Flyover Country
ABOUT
Imagine energized exchanges, eager discussions and collaborative art-making with creative practitioners across backgrounds and expertise, who have come together to re-engage with the process of public art and placemaking, connecting the global and the local using art & technology.
How can public art practices deeply rooted in place pivot online? How does the relationship between the local and global manifest in public art? What is the value of collaboration in the art-making process? How can technology enhance the experience of creative placemaking?
Jaaga.in and BeFantastic.in announce an exciting project titled Flyover Country in partnership with Kcymaerxthaere (KCY) that explores these questions. We invite Bengaluru’s creators to plummet into the parallel universe of KCY with artist and Geographer-At-Large Eames Demetrios.
Join us on a journey of 3D storytelling through visual and performative mediums to help us manifest a portal under a flyover in Bengaluru
FAQs
What is Kcymaerxthaere?
Kcymaerxthaere is a global work of three-dimensional storytelling where the Geographer-at-Large, Eames Demetrios has installed markers in one hundred and forty-three sites around the world that honours events in the fictional world called Kcymaerxthaere in our ‘linear’ world. Eames’ stories take us into a parallel universe that is radically different from ours, making us pause for a moment and stop, think, dream or wonder. With markers made to last that are often out of bronze, stone or concrete, and made with a process that embraces the locale it is situated within, these installations are portals where we can allow ourselves to plummet into the world of Kcymaerxthaere.
Some of our favourite markers:
The life of Bala Qhova in Linear Les Village, Bali, Indonesia
Relearning Love, Suryagarh, in Linear Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, India
City of Justice, in Linear Vilnius, Lithuania
What is Flyover Country?
Jaaga’s interest in public art came with our genesis in 2009, with a special enthusiasm for flyovers in Bangalore in 2014. Having opened up this space for contemporary art-making under flyovers, we have been working in the field in a modest and carefully thought through capacity over the last 7 years, the project Flyover Country is thus a coming together of Jaaga’s keen interest and Eames’ whimsical rendition of flyovers in Kcymaerxthaere.
The project wishes to manifest a physical marker in Bengaluru that opens the portals to this parallel universe at a flyover location (to be decided). The marker made of the light grey granite that is local to the city will be set amidst murals that amplify the rich details of the story, a layer of interactive technology and a piece of theatre that helps both art patrons and the neighbourhood around the flyover to partake in this process of art-making.
Toward this end, Flyover Country will run an art-making CoLab online and then actuate the on the ground component of the project when it is safe to do so.
What are the components of Flyover Country?
Online Component:
BF CoLab
- Participants who are visual artists, graphic designers, muralists, illustrators or animators, from Bengaluru will be convened in an online space.
- Collaborative work, discussion and feedback sessions will be conducted online to develop the visuals from the text of the Flyover Country story
- Mentor Mondays, Working Wednesdays and Feedback Fridays will structure the time during the three week of synchronous online collaboration.
- Mentoring sessions by invited experts in the field to share their practice, contribute towards upskilling, and providing critical feedback to the art making process.
- Mentoring will be offered in aspects of mural making, creating visual narratives, and exploring augmented reality for placemaking.
- CoLab participants will interact with the theatre practitioners as part of the workshop
BF Dialog & Showcase
We will end the month of July with an online showcase of our works as a result of this experience. This will be open to wider audiences. Mentors who are leading artists in the field will engage in a public dialog session with the workshop participants and audiences at large to discuss and debate some of these critical questions posed.
A similar public showcase and discussion will take place under the Dialog banner in tandem with the on-ground component of the program as well.
Onground Component:
When the situation with the pandemic allows us, we will execute the murals, actuate the AR layer and present the performative piece. The location and timeline with program details are yet to be determined and will be communicated later.
What is the project timeline ?
Who are the Mentors?
| Bakula Nayak | A self-confessed stubborn romantic, Bakula Nayak noses out the magic stifled daily and elevates the mundane into something bright, dreamy and unique through her art. Bakula’s passion for collecting vintage paper, fused with her love for imagining the life stories of people who owned them, translates into tangible works of art. She breathes new life into the now-forgotten pieces of beauty by painting on them. |
| Amitabh Kumar | Amitabh Kumar is a graphic artist based out of Bangalore, India. In the past, he has worked with the Sarai Media Lab, Delhi, where he researched and made comics, programmed events, designed print media and co-curated an experimental art space. He is a founding member of the Pao Collective, an Indian comics ensemble, and is currently occupied with creating ecosystems for emerging comic book artists in India. Since 2012 he has been painting murals across the country. He is a faculty at Srishti Manipal Institute of Art and Design and Technology. |
| Hasan S | Hasan is a new media artist, creative technologist and educator based in Bangalore working with critical concerns around technology, AI and tangible interfaces. His works blur the boundaries between Art, Science & Technology to collectively imagine a future in which symbiotic relationships are formed between humans and machines. |
CREDIT LINE
| SUPPORTED BY | CONCEPT BY | PARTNER | PARTNER |
 |  |  |  |
FOLLOW US
| WEBSITE | |||
| BeFantastic | @befantastic.in | @befantasticin | www.BeFantastic.in |
| Kcymaerxthaere | @kcymaerxthaere | @kcym | www.kcymaerxthaere.com |
| Jaaga | @jaargarnaut | @jaagarnaut | www.jaaga.in |
| Dara | @daraconnects | @daraconnects | https://www.dara.network/ |
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