Lights, sights and bytes

A recent festival in Bengaluru pushed the boundaries of art and technology to deepen the focus on sustainability.

The amalgamation of art and technology is surely a fascinating prospect; an attempt that often results in works that are splendidly immersive and avant-garde. While the Western world has swiftly lapped this combination up, India too is off to a good start as was seen at a first-of-its-kind artificial intelligence (AI) art festival titled ‘FutureFantastic’ recently. Held in the tech hub of Bengaluru, the festival merged AI and art to talk about climate change and threw light on the mindful use of technology for a brighter and more sustainable future. “The idea was to see artists using new tools for artmaking while at the same time, understanding the power of AI. Basically, we wanted artists and technologists to get together, have fun and put their learning to good use,” says Kamya Ramachandran, festival director and co-curator, ‘FutureFantastic’. “Although we don’t see too much of it in India, using new media for artmaking is quite relevant globally. When we have health tech, fintech and biotech then why not tech art?” she asks.

Spotlight on climate change

A multi-organisation collaboration, ‘FutureFantastic’ featured numerous artists from India, the UK, Switzerland, Germany, Korea and the USA among others who joined hands to create immersive tech-art pieces on climate change. “We had to literally update our content every day thanks to the unbelievable leapfrogging happening in the world of AI. But it was extremely exciting to see performing, sound, theatre and visual artists from around the world getting together in the same ‘Zoom room’ as tech experts,” observes Kamya.
The headliner of the programme was Madhu Nataraj’s special digital piece ‘Palimpsest’, which used the Indian philosophy of the five elements of the universe (Pancha Maha Bhootas) to seamlessly blend movement arts, virtual reality and AI (see accompanying story). Then there was the ‘Wood Wide Web’, which as the name suggests, spoke about the pressing issue of deforestation. Another interesting piece was ‘Give Me A Sign’, an interactive installation that used the power of machine learning to enable visitors to have fun with mudras and hand gestures.

Even as AI is sweeping the world off its feet with its brilliance, it can often go wrong and this was showcased by ‘Poetics of Garbage’, a performative art piece, which had the performer wearing a plastic costume and walking on the streets of Delhi. The piece, which also doubled up as a film, explored the fraught relationship between humans and garbage. While it took three years for the artists, technologists and organisers to put together an event of this magnitude, Kamya says Jaaga, the experimental art and community centre under which BeFantastic was incubated, has been merging art and tech since 2009. “In December 2017, we did a tech art festival called Bengaluru Fantastic at the Rangoli Metro on how art and tech can be used for a better future,” she informs.

Although the festival pushed the boundaries of technology and art in many ways, Kamya feels tech art still has a long way to go in India. “It’s a new and nascent field and India doesn’t have institutions that teach it, unlike the Western world.

However, if tech and art can come together to be immersive, engaging and interactive and cause a shift in people’s perspectives, help them visualise scenarios or trigger a conversation, then that’s a great start. So we hope to continue this innovation.”