From art galleries to social media the evolution of storytelling
[Music]
we
are the stories we believe in stories
make our mundane life bearable amidst
all the hustle and that citizen
happening around the world and in our
personal spaces
in fact we turn to social media to
escape into another reality
the people we follow on social media the
art we see
and the stories we read sort of starts
becoming a part of our daily lives
internet and technology has definitely
changed the way art is perceived
nowadays
it has made art more democratic and
accessible
no one can argue on that in the past art
was something that only a minority of
people could access
one needed to go to an art gallery to
see artworks
an artist had to take his work to a
gallery or get it published on a print
media
for his audience to see them today
internet has made this process extremely
simple
by enabling artists to simply upload it
all on a webspace
you can access it at any point of time
share it with your community
or even sell it this has inevitably
changed
the way a viewer connects with artwork
let me tell you how
when you go to an art gallery you’re
actually ready and prepared to receive
the art
you go there with an intention to see
and enjoy the art
the artist knows that his audience who
comes to the gallery
could mostly be art enthusiasts whereas
in case of a new gene artist who uploads
his work on social media
does not get that privilege his audience
could be from different walks of life
they may or may not be an art enthusiast
they might be seeing your artwork on
their social media feed
at the most unexpected time maybe when
they are in a traffic jam
or stuck inside a lift or in between
work they could be in different
emotional states as well
they could be struggling with something
in their life maybe they just had their
first kiss
or maybe had a breakup the point is
the audience in the latter case are not
always prepared or ready to receive your
art
no one can predict the receiver end of
the art publication on internet
and this has changed the rules of art
perception
in a huge way as an artist who majorly
uploads artwork
on the internet i usually get responses
from people
all around the world irrespective of
language culture or borders
mostly there are positive messages of
love and appreciation
but sometimes i do get criticism as well
about the way i portray things but
whatever case it may be
as an artist and storyteller i had to
invite people
to listen to my stories i had to make my
audience
participate in the story by encouraging
them to think and perceive meaning
in their own way about my art stanley
kubrick once told this
if you really want to communicate
something even if just an emotion or an
attitude
let alone an idea the least effective
and least enjoyable ways
directly it only goes in about an inch
but if you can get people to the point
where they have to think a moment
what it is you are getting it and then
discover it the period of discovery
goes right through the heart when you
started to make art on internet
this was the code that came to my mind
first
instead of telling the story directly i
usually try to give visual cues so that
viewer can think for a moment
and create the story in his mind in
other words by doing this
you are inviting the observer to
participate in the process of
storytelling
my purpose here is to make the window
for a viewer
to look at and encourage them to figure
out its meaning themselves
let me explain this with few examples
human is the best way to start with so
here is a backstory
in 2016 when the state demonetized the
find rupees note overnight
people rushed to the atm to beat romani
which resulted in
long long queues in front of atms the
situation
was so for quite a number of weeks and
each time you stepped out you could
always see lines of people in front of
idioms
i wanted to represent this perfect
craziness so i took the image of the old
find rupees
and on the back side i made a slight
change like this
and uploaded on my profile i connected
the dendiatra
to demonetization just by adding some
quirky thought
without actually preaching anything
directly to the viewer
it suddenly went viral on social media
and it made
people laugh evolution of the social
media era
has also resulted in people documenting
everything in their life
and presenting it on their social media
handles in that context
i read you the same image of dhandyatra
with the title
the revolution will be instagrammed here
i used the same reference image of the
indiatra
but added different visual cues for the
people to think
when we are documenting our life as
often as we do know
we always have this constant pressure of
making everything look good
and perfect we always try to politically
correct on internet
but in real life reaching there is a
pretty big task
i try to represent this dilemma with
this illustration
can’t pretend it anymore social media is
also a place
where you actually get to witness a lot
of propagandas
news we hear are usually fabricated
everything you see on internet
is not true and often they are carefully
crafted messages
which affects the collective
consciousness of the entire society
as an artist this is how i represent
this situation
till the year 2012 i had a corporate job
during that time
every day i had the same routine wake up
get stuck in city traffic reach office
find new corporate ladders to climb
goals to achieve wait for appraisals and
validation etc
soon enough i understood that it was an
endless cycle
this was my inspiration for this
illustration i was fortunate enough to
get
the office job after a while and got
into making art full time
because you know someone had to tell all
the stories right
not just in professional friend
so-called routines follow us into our
personal lives as well
you know the usual things that all of us
get pushed into
due to society pressure like get married
by 30
have kids buy a car and then buy a
thousand square feet home
for an unreasonable price for which you
end up paying emi
for the next 50 years of your life when
i thought about this
i came up with this particular
illustration
in fact social pressure affects adults
and kids alike
we’re constantly asked to follow a path
and be like everyone else and do like
everyone else
which actually ends up being so
stressful that you feel suffocated
to represent this what else can i use
other than a pressure cooker
this one is about most indian parents
they will do everything for their kids
accept encourage them to be themselves
i’m sure
most of you can relate to this too
gender inequality makes the social
pressure even more terrible for women
they put women in different balls and
never allow them to be free
like trapping them in smaller spaces
without allowing them to be free
thinkers
this illustration represents that when
you can’t fit in
when you need the whole sea
i have another illustration series named
unposted letters
where i use the same narrative technique
to communicate different emotions of
love and life the entire illustration
series
are crafted like letters from a boy to a
girl accompanied by a small pros
here’s an example just when i thought it
was a breakdown
we all might have encountered a similar
situation somewhere in life
right a time when you thought it was
downfall
or net but all of a sudden it leads to
something beautiful or unexpected
this illustration shows the absurdness
and ambiguity of life
there are times when things are not in
our control and we can only wait and
watch
how life unfolds in front of us this is
same
for human relationships too in fact
we can write a book about this topic but
instead we can also
encapsulate it into an illustration and
let the viewer
complete the story here is another one
everyone will disappear but not in the
same way
in this one i’m trying to communicate
how insignificant
and trivial the human life is people
will always disappear
no matter what it’s quite a relatable
incident for many of us
you might have had someone in your life
whom you thought will be there forever
but they would have disappeared
somewhere in the middle
such relatable collective experiences
are the backbone of unposted
letters series i have made around
150 and post letters illustration like
this and i believe
people find them so relatable that they
not only connect with it
but also share them with their dear ones
it’s human nature to enjoy listening to
stories
stories make us believe in something
even though
the mediums are changed constantly over
time the idea
remains the same in the era of internet
and technology
it’s almost like magic when someone
connects to your work and
engage with it sitting miles apart it
means
someone is giving your giving you their
valuable time to listen to your story
and even empathize about it these small
things
make me believe that we are all
connected by same emotions
as one species the world might be full
of chaos and darkness
and it’s not always easy to find your
way within it
we can be saved only by sharing stories
to each other
stories of success stories of failures
stories of hope
love heartbreak stories that make you
constant authority
even stories about your own existence
maybe by telling the stories and
imagining a better future
we can actually make it a reality or
maybe not
but either way we must tell them in our
own way
as long as we can as deep as we can
because at the end of the day
storytellers will disappear of course
not in the same way
but stories will live forever thank you
you