Audiogyan

Swami Vivekananda once said that “Get extensity with intensity, but not at its expense.” I guess our today’s guest has been trying to achieve both very elegantly in her practice, breadth, and depth at the same time. Happy to have Ruchika Nambiar with us on Audiogyan. Ruchika is an artist, designer, and writer. Her work ranges across media, from publishing books, graphic memoirs, interactive social media stories, design consulting practice for brands and businesses as well as a mentorship program for young artists and designers. We’ll be talking about what it takes to be an interdisciplinary designer. She has some really well-documented videos on her youtube channel and website.

Questions

1. What is your definition of design and what’s your definition of art?


2. What does it really mean to be an interdisciplinary designer or an artist? Is it an outcome to input? How do you compare it with being a T-shaped designer?


3. Can one start being interdisciplinary? As Massimo Vignelli says, “if you can design one thing, you can design everything”. How would you respond to that?


4. What comes first for such designers - Thought or the medium to explore?


5. In your talk “10 Practical Realities of a Multi-Disciplinary Practice” on youtube - you mention, “use your best skill first” - isn’t it difficult to become best at one thing while doing another?


6. I have heard multiple times (recently by Varun Grover) that if you wish to write, do all other things than writing. Then write. Basically, expose yourself to many other things which fuel your creativity. What does an interdisciplinary artist or a designer consume?


7. [personal question] From whatever I gather after researching you and seeing your work, it’s quite a feat. Plus you talk about being a project manager, handling billing, building relationships, and so on... Do you feel you are spread thin? What keep you motivated on so many levels?

Reference reading

1. https://www.ruchikanambiar.com


2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVxy7nt3zp0


3. https://www.youtube.com/@RuchikaNambiar/videos


4. https://www.instagram.com/thatruchika/?hl=en


5. https://adplist.org/mentors/ruchika-nambiar


6. https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruchikanambiar/

V. Ravichandar joins us on Audiogyan. Ravi is an Honorary Director at the Bangalore International Centre. He is also the Honorary Consul for Republic of Slovenia in Bengaluru. His entrepreneurial stint was around strategy and marketing consulting through his firm Feedback Consulting. He has worked voluntarily with State and Local governments as well as civil society to improve cities. This was through the Bangalore Agenda Task Force, JN-NURM, and the City Connect platforms.

Apart from BIC, Ravi also helps run the annual Bangalore Literature Festival as part of his efforts to improve public spaces. Today we’ll be talking about his pro bono work since 2000 with the city's hard and soft infrastructure. Thank you Ravi for giving your time and it’s a real honour to have you on Audiogyan.

Questions

1. Today we are focusing on redesigning cities using Bengaluru as a peg. In your experience how do we reimagine a city that is bursting at the seams and having a host of problems? As Pranay Kotasthane from Puliya Baazi says, Over population is not the problem but under governance is... Let us take the recent flooding as an example of the problems


2. Why did it happen and how do we prevent future floods?


3. Can we really redesign public spaces given their dynamic and organic nature? What would be the few axes on which this can be thought?


4. You have engaged with multiple stakeholders involving Sarkar, Samaaj, and Bazaar in the cityscape. What are your key learnings as we reimagine the future?

Reference links

1. https://audiogyan.com/2020/12/16/dhawal-ashar/


2. https://audiogyan.com/2022/05/11/designing-boundaries/


3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_nerclv53s


4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3o5XErwvmwc


5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hlvw_gB9Sm8


6. https://feedbackconsulting.com/about/v-ravichandar/


7. https://successfulsocieties.princeton.edu/interviews/v-ravichandar


8. https://www.livemint.com/Sundayapp/Npg8vLHRQvXEigztvq4JkI/I-would-set-up-decentralized-City-Connect-platforms-across.html


9. https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/bangalore/bic-hubba-to-celebrate-city-ngos/article65084889.ece


10. https://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/the-new-bangalore-international-centre-complex-is-a-free-space/article26364664.ece


11. https://successfulsocieties.princeton.edu/sites/successfulsocieties/files/interviews/transcripts/3533/v._ravichandar.pdf


12. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8oSescM4GQ


13. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWK1Uzcp0k4


14. https://www.linkedin.com/in/ravichandar-v-a97a65/


15. https://www.samaajsarkaarbazaar.in/

This is the first episode of a 10 Part series, "Designer’s Digest”. This series is about Design as a profession, it’s daily grind, the secrets to climbing the design career ladder and what edge we’ll need to thrive in the captivating world of design.

We start with Ayaz Basrai. Ayaz has been on Audiogyan’s 104th Episode where we spoke about “Designing interiors for your city.”

He is the founder of The Busride Studio based in Goa and Mumbai along with his brother Zameer. Ayaz Graduated in Industrial Design, specialising in Product Design from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad in 2003. Ayaz studio ‘The Busride’ as an independent Design Studio specialising in the design and creation of environments, ranging from Hospitality, Entertainment venues, Film and Production to Exhibitions and temporary installations, and more.

Questions asked in the episode

1. Who according to you is a designer? You have been questioning this a lot.


2. What according to you is a role of a designer when they mature in their practice. Do the lines blur with art and then things become political or social in nature?


3. You have been engaging with very young talent like Prathmesh Jaju and others. Whats the reason for going so wide in our interest areas? How does it enrich your practice?


4. Eliel Saarinen’s famous line, “Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context - a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan." What’s your take on it? Is it a pyramid kind of a thinking?


5. You have been tinkering a lot with rizhomatic thinking? Tell us a little bit about it. Does the other node need to have equally good to understand the larger context context to pass it on?


6. You talk about intergenerational kindness by giving the Oxford examples. What is it and how can that be practised by us who are future ancestors?


7. What is India Futures Project? Why do you engage in speculative fiction from a designer’s lens? Why create these future looking narratives? Are there instances of this done in the past of which we, inadvertently, we are part of? How real these narratives were back then, if any?


8. You have an article about placeless-ness. What provokes you to think of these future spaces while we are still having cows and camels on the road. Would you venture into these 15 minute cities or explore shapes and forms of cities in the meta-verse? On which principles of foundations these exploration happen?


9. We are looking at how AI in the cradle is smiling at us. What kind of skills do Centaur Designers will need to have?


10. How would designers of the future look like? Not just in the software and industrial realm but textile, graphics, interiors and so on...

Reference reading

• https://www.architectandinteriorsindia.com/lists/ayaz-zameer-basrai-co-founders-the-busride-design-studio


• https://www.instagram.com/thebusride/


• https://www.thepracticecept.com/thebusride


• https://thehardcopy.co/in-conversation-with-ayaz-basrai/


• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEiJMVjMyrE


• https://issuu.com/thebusride


• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQWAJBpfzp8


• https://www.stirworld.com/inspire-people-arthur-mamou-mani-x-ayaz-basrai-cross-border-conversations


• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMEaLTat3wE


• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZJ4T50o95E

There are some 16 events / rituals which are performed in a life of an individual. From birth to death. If we calculate with 140Cr people, I am sure, it’s of a number. Well, worry not, we have Nose to Tail - Designing celebrations which are beautiful inside and out. Founded by Indraja Khare and Aishwarya Lonial. They design Green events and a strong believer and proponent of up-cycling and sustainability. What started as a College project at MIT has now become a successful venture going strong for 4 years. Today we’ll try and document case study with Indraja and Aishwarya and know about designing green events.

1. How did “Nose to Tail” come to be? Whats with the name? What do you girls do exactly? Why?


2. Can you share landscape of events w.r.t number of events, types of events that happen on a regular day in India. Or if you want to address your TAM. 🙂 (Or may be share some numbers to give perspective of the kind of waste we generate)


3. What all types of waste that is generated in any event? What is the biggest waste that you optimise for?


4. Can you share any case study or any client’s event that made you convinced with this mission you are on?


5. How do you design green events? Some nuances will help. If you can walk us from ideation to finally wrap-up?


6. How do you balance emotions with rituals and being practical and talking about waste when people celebrate in silos without being aware of the bigger context?


7. Can you talk little bit about the materials and sources you use to make an eco-friendly event? Can people do on their own?


8. Can this model be scaled? How do you envision future of events in India? Any other countries doing it and with what degree of awareness?


9. How has your design education helped here w.r.t problem solving? What is your biggest learning after Nose to Tail - a message you want to give budding designers and fellow practitioners?
   

“In feature films, the director is God; in documentary films, God is the director.” Alfred Hitchcock.

Welcome to this 2 part series with Jan Schmidt Garre. First part is about “Making a documentary” and second part is his latest Documentary on Late Ar. B.V.Doshi called the “The Promise – Architect BV Doshi”.

Jan Schmidt-Garre founded PARS MEDIA in 1988. It’s a production company for high-quality documentaries and feature films with a focus on classical music, dance, and the fine arts. His films have been broadcasted in over thirty countries.

Questions

1. How true are things if they are not documented anywhere?


2. How do you define private and public? (While documenting)


3. How objective is / should be documentation?


4. What are the rules or framework or principles while making a documentary? How you keep the purity and innocence of the moment or the story? Avoid colouring from the past and your own judgement?


5. What qualifies to be documented? How does one start?


6. Is there a limit to what can be said in audio-visual format or film making?


7. Can documentaries be dangerous?


8. What’s more effective for story telling, making believable? when you witnessing and being part of the documentary or dramatising sections which you couldn’t be a part of?


9. What are the top 3 attributes of a good documentary?


10. (Personal) Since your documentaries are on Art, Music and dance, don’t you feel that you are missing out on actual moments of witnessing the event as oppose to filming it?

We’ll continue this topic in part 2 since I wish to talk about film, The Promise, B.V. Doshi

Reference links

• https://www.parsmedia.com


• https://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/jan_schmidtgarre


• https://www.instagram.com/janschmidtgarre/


• https://www.delage-artists.com/en/artist/jan-schmidt-garre/biography/


• https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0773272/


• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Schmidt-Garre