StandingOnFish Photos

dancing on the street

Wow! This post has been a while in the making. So a belated sum-up a super fun last-of-the-series-of-six:
Yana Lewis was out of town, but was sweet as ever to have her troupe be part of this act. The dancers showed up just as Mesha and I finished mixing tubs of colours and Nirali, Anand, and the rest of the gang had the treated thermacol pasted down onto the pavement. We had the screen and laptop on a ladder up as well. The stage was set! The crowd was completely curious too...
The drums began to roll, people began sending us SMSs with their favorite colours, this was projected on our standingonfish blog, the dancers jumped into the tub containing the latest fav colour and pretty soon the white canvas was covered with the most sykotic foot patterns in all the colours of the rainbow - just as promised. In fact million time more supherb!! The dancers were great! And the crowd were totally enthu. I loved the way people would come up to me and ask if they could participate in the act...that only we want, i'd happily say, we'd love for all of you to do that!

Psssst the SOFTact Team is going to take a little break till around mid-jan 07. Sign-up for the newsletter to keep in touch with our upcoming plans.

Thanks for coming and making this one extra perfect:
Yana Lewis Dance Company
Saurabh - photos and video
Nirali Lal
Aishwarya
Krishna
Anand Bora
Tomek
Dawood
Pearlene
My family: Revathi Satyu, Vimala Rangachar and mom

dancing-on-the-street

Boys and girls,

Many happy returns of the day! Sunday coming is the last of our current series of 6 StreetActs with StandingOnFish and our plan for it is super special!

We are going to have the pavement turned into a 70 foot long canvas, and have many talented dancer feet that will paint beautiful patterns in all the colours of a rainbow...and you get to tell the world your fav colours.

So mark out 4 and 4:30pm on Sunday (tomorrow) the 17th of dec and show up at at the Brigade Road and Residency Road intersection (outside Mota Arcade) to see and be part of this community performance art.

If by some unfortunate chance you are not able to come out there, just send out an SMS to 9986336929 with b(space)soft(space) your fav colour. Add your name or remain anonymous E.g. b soft blue - arcna. And you can still be part of the rainbow :)

so here's to dancing the rainbow soon,
arc & mesha

PS: go see standiingonfish.spaces.live.com to see all the SMS's that people have sent us so far...

Clowning-on-the-street

After our visit to Vistaar where the SAP (Society for Artists and Performers) troupe were taking workshops for some of the Srishti students, we were pretty excited with our plans. The SAP artistes - Adil, Bidya, Fengel, Beatrice and Vishnu were going to use Clowning to get people to send their thoughts and reactions via SMS to the StandingOnFish blog!

Our setup involved a laptop connected to the internet, a large 24" monitor, a whiteboard and a large mobile mock-up. The idea was to have people send in SMSs to our SOF blog where it would be posted instantly. This would be projected on the monitor via the laptop and Mesha would write it on the whiteboard.

Why? So that the people could see how the clowns would react to their instantly published SMS messages.

It worked magically. Once the crowd got into the act, and figured the trick to get some crazy reactions from the clowns, SMS were flying around. You can have a look at all the SMS posts that people sent to us at www.standingonfish.spaces.live.com You can also send us posts by following the instructions under How? in the right column >>

And the cool part is that this Sunday we added got a nice little feature with the SMSBlogging system that sends out the previous 2 SMS posts if you post up one…that way you get to read other people’s thoughts when you send out yours :)


The SAP guys were Terrific! Amazing! Super! Thanks a million times!:
Adil Hussain
Beatrice Ordex
Fingal Pollock
Jogiraj Chakrabrti
Vidyavati Phukan

Thanks to some of SOF friends who showed up:
Meera Naidu
Nirali Lal
Sandeep
Dawood
Anand Bora
Indrani
Sumit
Krishna Mehra
Prasad – Video
Udai - Photos

A very special thanks to my family for coming out and being part of the fun: Mom, Dad, Arathi, Sridhar, Abhay and Antara

act-on-the-street...join us while we clown around :)

well well well tomorrow is going to be kick-ass! we have a bunch of surprises in store. Hint? well...let's see...something to do with clowns, something to do with writing...something very fun! so be part of the sykosis...
4pm. brig rd - residency rd corner (outside mota arcade)

words-on-the-street

   

Words are flowing out like endless rain...the Fiona Apple version of Across the Universe plays in my mind when i think about our last Act on Brigade road last Sunday. The mood was so gentle and the balance between energy and chaos was just perfect!

I'll admit come Friday and Mesh and I were as skittish as two cats about our 'plan'. It was a little more complicated than the others. We wanted people to give us their minds. We wanted to be able to read their thoughts. We wanted everyone to know what was on each others minds. We wanted to experiment with calligraphy...we wanted it all!

Sunday afternoon found both of us badly head-ached and slightly edgy Screeched in at 4pm. Pulled out the goodies from my car. Up went the banners. Paints were mixed. ‘Give us words’ was our little notice to the people. 15 meters of cloth was spread out onto the pavement and we got right into it. People began asking questions soon enough, and out came our SOF bookmarks. Saurabh and Udai got out their cameras and passers-by got the idea really quick and the words began to flow…

All 30 meters of cloth were painted. And we could have gone on well past 5:30pm, but the cops did have a point…where were our permission papers for that?

So one more superb Sunday and thanks to all our friends who showed up!
Sean
Jatin
Sonali
Purab
Deeksha
Krishna
Sandeep
Sapna
Vire - video
Tomek - photos
Saurabh – photos
Udai – poles & photos

words-on-the-street this sunday...be there

Sunday is around the corner and StandingOnFishTeam Act has something plotted and planned. We are going to be writing on the street.
How? What?
Well...it involves many meters of cloth, lots of calligraphy and some story-making. Come off and be part of the fun!
Where? When?
Same place - brigade road & residency road intersection.Sunday. 4pm sharp

graffiti blocks the street

  

Sunday morning found Mesha and me crawling groggily out of bed to stare at this large stack of cardboard cartons we had managed to scrounge and find in a small go-down in Sheshadripuram over the previous week. We wanted to paint out the logos that were scattered all over the boxes and test whether the paints we had would hold, show and behave. This exercise turned out to be more fun than I expected actually. Ended up with a bunch of my cousins, a sibling and one 3-and -something-year-old niece happily dipping into the paint tubs and ‘helping’ out. Net result - painted boxes + very colourful balcony.

By 3pm we set out to block the streets. My little gray Indica could barely hold all the nonsense we had in there. Cartons, easels, paint, buckets, banners, stones (picked off the roads to hold down the cartons), cameras, magazines, newspapers…ahhh you name it! The car was a veritable A-Z supply store.

Rendezvous point at brigade road found us off-loading at superhuman pace and with some volunteers and a very curious crowd we had our wall up ten past 4. Yes, yes, we actually pulled it off!!!

From free Tibet to Why No Parking...
all kinds of gripes and gratitude were splattered on our wall pretty soon. I‘m just amazed at the reaction we get every time we do our street Acts. After some momentary hesitation, most people just get right in and get totally involved with painting,
writing , sticking .

This free-form graffiti wall really worked out. We’ll just put up a small bulletin saying that we’re painting and everyone can come join us we plotted while stuck in traffic that day. No more cajoling and canvassing…let see how it plays itself out. If people see that we are having fun, it shouldn’t take them too much to want to join in right? Worked like a charm. Tons of people walked up to us and asked if they could dip in. yes yes, please do…that only is the idea.
More and more I love these Sundays!

Hey, one BIG thank-you to all the ppl who came out there and graffitied with us! One special mention to Vasundhara Das for coming out there to support us :) Some regular faces that we are fully happy to see - Anand, Dawood, Tomek, Sandeep
If i've left out any names please just comment or email in

Photographs by Saurabh. Many, many thanks da!

See you all next Sunday then. 4pm. brig rd....till then, post in your thoughts by SMSing to our standingonfish blog
read side column for more info >>

sculpture? painting? graffiti? sunday on-the-street again

wokay. we had a super great time last sunday painting with everyone on the streets, so this time we decided to get more of that while remaining true to our adventurous selves...we are going to be experimenting with sculpture, collage-making, graffiti...you name it.

jusht come off. bring anything you'd like to see up on a wall - colour, clippings, thoughts, words.

4pm sharp. Brigade road - residency road intersection. sunday, the 26th of nov.

we picked the time. we picked the place. now tic tic tic tic tic tic...

O and if you haven't already, please sign up for our newsletter so we can email you our POA every time we Act on the streets >>

45 meters of painting on the pavement

 

9am Sunday morning, and it seemed many of our painter friends were a bit skittish about painting in public - they were not performing artists they said. This was going to be a tricky one...and the bigger Q: how do we get the people in the crowd to participate?

Over dosas at my parents place an hour later Mesha struck gold! Indian Express carried on its front page a picture of kids in Germany painting the longest canvas. Our first Act on St.Marks a month or so back, we had done something similar except with just 5 ppl. So 2 and 2 together we made 1000!

A dash to Art Materials in Kumara Park to get some running length of white paper, some brushes, borrowed easels, hunt for buckets and basins, all the paints that either of us owned, and we were set...but the rain god was upset it seemed.
3 pm found the two of us sitting on the portico of Motas while it rained down on us. We figured that even if was going to pour, we'd still just put up our easels and paint...more statement that!
3:15 pm the rains stopped. Up went the banners. Out came our art goodies. Jo brought in the water, Vibin and Abi helped us roll out the paper, Smitha, Ashish set up the easels, Udai and Saurabh got out their cameras...

4 pm sharp we were ready, set, go!

The crowds totally got into the act. Loved the way so many people just picked up the brushes, or dipped in their hands and wrote, drew, marked the paper. And the kids were adorable…kumar and his sister, diya and keya - fully sweet.

So now we have about 45 meters of art created by the people on the streets. And all kinds of ideas come to mind. We can make an animation short, we could use the paper to create an interesting sculpture. it would be great to have it back on the street as a public installation someday - a community graffiti installation piece. hmmmm...

Special thanks to the guys who helped us paint-on-the-street:
Vibin Nair
Abhijeet S Dev
Johanna Barretto
Smitha
Ashish S
Dawood
Udai Singh Pawar - Video
Saurabh - Photos

Fully thanks you who came inspite of the dark clouds:
Jitu
The Joys - Joseph, Chandana, Diya and Keya
Anand Bora
Roshini Gyara
Veda
Archana Handa
Manoj V
George Paul
Pramod

SOF Paint-on-the-street

Sunday coming up and this time we have a very happy plan. Show up 4pm on brigade road (outside Mota Arcade). We’ll have some easels and acrylic paints set up. Those who would like to paint can come forward and start painting. Simple right!
And everyone who comes there can be part of this act by simply bringing a sketch book and writing, scribbling, drawing in them for that half hour.
The sketch book is important guys. It's our creative way to show that we care about our art, our streets and that there are simple, artistic ways we can speak out!

Our message :
Art on the streets. Public awareness on creative forms of self-expression. Questioning our urban planners and city authorities on why there are no public spaces for such activities.

The SOF project :
We collect people's reactions, thoughts, feelings, drawings, paintings, et al, on the standingonfish blog. So that one fine day these can be displayed, published projected onto the streets from where they came. And yes people can SMS and post instantly to our blog.

Post your comments here or get in touch with us to share ideas, ask q's and become an active part of SOFTact by writing to standingonfish[at]hotmail.com

Music-on-the-street: the madness has begun!

the first of the series of 6 sundays of went off really well you guys! lots of very, very happy crowd and truck loads of enthu. the music boys were amazing!!

mesha and i started off around 2pm by looking at the street. it was hot, we were trying to figure out which spot to pick to have the SOF act. finally we chose a little patch of pavement just outside of Mota Arcade on Brigade Road and started to put up the banner.

3:45 and we were set. the instruments were on the street. the banners were up. the passers-by were getting curious...we even got a few thinking we were hawking the instruments!

4pm and on the dot - abhi walked over to the mat, picked up a guitar and began strumming. almost immediately the rest of the lounge piranha boys - george, kamal, rohan and prevez got into the scene. passers-by were pausing. some more music enthusiasts - anandan, natraj, micheal, montrey, pavan and a few others walked onto the mat, picked up their instruments and pretty soon a full on jam with djembes, dijareedoos, dhols and guitars kicked in.

It was SUPERRRRR! half an hour of the best kind of madness. and yep we got in a huge crowd of people who were pretty happy to be there.

So who is up for the next one? Any guesses on what its going to be all about? find out i say, find out...

SOF Jam-on-the-Street with Lounge Piranha - Today!

yep that's right! we are going live! the lounge piranha boys will kick-off the 6 sunday's in a row marathon to take our blog-on-the-street art project out there.
so be there boys and girls, music with us from 4pm to 4:30pm. the brigade road - residency road (outside Mota Arcade) intersection, bangalore, india - is where its at.
see you and keep watching this space for yummy pictures of all that you missed out on if you don't make it :)