On the River

For the River

By the River

Gum bichromate is a 19th century a alternative photographic printing process using gum arabic, watercolor and light sensitizer, potassium dichromate or ammonium dichromate and light source as sun or UV tube lights. Gum Arabic is mixed with watercolor pigment and a photosensitive substance called ammonium or potassium dichromate, and brushed onto watercolor paper. When exposed to light in contact with an enlarged negative, where the light hits the most, the gum hardens the most and creates the shadow areas of the image. Where the light hits the least, the gum and pigment wash away proportionately, leaving the highlights of the image.  The ” development” of the print is carried out by merely plain water. In the water bath, the image reveals itself over a period of time little by little, as the unexposed highlights first wash away and then the softer midtones also dissolve off in various depths. What results is an image that looks surprisingly continuous tone. This exposing and development process could be carried out for two or more times, with development and drying steps after each exposure creating layer upon layer. This produces a much richer print. For a tricolor print there must be three layers – blue, yellow, and magenta.

Requirements

Step Table

UV light box

Mixing colour with gum and ammonium dichromate

applying a layer of gum dichromate for a single layer print

A coat of gelatin before placing the first layer

The paper needs to be dried before applying gum dichromate for printing.

Keywords: Show your syndrome, space as medium, melancholy, relational, architecture, decadent, mind scape, stasis, mediate, media lab, pedagogy, living, reinterpreting space, eating, slacking, sleeping, changing, local, collaborations, community.

A+type, opened in March 2011. The A+type is an experiment in spatial imaginary with an objective to explore a typology of a contemporary cultural space that can create a social engagement which allows for a translocal exchange of knowledge, experiments and aesthetic experiences.

Location: A+type is situated near the bank of the river Brahmaputra in the city of Guwahati, which is a 1459.68 km away from New Delhi.

Desire Machine Collective has initiated this project who are an artists’ collective committed to activating public spaces. A+Type reinvestigates the notion and use of space, in its common understanding. It is a durational project where an ‘Assam type’ house is opened up for people to interpret in their own ways. We make an open call for the project and accept proposals.

Participants are invited to come and live for a particular period of time in an “Assam type”, house and develop their practice in relation it. The British developed what is popularly called “Assam type” architecture as a hybrid form incorporating elements from the local indigenous architecture. These structures have become cultural markers of an era gone by and have a certain melancholy attached to them.
Participants receive a cognitive map, historical and personal background of the space and make an intervention. The duration is flexible and so are the envisaged “uses”. Residents are invited to explore and develop their individual or communal relationship to the space in terms its functional, social, architectural, historical and cultural aspects. They can choose to “use” the space as a residency, a studio, a screening space, to host talks, plays etc. Different residents constantly redefine the space and make for new interpretation of this perishing construct. Allowing for a renewed conversation on its place in history and the future.
This project initiates the process of reactivating these structures, documenting the design and history of the “Assam type” architecture and its use. The inhabitants themselves document and archive the house in creating a participatory-relational event. The project provides an opportunity to interact, experiment and work with local materials. Guwahati offers diverse inspirations as a cosmopolitan city located in the diverse region commonly referred to as the Northeast of India. The challenges of the project will encourage artists to move beyond the comfort of their studio spaces and work in new circumstances.
Since its inception in 2007, Periferry a project of desire machine collective has undertaken a number of projects dealing with hybrid practices. It has hosted many artists from diverse countries in its residency programmes, workshops, seminars and projects. It believes in fostering interactions between artists, curators, scholars, writers and young students in the local and global context. We collaborate, share and have interactions with the local artist community.

The A+type offers short duration projects and one month artist residency through out the year. While DMC welcomes any creative proposal, applicants are encouraged to first consider proposing engagement with the “Assam Type” house. We invite a letter of interest and a short proposal from interested people.

The A+type is intended for artists, designers, architects, curators, art critics, art historians and other practitioners.
Residents can make works in the form of interventions, public performances, experimental audio-visual works and interdisciplinary and hybrid forms. Work produced will be exhibited, performed and shared in Guwahati during the residency period.

Founded
Periferry – 2007

Eligibility
artists, designers, architects, curators, art critics, art historians, writers, researches, filmmakers, scientists, and other practitioners from any country.

Expectation from the artist
* One public lecture.
* Interaction with local art students.
* The residency ends with an open studio or exhibition.
* Season: Year-round.
* Average length of residency: 1 month
* Maximum number of artists at one time: 3
* Accessibility: Sorry, no wheelchair access at this time.
* Accommodation: Individual bedroom with shared bath, common kitchen facilities.

Facilities
*Broadband Internet connectivity.
*Lots of open space for interaction and communal gathering.
*Food: kitchen and cooking facilities. Local restaurants conveniently located close by.
*Library and archive of books with a section on the Northeast India.

Chargeable costs

*Charges are subject to change, please verify current charges with us.
*Other expenses to be borne by the artists.

Funding
*This is an artist-led space; no stipends or fellowships are available.

Selection:
*Made by co-ordinators by open calls or on the basis of recommendations by other artists
*Art assistants available on moderate fee.

Health
* Hospital and pharmacy within walking distance.
* Gardens / parks /river side for walks and relaxation within easy reach.
Note: We recommend that you obtain necessary vaccinations, preventive medical procedures and appropriate medical insurance before departing to India.

How to apply?
With a letter of interest and a short proposal
An application letter with the following sections:
1. Your contact information (name, telephone, address, email, website, etc)
2. Your letter of motivation, explicitly stating why you are interested in working with “A+Type” and what you would like to do.
3. Your project proposal - Your project proposal should answer the following questions:
i) What is the title of the proposal?
ii) What do you plan to make/do?
iii) What methodologies will you use?
4. Your supporting material
i) Resumé or CV
ii) URL of online portfolio or images and project descriptions in your application.
5. Additional information
i) When would you like to come?

A PROJECT BY DESIRE MACHINE COLLECTIVE AND APOORV TOMAR
medium: people, information, network

keywords: institution as medium, practice as pedagogy

Concept: This work looks at the creation of content in a particular context and examines within that the notion of compemporary. By temporarily reclaiming a public space it strives to give it a context and regenerate it. In order to Develop temporary tools based on the context, desire machine collective initiates school of everyday which will move on a nomadic trail around the city reclaiming spaces, inviting people to initiate a school based on the encounters. The final outcome can be archived in the forms of texts.
size: variable form: variable

Christina Stadlbauer - Working as  a  shiatsu  practitioner,  and  actively  occupied  with  alternative  medicine  and  traditional  healing and health prevention methods (Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda, Yoga) since 1997.
At present she is doing a installation of bees in urban environment in artistic contexts (cooperations with OKNO Brussels -and Nadine Brussels­EverMassLand)

november 2009 – february 2010
[observing, asking. * sharing, inviting.]

the first medicine: water
Brahmaputra – the He-River
The river is alive.
The riverPeople use Him for transportation, for doing their laundry and playing, for washing their dishes and themselves. They use Him to make drinking water and to discharge their sewage.
He floods their city and makes the bank fertile. He accepts the ashes of their dead and carries them to the Bengal Sea. He also accepts their plastic bags and carries them along with their dead. Sometimes He swallows a ferry and all passengers have to swim. The cycles sink-for the river-dolphins to amuse themselves.

the second medicine: food
cells in the human body take 7 years to get completely renewed. after this time, each cell has been replaced by a new one. as fuel for this the body uses air, water and food.
i you want to make roti you need time – 10, 15 minutes -
if you have no time you cannot make rotis.

the third medicine: herbs
are medicinal plants edible or edible plants medicinal?
before coming to assam, i was not aware about the close link between medicinal plants and Assamese daily life.
Assam without medicinal plants is unimaginable. investigating about this topic is like asking someone to tell his favorite story.
and still, the availability of medicinal plants seems to decrease. areas where specific plants can be harvested are getting more remote and move to higher altitudes.

the fourth medicine: yoga

“Yoga – i do evvvery day”.  and she is not the only one.

the ArdhakatiCakrAsana (half wheel) – makes your mind stable and reduces excess fat around the waist; the lateral awareness is increased.

Neti done once a month, keeps the nasal passages free. Hold the pot in the right hand, insert the nozzle into the right nostril, tilt the head and let the water enter through the right nostril and exit through the left. Repeat on the other side. (Selfcomplementary exercise)

Bartaku, °1996 (Jap) – [Bart Vandeput, °1970 (Be)]

Lives & works frequently in the urban realm > 50.845N – 04.35E

PA* Artist/Researcher – MA Communication Sciences – PA* Drumming

Bartaku’s works emerge through the interweaving of different media, methods and technologies with a fascination for scientific tropes and ‘hyper-winded’ systems, patterns, structures of man and matter. It echoes former praxis as a drummer, academic and aimless wanderer, esp. in the Andean Worlds. In 2007 -with the support of interdisciplinary lab FoAM- Bartaku started the research project “PhoEf: The Undisclosed Poésis of the Photovoltaic Effect”. At the interstices of arts, science, technology and ecology, it explores the micro and macro realms of Photovoltaics: the conversion of light into electrical energy. Since 2008 PhoEf fuses lectures, workshops and micro-interventions.

PhoEf – digital compost: http://libarynth.org/luminous/phoef

Archive blog: http://recuerdas.blogspot.com/

Project description

Fused by: ‘PhoEf: the Undisclosed Poésis of the Photovoltaic Effect.’

A research project by Bartaku – http://libarynth.org/luminous/phoef

A.Slow.Flow – A micro-intervention in the Periferry-system

Bartaku’s residency at Periferry 1.0 is perceived as a microintervention: natural dye sensitized solar cells will be inserted in the autonomous stand alone system, the Periferry boat: a petrol powered boat on the Brahmaputra nearby the city of Guwahati, in Northeast India.

Periferry-Static

The Periferry boat is a petrol powered ‘stand alone system’ that most often is sustainably immobilized due to the high cost of energy consumption.

Photovoltaics meets Permaculture

The spiral power plants are the means -not only to make efficient use of limited space for growing plants (dyes) – to intervene in existing social habitats. With the image of a DSC-powered boat in mind, a substantial amount of plant spirals is required, which means that collaboration with people/communities nearby the river will be needed.

Christina Stadlbauer

29.January, 1970, Vienna, Austria, currently living in Brussels, Belgium

Doctor of Natural Sciences (Chemistry) – Research focused on bio­monitors (wood from trees, human dental material, hair)

Working as  a  shiatsu  practitioner,  and  actively  occupied  with  alternative  medicine  and  traditional  healing and health prevention methods (Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda, Yoga) since 1997.

At present busy with the installation of bees in urban environment in artistic contexts (cooperations with OKNO Brussels – www.okno.be and

Nadine Brussels­EverMassLand) – www.nadine.be.

Project Description – A project on health, healing and aspects of energy.

consisting of a residency and a journey

BODY WATER

Residency at Periferry

Health…

The project is engaged with the investigation of specific health sustaining (medical) practices and “home remedies”. These often get traditionally passed on in families, tribes and cultures, almost as a type of intangible heritage.

When thinking about medicine, in the sense of measures to maintain health, one can begin at a very basic level. Breathing, followed by eating, drinking, sleeping are the most basal needs to provide life and wellbeing. These seemingly banal things done everyday, have a major impact and play a fundamental role in constituting the body as it appears now. The body as it is today is the result of yearlong practices, behaviors and attitudes.

Next in the hierarchy of health sustaining methods, come practices that keep our body in shape – exercises such as stretching or working out – and manual techniques, such as simply rubbing sore spots, or applying (a form of) massage.

Creating a beneficial, nurturing environment contributes to a healthy setup.

… and the Water

The water of the Brahmaputra – an observation of the river, as carrier of water, as most basic prerequisite for health and wellbeing, with water being the main component of the river and the human body. Maintaining health is implicitly linked to water. Drinking, cleaning, feeding plants and animals. Without water no life.

The river as an entity has neuralgic points, almost like acupuncture points where the energy/body of the river can be accessed. Harbors, sewage spots, swimming points, points of interest with scenic view, spots where eddies appear or drinking water is taken.

“Shifting Anchors: Floating Memories”, by Sanchayan Ghosh

This residency has been organized by Periferry in collaboration with Lalit Kala Akademi Regional Centre Kolkata, India

Venue – Periferry (M.V. Chandardinga, docked near Sukreshwar ghat, Guwahati, India)

Date – 30th December 2009

Time – 5 pm onwards

Sanchayan Ghosh is an artist and Head of Painting Department at Kala Bhavana, Shantiniketan in West Bengal, India.

In this respect a LIVE CAMP called THE ANCHOR HOUSE will be set up on the ferry to host interactive tea ADDA to participate on the everyday life on the ferry and the river bank and reflect upon the different layers in which the river exists in the everyday life of the people of Assam in general and Guwahati in particular. Moreover the Anchor House will be extended as a possible web page in the form of an ANCHOR which will be comprised of photographs of anchors from the different ferry that are functioning or stranded on the bank of Brahmaputra. These photographs can be replaced by private documents of memories of the transforming cityscape of Guwahati and the river Brahmaputra.

The Anchor House can become the site for a possible interactive space in future for hosting memories of different kinds of human applications both social, cultural, and technological that is in the state of transition.

Finally it will also focus on the notion of life and in relation to the temporary existence of the Dhobis on the bank of Brahmaputra and the stranded workers of the steamers on the bank of Brahmaputra.