I have a confession to make: I am a deeply and irrevocably confirmed left-hander. Now don’t get me wrong. Unlike the times of yore when southpaw wallahs were considered to be evil, I have lived under no such trauma. I have always revelled and celebrated my “specialness”. This confession is only to publically come clean on the fact that while my right brain that controls artistic and aesthetic sensibilities is highly developed, while the left brain that controls scientific temperament is not. So much so, that even the most basic science situations and extremely simple mathematics leave me completely flummoxed.
Given this background, when I was asked to give a lecture on “Can engineering impact art?” my instant reaction was of incredulousness. How could it possibly be I wondered — except for building strong humidity controlled art galleries — I thought simplistically? However, I calmed down when I was told that these were final year students of Computer Engineering. For it is my contention, that any discipline especially science streams, taken to its highest state culminates into art of the highest kind. And given the strides science is making today, it is imperative to harness it to take art to the next step. After all, it starts at the basic level of school and college. When many schools today don’t even offer humanities, I feel that their CBSC registrations should be cancelled, and given the fact that at least 33 per cent of the world’s population is left handed, I am sure there are many who are aesthetically inclined, but are forced into science streams. And I am happy to try and convert this miniscule minority into working for the arts. I often lament the lack of arts cadre to manage visual art galleries, music and dance institutions and big art fairs. The reasons are glaring but we choose not to look: Artists are not people who should be running arts institutions. Mostly because they are no good at it. They should focus on creating art. People with managerial skills with art in their hearts should run institutions. After all, most of us are not wired to be ambidextrous.
Coming back to the lecture. The setting was picture perfect for a landscape class: Acres of verdant greenery, with an imposing and dignified brick building on the outskirts of Faridabad. Wish they had more sculptures to make it even more perfect, but wish lists are endless! I had attended a new age meditation workshop at the Echelon Engineering College in winter, and remembered the yummy samosas they had served. After ensuring an encore of samosas, I launched forth to win potential art converts. It is the need of today’s museums, art galleries both virtual and actual, dance and music institutions to have websites and archival libraries to ensure that the arts are not only recorded, documented, but are also accessible and inviting.
This makes the role of the engineer almost pivotal in putting it all together in an easy to reach manner. Given the rapidly changing scenario of the arts where children play their guitars and pianos on their iPads and painters are going digital, computer engineers have to be constantly juggling their mental pitaras to create newer applications to catch their fancy. I do hope that I don’t live to see the day when musicians will need no accompanists, but perform alone with an iPad at a concert and artists will forget to draw with a pencil but only wield a stylus.
Thankfully, body-oriented forms like dance and theatre will remain out of their purview, but might have to still kowtow to music computerji. It is a bit like the Ardhnarieshwar roop of Shiva and Parvati — one is incomplete without the other. Both my left and right brains boggle at the thought! As the art season in Delhi is unfolding after its hibernation all summer, it is great to see shows that may not be large on scale but high on intellect.
One such show is New Directions in Old Media, a two-part show, which seeks to understand the process of art making by emerging artists who have consciously chosen marginal life to create artworks in old media at a time when digital and cognitive, technology and conceptual works are dominating the art scene. They have rebelled against the dominance of content and obsession with conceptual art and new media, which have straddled art criticism and practice since the 90s.
This new generation of artists has also moved away from the glossy surface and the spectacular, and is working more with the notions of aesthetic and intimate. And as arty Delhi gets ready for the United Art Fair this week, I for one am hoping and wishing from the bottom of my right brain that it succeeds, succeeds and succeeds, for it will not only showcase independent artists from all over the country, it will also be a tight slap on the faces of gallerists who play hard to get and promote undeserving talent. It might end their hegemony on art pricing to make it viable as well.
The net has changed the accessibility levels of Indian art and helped catapult new talent into the global arena. This is the time to further expand and consolidate our position. Ambidextrous arty technology anyone?
Alka Raghuvanshi is an art writer, curator and artist and can be contacted on alkaraghuvanshi@yahoo.com