Mixing up with Mediawalas

This festival intends to give a new meaning to design "" of an object being used in a manner that is convenient and not in a way that it has been so designed. It's a definition that makes one think and relate to one's immediate surroundings, be it political or social.

Held on March 1 and 2, at the Global Art Village and the British Council respectively, the festival called Mediawala Festival "" which also made for a side event to a bigger conference on sustainability, food and energy issues called Doors 9 "" was a celebration of sorts of creative juices that makes one think out of the box and lend a new meaning to design.

To prove their point, the organisers gave you the example of a washing machine. Now, you would wonder what is unusual about the machine and pop came a question "" what do you see there? "A washing machine ..." you replied. "Why?" came next. "Because it is so designed "" to wash and clean the clothes," you said.

"But, not to a dhabawalla on the Chandigarh-Punjab highway who uses it make lassi in bulk!" they told you. And before you recovered, a point was made. While the world may perceive a washing machine as something that is meant to wash clothes, it is just a motor and a huge compartment to churn out huge quantities of lassi "" and so effortlessly.

Going by this, one can expect to see unusual and experimental stuff in the festival, stuff that makes you look at things from a fresh perspective. And so you had an Apsara VJ thela by Mo Ling Chui from Canada/China decorated with symbols of fertility and good luck collected from South Asia.

All these identities were also mixed and reflected off from a mobile multimedia cart. Chui herself dressed up as an apsara and mixed music and visual imagery. The visuals were played from a monitor placed behind her head on the back of a throne, which was painted like a thangka. "The idea was to depict TV or media as the modern god," says Chui. "After all, in today's world we blindly follow and believe whatever is handed over to us by the mass media. It's a telling statement on the society and the influence of media on all of us," she says.

Reflecting within was Abhishek Hazra's presentation, titled "Squishing it into the Slimy Depths of the Tethys Sea". While one wondered on what it means, Hazra explains: "My presentation aimed to depict the confusion and chaos that we have created around us. And thereon the need to cleanse ourselves."

Therefore, as part of his presentation, Hazra's cart had ghungroos or bells smeared with red toothpaste tied all around and Hazra performed a physical act of wiping these bells as he went on to deliver a monologue, the prose for which he had composed himself. The act was mean to signify separation of debauchery from entertainment.

Also reflecting on the absurdity in the world was the presentation by Quicksand, which dressed up its thela as the mouth of a shark. Designed to perform the function of a bioscope, it had a film running inside that depicted the absurdities that exist in our society.

"We recorded this film on our trip to Kumbh. One of the shows put up at the mela was a museum of sorts that collected and stored deformed species. It was quite horrific in itself. But what shocked us even more was the lack of reaction from all the visitors who saw the exhibits," says Neha, a member of the group, adding, "And we thought why not put it up here and see what reaction we get from people around us!"

But it was not all about morals and the reflections from the society, the festival also had exhibitors taking up issues of energy conservation. The cart presentation by Karthikeya Acharya and Vinay Silva was an example of architecture of motion. While a bell-shaped dome on the cart was powered by batteries and depicted energy use, there was a small light in the centre that responds to the inertia of the cart's journey as it travels through the procession and was meant to depict recyclable green energy.

Appealing to foodies was the presentation by foodradio network that recorded the various sounds of food while it was getting cooked, then mixed and played it back using Internet radio. Another manifestation of media, one guesses!