Posts by mosquitomassala

The full moon rose nigh into the sky. The wind carried with it the amalgamation of voices of travellers, adventurers and cultural seekers gathered in the Thar Desert, near Khuri Village.

Amidst the sand dunes, an infusion of electronic music with the folk music of the Manganiyar community, unfolded on the main stage. Evocative of a peacock feather, the origami inspired stage set the backdrop for Projection Mapping and VJing of content created through an initiative called Graphic Designers Without Borders.

DJ Rohan1000 flew down from Paris, and joined Indian veterans of electronic music, DJ Mash (Delhi), Ma Faiza (Pune), and Reverse Osmosis (Jaipur), in guiding the way after the initial Folk Music by Talab Khan and his Band. A special mention to Lucid Raaga, for starting the second evening with original fusion music made in collaboration with the local folk musicians and with the voice of kalbelia dancer, Nirmal Sapera. Fat Krrent (a promising youngster from Ajmer) did a Beat-box and rap set and performed a live jugal-bandhi with Folk artists Gafoor Khan and Band. The skill with the khartal was showcased beautifully by Kutle Khan, and the children from the Pehchaan Folk Music Institute of Barna performed a special set led by Dayam Khan.

Queen Harish, has been described as a Classical Indian tapestry coming to life. She and her students from Japan took the stage by storm. Mirrors shimmered and golden gauze glinted as the dancers spun in charismatic control, weaving a story of strength of the people in surviving the harsh desert, then breaking into a Bollywood piece, and then finally speaking eloquently about the city of Jaisalmer and how it celebrates culture.

Art installations peppered the tops of dunes and marked a path to The Cabinet of Curiosities. This second stage, hosted the Digital art performance by French artists Etienne Bernardot and Mathieu Sanchez from Crossed Lab; as well as the open-air cinema where audiences watched ‘Road Movie’ by Dev Benegal.

The Festival was witness to two days of moonrises and sunrises.

The SANDSCAPE FESTIVAL took place in February of 2017, and was organised by the Sandscape Art collective, comprised of Gajendra Singh Sodha, of Mama’s Resort and Camps, Nitesh Mathur of Universal Selective, and Samvida Nanda and Viktor Furiani of the Mosquito Massala.

Read more about the Festival at:

http://thesandscape.com/

Participation of Mosquito Massala at Sandscape:

·         Co-Direction and Coordination of the Festival.

·         Co-Direction of Production and Technique for the Festival

·         Initiated Graphic Designers Without Borders

(learn more at http://thesandscape.com/what.html )

·         Stage Design (concept to construction) -- With assistance in construction by Luna ji, the master carpenter from Khuri.

·         Projection Mapping and VJing for the Stage.

·         Development of the Electric Desert Lab.

·         Co-Curation and Coordination of the Artists

·         Documentation and Montages

(visit some snippets at http://thesandscape.com/story-snippets.html )

·         Organised Pre-Parties in Mumbai (The Den, and Bonobo) and Jaisalmer (KB Lodge)

·         Co-Conceptualised the project and festival

·         Co-Curation and Co-Mediation of all artists during the Art Residency.

·         Web Design -- Content and Development

As part of the Europe tour this summer of 2017, Samvida Nanda and Viktor Furiani set out in the little blue car. The opening phase of the project was the conception and construction of a foldable stage design, which when packed, joined the arsenal of laptops, midi-controllers, a lot of hdmi wires, even more VGA wires, and about 13,000 lumens of projectors.

 The little blue car carried the crew first through countryside and to the festival of Molesme, where the Abbey walls became a canvas for Projection Mapping and VJing.

Read more about the festival at:

https://toutsimplement21.jimdo.com/

Here we go! Joinville's Callin'! Sweet party in an iconic location, the Fanac Island, historical hearth of the Guinguettes de la Marne. Where everyone comes to party under the bridge, surrounded by river and greenery!

The crew drove on towards Paris and joined fellow Mosquito, Waner, in Cité Pablo Picasso, rightly also called Arènes de Picasso where the beautiful architecture has previously played witness to film shootings of scenes from Brazil (by the awesome Terry Gilliam), and even the recent Hunger Games.

In this space of architectural beauty, began the next phase of preparation of the content and stage for Scène Electro Joinville; with support in Content Creation from VJ Rahil (India), and Mangala Gowri Nanda (India). The 24^th June, saw the idyllic île Fanac transformed into an evening of dance, music and visuals!

A trailer featuring previous gigs by Mosquito Massala at Scène Electro Joinville:

Happenings from the edition in 2017:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1335397483208769/?ti=cl

PHASE 2: Development.

Base of operation: Mama's Resort & Camp (Khuri) ; Godspot (Jodhpur).

Folk Musicians: Gafoor Khan and Band, Kutle Khan and Band.

Electronic Musicians: DJ Mash, SickFLip, Lucid Raaga, United Machines.

Visual & Digital Artists: Ghazala Parveen, Sarfaraz Khan, Tejaswi Meshram, Samvida Nanda, Viktor Furiani.

Cultural Mediation: Gajendra Singh Sodha, Nitesh Mathur, Khuman Singh.

Documentation (second team): Kartikay Gaur, Rahul Singh Chauhan, Faisal Siddiqui, Anirudh Mathur.

Sound and video recording of stories from the village and the history of the area. Recordings of Manganiyar and Kalbelia folk songs.

Ethnotronic Jugalbandi: experimenting and rehearsing Music/Dance/Visual live fusion between folk & electronic artists.

Creation of Morio 2.0, a foldable 3D stage-design inspired by Rajasthani vernacular geometry. Construction in the village with Luna, the local master-carpenter of Khuri. Painting & Light Design.

Experimental Labs & Recci for the Cabinet of Curiosities: interactive digital art using Kinect, Generative Art using Processing, 3D animation for Mapping. Development and test of a board-game system to coordinate the art residency. /// Electric Lab: Fixing electrical items, stabilizing current electricity, construction of a set of electric lines.

Video-Tattoos with the students of the Desert School of Music in Barna.

Photo/Video Documentation of all interactions.

PHASE 1: EXPLORATION.

Base of operation: Mama's Resort & Camp (Khuri, Thar Desert).

Folk Musicians: Talab Khan and Band, Gafoor Khan and Band.

Electronic Musicians: SickFLip, Lucid Raaga.

Visual & Digital Artists: Samvida Nanda, Viktor Furiani.

Cultural Mediation: Anchana Kota, Khuman Singh.

Anthropological collection of stories from Khuri Village, such as the water wells, potter's wheel, and life in the Thar Desert in general.

Construction of a temporary Recording Studio in Khuri, Recording Manganiyar folk artists.

Creation of fusion from the sound banks gathered.

Projection Mapping on architecture at Mama's Resort.

Electrical tests in the village, fixing of existing LED lights on site.

VISITS of the Desert School of Music in Barna; Night walks in the Fort of Jaisalmer City; attending the annual Jaisalmer City Festival that celebrates traditions and cultural tales of the city; dancing workshop with Queen Harish in Lal Garh Fort and Palace. Jeep and Camel Safaris in the Desert.  (Jaisalmer).

Photo/Video Documentation of all interactions.

Experimenting with Digital Art.

Mosquito Massala Research Laboratory presents

with the Architect John Rodriguez at his Studio, Mumbai, India, 15th February 2010.

A project between video architecture and sculpture. 8 transparent screens, 1 video-projector.

Video Sculpture Mumbai Laboratory #1 from Viktor Furiani on Vimeo.

Weave9 Meanohara 2013 Winter Residency (A 6-day lab to generate stimuli amongst contemporary artists, inquiring the act of process in Art and exploring multi-disciplinary processes.

Including new visual contents for mapping & VJing made in the desert of Thar in Rajasthan, through the SANDSCAPE Art Residencies in the village of Khuri.

Stage Design & Construction: LOCUS POCUS (Ibiza, ES).

VJing & Mapping: MOSQUITO MASSALA (Performer: Viktor Furiani).

Content Creation for the mapping: VJ Zero (Valence, FR), DVJ Niburu (Paris, FR), Mangala Gowri Nanda (Delhi, IN), Samvida Nanda (Delhi, IN), VJ Harish & Skam (Bangalore, IN), Viktor Furiani (Lyon, FR).

Technic & Light Show: REACT EVENT (Amsterdam, NL).

Images & Montage: Viktor Furiani

Additive footages: Yura Moonlights (Locus Pocus)

Soundtrack: Depth Exploration (Extract) by LUCID RAAGA (Bombay, IN)

SANDSCAPE Wooferland Festival Report 27.08.16_SML REZ 1280x720Compressed from Mosquito Massala on Vimeo.

Sculpture Designed and Created by Samvida Nanda and Viktor Furiani of the Mosquito Massala.

CONCEPT NOTE

SKETCH

PROCESS

HAATHI jumped onto a truck and traveled to the Mad Decent Block Party to meet Major Lazer.

Scenes from the Photo Shoot:

Major Lazer was happy to meet Haathi, and their Photo together was celebrated on their Instagram page.

We had the pleasure of working with Wire Media Consulting Pvt. Ltd. for the stall:

CAESARSTONE by HAFELE at India Design Fair, New Delhi, 2015.

We worked on:

1. The Global Consulting (Participation in definition of the Identity of the Stall)

2. Design of the central Video Mapping Installation, Mapping, Creation of Contents and Management of a Motion Designer.

3. Documentation (Pictures and Videos) of the Process and Exhibition.

4. Edit of final Montage.

Team: Samvida Nanda and Viktor Furiani of The Mosquito Massala.

Five Senses of Caesarstone by Hafele from samvida on Vimeo.

“A Clockwork Blues” is an experimental storytelling project which cultivates light to bring life to a paper theatre book.

Read about the Project on the Story of Light website at:

http://thestoryoflight.org/viktor-samvida/

ABOUT THE WORKSHOP

“A Clockwork Blues” is an experimental storytelling project which cultivates light to bring life to a paper theatre book.

As we enter, the room is dark. The book opens by itself, revealing the first tableau of pop-ups gears, made from layered paper cut-outs. Then, the light runs on the paper, textures the shapes, fixes the décor. Tiny characters enter the scene, explore the gears. Now bright enough, the glowing sculpture blinks along the music, runs on the walls into organic spirals, bounces across space to caress the shadows of the audience…

This is the time to gather, to explore through the evening and the night, how to light a story… a Story of Light. In this workshop, we offer a participative experience across the fields of science, art, design and technology; with the purpose to create, share, and hybridise stories made of and about Light. The art process is illustrated with demonstrations and performances. It is open to all (ages 12+). Three activities run together during the workshop:

– Preparation of a 3D sculpture with Paper Art (Exploring Origami and Kirigami – working towards the Pop-Up Book).

– Projection Mapping on the 3D sculptures and VJing (how to create, apply and control a light design in real-time on a volume).

– Video Feedback (how to create an interactive light installation with video, and to perform with the light entity generated).

The result is a multi-modal art installation; which is intuitive, accessible, and reactive to its participants and environment.The Clockwork Blues Project regroups these different components and introduces the workshop as an open narrative system.

We created a "Sand Box". A place to build your own story with the artifacts around this projected upon sand sculpture. It was fascinating to see the different interactions of people with the Box. This project helped us see the sense of "touch" for storytelling, as people played with the tactile sand and shaped it in response to the images projected.

In this occasion it was more a "Saltbox" from the local Salt Mine of Schmiede! Like an interactive zen garden, the installation allowed for the audience to modulate the space, along an ephemera scenario projected. Very simple, and also very relaxing.

Sandbox at Schmiede from samvida on Vimeo.

An appetising invitation from Locus Pocus Deco, brought our Collective to a festival that was colourful, sunshiny and orchestrated by a great production team. 

Joined by VJ Zero, VJs Viktor Furiani and Samvida Nanda drove across the green landscapes of France, Luxembourg, Belgium and Netherlands to reach the long summer days and intense nights of Amsterdam!

We landed in the sprawling grounds of the Wooferland Festival 2015, to discover under vast circus tents the beautiful wooden stage design by Locus Pocus Deco. Welcomed promptly by the team of the the Wooferland Festival, we could happily start the work with the techniciansfrom React Event. Next came a day and night of mapping and content creation, and the Energy Stage was up to welcome the legion of dancing techno giants that showed up sharply at... noon! Middle of the afternoon, we were a civilised horde of 7000, festively enjoying the last days of the nordic summer across sound, vision and dance.

Meanwhile, at the VJ console, we created a chain of computers to generate, finalise and polish some more visual delicacies under soft smoothwares such as Processing and Touch Designer. Video performance was served through the layercake of Resolume and Mapio.

We would like to mention our eternal gratitude for the warmth and hospitality of our elegant host Elena! With an extra special thanks to Ziggy and the crew of Locus Pocus Deco, as well to Rui and Marcia!

 And we are happy to share with you the result in video. Soundtrack from Rohan1000 [PME - Paris]. Shooting and editing by Samvida & Viktor.

Wooferland 2015 festival Report from Mosquito Massala on Vimeo.

This September saw us at Schmiede Art Residency in Austria.

For 10 days our vocabulary extended to include spaces such as Upper Wood, Lower Salt, Boiler, Miner and more. Schmiede is in an old salt refinery, with a maze of levels revealing the hollowed archways of the basements below and the lofty Tower above. The staircases when traversed, led to a room of machines, or to Game Labs, to Electronics mixed with Textiles, to Robot Wars and a host of other exciting happenings.

We setup our workspace in a dark corner of the Lower Salt Room.An Origami Bird Mandala started to grow in spirals on the wall.

An interactive Video Feedback animated our corner, and a Video Tattoo setup invited artists and visitors to participate, wherein we projected video skins onto them and composed Portraits of them.

In Lower Salt the repository of crystals of salt inspired a Live Projection Mapped Dance Performance on the Salt itself. In collaboration with Smiths Andy, Heidi and Darren, we used the Kinect to map the depth of the salt along Heidi’s movements across the salt. With a projector fixed at a height, we created content which was choreographed with the story, and projected with Resolume during a live performance.

We also worked on the light design and space for Smith Ana Mrovlje’s PEACEstool. A stool she made entirely with bullets. Filled with stories of how she brought the bullets from East Europe, she discussed the duality of our hands-which we use to Pray, and the same hands to shoot or kill. A “Peace Stool” or “Pistol”? Working with such incredible people is a true testament to the space that Schmiede creates for artists to explore and interact and create conversations through art.

We also joined with the Cinema Vertigo team to create Digital Puppets and play with a new form of Live Cinema. We took photos of the textures from the building, the machinery parts, and the structures of the architecture. Looking at the idea of in-situ, we then used elements from this library of photos, to make our puppet: Rook. The Golem.

This aesthetic was then used consciously by our character design Team to make all the final characters with a homogenous look and feel.

A team of people worked on creating the backdrop for the scenes of a Story. They made sets of fore-grounds, mid-grounds, and backgrounds which could be cycled in on a click. Since the story was not written, but played more with improvisation, two people dedicated themselves to the role of actors.

The Cinema Vertigo team used VVVV to create a model skeleton of the puppets, which could be controlled with a midi-Device (in this case Leap Motion). The two actors honed the skill of the movements of hands along different axes to move the digital puppets. A small box lit evenly, acted as a green screen. The Audience could place any object into the box, and it would click a photo of the object and introduce it on the screen. The actors would then improvise based on the new object. Smith Michael, a mathematician with his “Little bits” Arduino quartz composer; and Smith Haydee an electronic live musician, collaborated to bring a Live Soundscape to this cinema of digital puppets. The objects, characters, sets, sounds, and the live interactions of the audience made the “Cabinet des Marionettes” into a new form of storytelling itself.