Nipun Kumar

Riddle of the Sphinx from Nipun Kumar on Vimeo.

I have seen many dance performances and figure skating competitions on TV where the commentary and jury would describe movements of the dancers using terminology like clean lines, spinning into a perfect cylinder, smooth and proportional curves, good balance, beautiful arch etc. which are commonly used attributes in the process of making architecture and interior spaces.

This project aims at exploring, interpreting and experimenting with the relationship between body, body movements and Cartesian space. This installation requires three back-lit projection surfaces forming the 3 Cartesian planes namely the floor/XY plane, the front/XZ plane and the side/YZ plane assembled in a configuration of three adjacent faces of a cube. This installation was first designed for a dancer/performer. Three infrared cameras each track infrared LED’s mounted on the performer’s wrist and ankles. Wrist and ankles now behave like a paint brush and space becomes the canvas which is being mediated through the three screens.

Each movement, gesture is not only broken down in its orthographic tracings on the Cartesian plane but also in time. Sometimes the tracings would leave a continuous trail of the movements exposing the passage of the body and create a memory, a kind of a footprint of motion tracks in space. Eventually I would like the tracings to toggle between dashes, lines, dots, 2d-shapes and 3d-shapes giving us multiple experiences and establishing a relationship that we might share with these geometric graphical representation and space. The representation of simple twirl could be realized as a ribbon revolving around the performer or it could be a series of dashes stepping in and out. Waving hands could be an arc of a circle or it could be the shape of a fan blade chopping the air.

This project intends to investigate how our bodily actions relate to the space in which we live. The architecture that surrounds us is legitimized as an extension of space of our body in which we can perform various tasks and functions required for today’s urban survival. With present construction and building technologies architectural spaces are becoming more fluid and try to mimic the nature and movements/flow anticipated for a designated function of a space. The advent of these non-linear methodologies in the fabrication of architectural spaces is being termed as “digital architecture”. Similarly a “digital space” is defined differently by graphic designers, electronic/interaction designer, product designer, web-developers, cybernetic theorists and also architects.

Now that the discourse of digital space and digital architecture is so convoluted this project will try and define what possible digital relationships can be established with architecture, body and movements. These literal translations of movements onto architecture itself could unfold new avenues of investigations between body as a constant performer in space. This might be the germination of a “digital place” as space which is experienced by dissecting motion and movements in a dynamic digital behavior creating a transient space in tandem with the body embodied in that space.

The human body itself transforms from its birth to death, from crawling to hunching. It is conditioned by the phases of physical development and the nature of motion varies for each juncture of life. Hence the nature of movement is always in metamorphoses and the spatial and architectural context witnesses these changes in movement patters generated by us.

Body + Space + Drawing from Nipun Kumar on Vimeo.

Thesis Project 1

Point of Misconnections from Nipun Kumar on Vimeo.

This sound and light installation is placed in the context of hallways and corridors. These interstitial spaces are charged with movement of people who are trying going to point B from point A. These long transitory cuboidal spaces are charged with a certain type of social behavior. This social behavior can be described as a tension that exists when one is walking in a common space with many strangers. While people are walking across these passages they are aware of the position of other people walking and accordingly orient or align themselves to avoid a collision in their trajectory. People walk at a different pace than each other crossing and passing others from the opposite direction and in the same direction. At these points of crossing I believe our minds unconsciously register the phenomenon of the cross and there is an awkward feeling and hesitancy in acknowledging this event especially if people make eye contact. I have experienced a small amount of tension whenever I cross someone in these hallways. I want to amplify this subtle phenomenon by using a series of LED panels framed across the hallway which triggers a wave of changing colors originating from the point of crossing and also generates a sound which travels with the wave.

It is hard to argue that everyone feels the same way, because there are many different dynamics that occur within these hallways. Some people do not care and keep walking confidently, neglecting the people and the architecture of the space. These are those who use that space very often and are comfortable ignoring their context unless something unusual captures their attention. The other scenario is when people are not walking alone and are having a conversation with the other person or are talking on the phone, this situation allows them to be pre-occupied and the feeling of crossing is less heavier. I think it will be right to assume here that mobile phones are a distraction from people acknowledging their relationship in a generic space like hallways and corridors with regard to other people in it. It is definitely unusual to assume some sort of connection between you and the person you will be intersecting for a fraction of time. On the other hand when people are on the mobile phone they are remotely talking to somebody that they might have a connection with. This affordance of telecommunication generates a social behavior which helps people ignore the their present context easily and often mobile technologies have been attributed as agents of dematerializing spaces.

“This piece engages with non-existential social interaction between humans but realized through a technological intervention. This system is triggered by human to human interaction bringing attention to the social behavior in humans which is aware of but ignores the presence of other beings in the hallways, passages and streets. At the point of crossing between two bodies the awareness is at its highest” - Prof. Paul Badger

In present times digital technologies and mobile phones provide and alternative environment for social interaction where people are connected to familiar and known people over networks. I find this provision of the alternative environment problematic as it withdraws the people away from their physical environment. Generic present day architecture also is not really helping in making the people respond to spaces they walk or pass through. Most hallways and passages are cuboidal, dully lit with CFL lamps, painted in creams, whites and pastel colors. Unlike the architecture until the end of 19th century. Baroque and Gothic walk ways, majestic glass and mirror hallways, ornate and cast iron pillars were all agents of engagement when people walked through them. Industrialization and modern movement reduced the architecture to bare minimum and as most current hallways belong to this genre. In post modern times since the digital has come of age, digital interventions and overlays onto pre-existing architecture can can generate an interesting dialog between people and the space. We can use the digital technologies to charge the architectural spaces with socio-cultural tones by observing and interpreting them through the same tools and technology that people walk with.

Most digital interactions are developed on human cognitivity and intuitiveness, mostly user to machine/system directly. One to one interaction. In this piece the system respond to an interaction that occurs between two persons and involuntarily triggers an event which is more about the people in that space and all the dynamics that are playing in them.