to reconnect and reestablish relationship with old traditional Bangalore with the new grown city. Relooking the old historical roads of Bangalore which are transformed with a new look. The new cosmopolitan Bangalore is recognized with IT industries with hustling and bustling night life, meeting the worlds demand, the city has got new status as Silicon city from Garden city with flashing night lights. There city has undergone tremendous change in last decade with long flyovers cutting across the city and accommodating traffic. The city of Bangalore is slowly and gradually losing its charm and becoming like any other metro city of concrete land, where people hardly get the time to think about what they actual need and what they need to see. The people have blinded by more demands of modern lifestyle, the flashy glaring lights, thereby more and more distancing themselves from themselves. In this performance work I wanted to bring this very same message where they see old Bangalore but in the shadow of new light a mix of old and new together.

I was wearing a traditional hair plaits with flowers (Maggie na jade) replaced by light representing the new development in Bangalore the growth of IT industries, Companies burning their night lamps and city replaced with jazzy lights (electronic bill board night light).

The light has more Philosophical and psychological relevance for our life. We have seen people having suicidal tendency when they don’t see much light in their life the light in not in literal sense but more in spiritual context and connected to broader sense of life, having thousands of metaphoric connotations.

As we are progressing to new age of high tech life style people usual distance to real connection to themselves running behind meeting deadlines making money accumulating things. I also wanted my audience to see light beyond light the more inner meaning and metaphors of lights I felt a need of a hour as we are growing we are distancing ourselves from seeing inner and true meaning of light. In my performance I distributed light stick and light toys and postcard as souvenir to remember light, not miss the real meaning of light this was given in exchange of dialogue and seeking answer to question what is light for them.

Dimple B Shah, 2013

RE-FLEX - An essay about a new medium.

Re-flex, the latest project at Bar1 curated by Christoph Storz, or Estee Oarsed

Whether you like it or not, in recent years the banners and hoardings on vinyl, flex etc., are an integral part of the visual city. Bengaluru, with its lax regulations, is plastered with stretches of flex wherever you look. Put up for a short while, they catch your attention and then disappear again. Later the same flex may reappear in a less official role as protective covers against rain and dust. In this second life, the imagery on the material gets ignored. Features of local operators blown up to the size of statesmen might end up upside down, as covers for tempos, makeshift shacks and pushcarts. The second life flex authoritatively negates any pretence and come back into the world of things, where surface is just surface. 

The exhibition curated by Bar1/No Bars, artists and going-to-be artists responded to the public presence of flex and appropriated it in their own ways. 28 artists (Aishwaryan K, Alaka Rau P, Ameer, Anjana Kothamachu, Archana Prasad, Biju Joze, Chaitra Puthran, Charitha, Christoph Storz , Dimple B Shah, Estee Oarsed, Mohan Kumar T, Mangala A M, Meghana Rao, M G Kulkarni, Mohammed Yunees, Prakash L, Rakesh Kallur, Ravi Shah, Ravikumar S M Halli, Sheela Gowda, Shiva Prasad KT, Smitha Cariappa, Subramani J, Shivaprasad S, Suresh Kumar Gopalreddy, Urmila V G and VG Venugopal) were the artists who participated in the show from all over the Bangalore.

- Christoph Storz, or Estee Oarsed

From Left - Alka, Rau P, Dimple B Shah, Ravi Shah, Smitha Carriappa, Aishwaryan K, Biju Joze, Suresh Kumar Gopalreddy, Subramani J, Shivaprasad S, Ravikumar S M Halli, Mangala A M, Rakesh Kallur & Anjana K.

Tin Cry

It is a video installation piece where I attempt to preserve my body and soul from decomposition but in the process I realize that it is a completely impossible task since the tin/aluminum foil which is used to preserve food and other items cannot preserve life, and so it cannot preserve my body and soul from corrosion. It is a conditional preservation, the whole act becoming a Paradoxical Act. The video is supported by audio, talking about the experience during my performance.