Studio Co-ordinator:- Apurva Talpade, Kausik Mukhopadhyay, Prasad Shetty, Tamal Mitra
Sujal Kothawade
Form & Experience, in this module we explored the idea of form through our sensory experiences. Form here is more than just shape; it’s about how we experience space with our senses. To truly experience a form, we must be aware of it, things exist for us because we can sense them. Space has an ability to shape and alter our experiences, changing the way we perceive the world around us.
We started by reading stories by J.G. Ballard, whose works provided rich descriptions of space through sensory experiences. These readings helped us understand form beyond the physical, translating the sensations described into drawings that captured the essence of space.
I chose the short story "Track 12," and focused on a part that described a strange, spongy sound filling a patio. This inspired me to draw the experience, initially in a literal way that missed the deeper sensory impact.
"These initial drawings captured my first impressions from the text, representing the speakers and narrator’s experience. Yet, in their literal and illustrative form, they lost the deeper sense of the experience."
After revisiting the text, I began focusing on the qualities of the sound itself. I imagined the “sponginess” as porous, evoking a slippery, shimmery feel. Using these qualities, I drew forms inspired by blobs of flesh and fluid, exploring how space could emerge from these textures. From these drawings, I wrote about how it might feel to inhabit them, imagining endless puddles that led to different worlds. These spaces had a surreal quality, pulling me in and altering my perception with each new texture and form.
We then brought our spaces to life by creating acts and designing prosthetics that let us inhabit these imagined worlds. For my part, I designed an enclosure inspired by an ant colony, filled with layered puddles, reflecting the endless loop I felt in the text. Through movement and costumes, we explored the experience of being stuck in a gooey, elastic medium—spaces that blurred the line between body and environment.
"I drew inspiration from the endless, multilayered puddles in my drawing, comparing them to an ant colony, which led to the creation of this enclosure."
"We choreographed acts to represent our movement and interaction within these spaces, immersing ourselves in a gooey, sticky, elastic medium—using our bodies as instruments to shape and inhabit the space."
"In addition to designing acts and enclosures, we created costumes and prosthetics to fully inhabit and bring these spaces to life."
"Our act depicted the experience of being trapped in an endless, gooey, elastic medium that constantly pulled us in. With interconnecting elastics, the boundary between body and medium blurred—we became both foreign bodies within it and, at times, part of the medium itself."
At the end of the module, our class created an act that formed our own worlds where spaces defy logic. Here, bodies and the environment blend together, and some even transform to become the space itself, stretching and deforming endlessly.
(Click on “Rehearsals” to watch the video)
(Click on “Final Day” to watch the video)
This exercise taught us that form and space are not just physical; they are deeply intertwined with our senses and experiences, reshaping our perception in profound ways.
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