Workshop on ‘Digital Media and Contemporary Art’, September 1-12, 2008
This workshop was conducted by Abhijit Gupta, Artist, Abhik Mukhopadhyay, Cinematographer and Filmmaker, and Sanjeet Chowdhury, Filmmaker, Media Artist. The coordinator of the workshop was Dr. Madhuja Mukherjee, Joint Coordinator of the Lab. Supratim Roy and Bhagirath Halder, members of the Media Lab team, were technical assistants for the workshop.
The introduction of the artists was followed by the self-introduction of the participants- among them were university teachers, writers and ‘graphic’ story-tellers, research students, lyricists, video artists, painters, and students from various institutions.
During the introduction, Sanjeet Chowdhury suggested that defining video art/digital art is difficult as it shifts with space and time. As a matter of fact, ‘change’ is the pulse of digital art, as it keeps reinventing itself. Madhuja Mukerjee discussed the day-to-day plan of the workshop and each participant was encouraged to produce their own digital work. Thereafter, the participants and the artists were taken to the screenings of the ‘40 years Retrospective of Video art/Digital art from Germany’ at Max Mueller Bhavan, Calcutta.
‘Understanding digital art’ was the primary topic of discussion on the second day of workshop. One of the suggestions was: ‘digital art’ is a juxtaposition of images on different planes and of different shapes or sizes to generate a visual experience, rather than necessarily a meaning-generating process. Spontaneity and abstraction of images are central to digital art, as when the mode of ‘projection’ itself becomes part of an art work. Besides projection, framing and materiality are facets which digital art share with cinema’. The question that came up was ‘why art on digital media’? It was speculated that, ‘digital art de-familiarizes the everyday, and re-familiarizes the unseen’. Digital art, in a manner of speaking, is experiential rather than attempting to be communicative.
Next, screenings of digital films/art works by the Eclectic Crew (a group to which the experts belonged) was held to familiarize the participants the works of local artists: Abhijit Gupta’s Encounter, Daydream, Sanjeet Chowdhury’s Painter’s Equilibrium, One Day in the Life of Mr. Sil and Odyssey by Abhik Mukhopadyay. The experts spoke in detail how they had planned, scripted and executed their works.
Eminent artist, Chhatrapati Dutta, was special guest next day, and his digital art projects, Iconoclash, and Bone Mill Tales were among other works that were screened and discussed. This was also the day when the participants presented their ideas, which were subsequently analyzed by the experts.
The remaining 2 days of the week were utilized on developing ideas, scripting, formation of groups and charting shooting and editing schedules. The participants discussed their ideas individually with the experts.
On the subsequent days the workshop moved beyond the Media Lab, and the participants were busy shooting/collecting images for their digital films/art work. While some of the participants used their own cameras (including handycams as well as HDV cameras), most of them worked with the Media Lab equipment, in presence of the senior artists, who at times helped the inexperienced participants with shot-taking etc. The editing was planned meticulously to finish all projects within working hours.
Through the mad rush hours, last minute corrections, and individual disagreements, eventually the final presentations emerged. Among the works that were created by the participants and screened on the final day were the ‘digital soundscape of the city’ put together by Subham Roy Choudhury, digital documentation of migrant labour at construction sites put together by Subhodeep Roy Choudhuri and Sheersha Mukherjee, ‘Infusion’ by Taniya and Arindam, digital work that juxtaposed work in progress on clay idols with advertisement slogans by Dipanwita, collage of filmic and commercial images in ‘All Fall Down’ by Raja Alam and Sambit Basu, ‘Retake’ showing the image of a woman intercepting well-known cinematic images of Calcutta by Madhuja Mukherjee and Epsita Haldar, a critical take on office space, the endless process of scanning texts and images by Spandana.
The final discussions dealt with the appraisals of the participants’ projects. An idea that came around was whether a ‘soundtrack’ can be defined as a ‘visual track’. The works were also analyzed on the basis of the impact of the ‘dead’ frames which could mar the flow of the films. The question of humour was another point of discussion as the experts gave their opinions on the digital works.