- India, Indians, and my trip to India -
What comes to mind when you think about India: Curry? Tandoori chicken? Saibaba? Not that it matters, really. This year, the Indians came to Linz in droves. There were probably around 50 or so. Those who have never been, and never will go to India probably saw more Indians than you're likely to see in 3 lifetimes.
... Kiyoshi's eye AAL004

- "Scratching" with a Tohoku accent -
Those in the know will have heard of Atsuko Miyazaki, the owner of coqdo Records. She's next in line after our feature with Drill. The beautiful but very tough Astuko has been maintaining a busy teaching schedule shuttling between polytechnic schools in Sendai and Fukushima, and then jumping on the bullet train back to Udagawa-cho in Shibuya for half a week before starting all over again, for almost 4 years.
I speak in Miyazaki dialect (well, strictly speaking it's closer to Satsuma dialect because I'm from Miyakonojyo), while Atsuko speaks in Fukushima dialect. I had never spoken to anyone with a Tohoku (north-eastern) accent before but hearing her speak in her drawl of hers was so pleasurable. I wonder what Atsuko, a fan of house music, thought of the Indian music she heard? Check it out!

An Indian Music Festival was held in Hauptpatz. Nothing much was happening at first and I was beginning to wondering what exactly was going on, when a couple of Indian youth holding black radio-cassette players appeared. Some stood still, while others walked around. After a while, I heard someone singing. Following the voice, I saw a woman singing from the window of the University of Arts building. You could also hear her voice through the radio-cassette players, which resonated throughout the plaza.

Although I was skeptical about the cheap-looking gadgets at first, I was pleasantly surprised by the rich sound that they were emanating. To think that this performance may be an homage to the first ever Klangwolke (when the citizens of Linz placed radios and stereos on their windowsills and played electronic music throughout the city) made it all the more poignant.

After marching around the plaza, the band of Indians moved to a carpet and played 6 songs using traditional instruments. There were some television sets showing another Indian band playing music, and the band in front of us played along with the band on screen. Of course, the band on screen weren't playing live. The performance was steeped in nostalgia, what with the radio-cassette players and old TV sets.

Anyway, there was something special about listening to Indian music in a European town. A man and a woman sang songs infused with Kabirian philosophy as if it were an anthem of this town. I especially remember how the plaza gradually filled up with people being drawn to the sounds of the tablas and sitars, and everybody sitting around and cooling off, savoring the summer's end.
Come to think of it, the ARS festival is always held during the perfect season...

Enjoy this artwork.

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- Rustle TV -
Arathi Parthasarthy, Ishan Ghosh, Nupur Mathur, Siddharth Muthyala, Pratima Kalmadi, Navin Kumar, Arshiya Naina, Pallavi Agarwala, Nomita Khatri, Khusrav Writer

With India being one of the world's biggest film industries, their video-art is, as expected, very interesting. This work consists of cameraman infiltrating the 100 year old Rustle Market in Bangalore for 3 weeks, and relaying the footage to Linz. This footage shot by these cameramen was shown on 3 screens, mixed with documentary-type footage of the cameramen shooting in the market.

I remembered that when I went to an Indian market for the first time, I was blown away by its fervor and the distinct feeling of the market having a long history closely attached to the natives in the town. As well, I felt that it had a closed-off atmosphere that outsiders cannot penetrate. It's a universe all on its own. The rough camerawork on the three screens simultaneously bombarded your senses, making it an emotional rather than cerebral experience. Although I didn't understand one word of what was being uttered, I definitely felt that some intangible desire of mine to see this sort of art was being satisfied.

- Where is Ulat Bansi? - Amaranta Nehru
An interactive piece using the philosopher Kabir as a motif.
The interactive element of this piece was disappointing. Works like this suffer when the interactivity doesn't work. Shame.

- Body in Balance - Smriti Chanchani
Another interactive installation featuring Kabir.
As you hover your hand above the white fog on the screen, the fog disappears just underneath your hand and you can see sculptures and other artworks. An infra-red camera senses your presence and controls the screen using MAX/MASP, and a projector projects the images.

It definitely has an air of indigenous mystery about it, especially not knowing what the artworks projected on the screen mean, but unfortunately the mysteriousness turns to annoyance very quickly as, not being Indian, it's very difficult to empathize with the Indian perspective of "kabir" and his legend.

- Spitituarl Index - Smriti Chanchani
A "spiritual index" created by the same artist. Actually, the only thing she made here is the pieces of paper with Kabir's poetry written on it. The machine that churns out these bits of paper is apparently very popular in India as a fortune-telling machine (I've never seen them before, although I guess the last time I was there was 8 years ago), and the artist "modified" this machine for this work.It seems like she made this for fun, seeing as she hasn't even named the machine yet.

However, the exotic-looking machine attracted much attention in the exhibition space, and many who tried it for 20 cents were left scratching their heads in wonder. I guess it's difficult to appreciate if you can't understand what Kabir's talking about in his poetry.One qualm might be that the bit of paper slips out as soon as you insert the coin. I think it might be better to raise the audience's expectation by stalling a bit here.

Enjoy this artwork.

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Lastly, a bit of footage for fun. It's very "rock". I was in awe of the Indians aggressively thrashing their arms and throwing themselves into the moshpit. Such passion. Oh man, I really want to go to India again.

Enjoy this movie.

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