Eternal Gandhi
DISMANTLE ALL BOUNDARIES
National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai, 2006
Eternal Gandhi
National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai, 2006
Eternal Gandhi
DISMANTLE ALL BOUNDARIES
Winner
ID Magazine Design Award,
New York
2002
Eternal Gandhi
Winner
ID Magazine Design Award,
New York
2002
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Creative Spirituality, Technology, Culture & Design
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The World of
RANJIT MAKKUNI
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The Unity Pillar installation focuses exploration into collaborative interfaces.
It requires people to hold hands to light up a pillar symbolizing the destruction of caste prejudices and social in justice. Here the computer has totally disappeared and people themselves have become the interface, touching each other, touching loving, human hands, not objects, dissolving the skins of their otherwise separate bodies into a single, unified collaborative body.
Eternal Gandhi
National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai, 2006
DISMANTLE ALL BOUNDARIES
Against the rapid rise of infrastructure building activity and urbanization in Asia, which has resulted in a exponential degradation of people’s health and environment, the Planet Health museum project commits to the urgent documentation of traditional Green Worldviews, Ayurveda and Yoga, indigenous systems of medicine and therapies, so that traditional knowledge, which has been ubiquitously available and passed down across many generations, remains forever free.
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Say No!
to
Toxic computing!!
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World's first walk-up
Health Dictionary!
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The Betrayal of the IT Revolution
For those of us who have missed the IT revolution, consider yourselves lucky,
we may not have missed a thing!
Abstract
When the original vision of the Dynabook (later to become the laptop) was conceived by Alan Kay's team at Xerox PARC in the 1980s, computational tools were envisioned as a medium for creativity and leisure. Indeed the first slides of the Dynabook showed people freeing themselves from the shackles of their offices, lying in sprawling natural landscapes, pursuing their artistic creativity.
Nearly 50 years later, that vision had become a nightmare, with deep impacts on the society: at levels of connection, health, psychological well being, and, deep questions to privacy and fundamental freedoms and 'Truth' loom and await answers.
THE BETRAYAL of the IT REVOLUTION
Ranjit Makkuni
Talk at WSIS conference, Geneva, 2018
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The Crossing project, a multimedia exhibition shown across the world, was and still is a pioneering effort to unite the finest and the noblest in Indian tradition with the then, nascent multimedia and mobile computing technology.
The focus of the project was to create a unique idiom of Indian modernity where none of the streams of knowledge, technology or tradition were at variance, but integrated in a harmonious semblance. It is in this consciously innovated fusion that Banaras gets represented in a unique way, and the project becomes an important cultural preservation tool and a learning tool for audiences.
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Asia Society Museum,
New York, 2002
OK Center for the Arts,
Linz, Austria, 2002
National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai
Habitat Center, New Delhi
Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru
India, 2001/2
National Gallery, Bangkok, 2005
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THE CROSSING PROJECT
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Winner
ID magazine
Design award, New York,
2002
Ars electronica, Austria,
2002
Intellectual Traditions of Banaras
Throughout the centuries literature and cities have shared a special symbiotic relationship. Modern metropolitan cities carry the complexity and tension of modern life. The creativity they inspire bears a special genre of literature of discontent and tension conflict and existential angst. In comparison Kashi, Banaras, the ancient city of enlightenment, revels in a generative environment of traditional learning. As early as the 7th century B C, the sacred city became the focal point of increased intellectual and spiritual activity. And since then, has flourished as one of the greatest centers of traditional learning and of established theological and philosophical discourse.
From Makkuni. R., and Khanna, M., "Banaras: The Crossing Project," Sacred Word Foundation, 2002.
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The Eternal Gandhi Multimedia Museum, one of the world’s first digital multimedia museums is located at Gandhi Smriti, New Delhi the site where Mahatma attained martyrdom, it not only preserves the historical events of Gandhiji’s life, but presents a spectrum of information technology visions inspired by Gandhian thought.
Spiritually, the project was situated against the backdrop of globalization, polarization of communities, a growing urban-rural divide, rapid urbanization, and the degradation of hand-based skills and village-based art forms.
Winner
ID Magazine Design Award,
New York
2002
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See
Gandhian messages
animating
Product Design!
Museum @ Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti, i.e., at the site of Gandhiji's martyrdom.
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The Musical Landscapes and the Goddesses of Music exhibition, at the National Museum, New Delhi, in 2013, presented advances in interactive art through an exploration of the science, art and spirituality of music, and their reflections in the goddess images across Asian cultures.
The project represents one of the world’s first explorations showing the relationship between the sacred feminine and music.
Musical Landscapes &
the Goddesses of Music
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National Gallery of Modern Art
Opening
In an era of rapid technology provoked changes, and an age of information anxiety, this exhibition shows healing alternatives of re-‘centering’ available in the practice of traditional music.
Newly designed musical instruments in the exhibition allow people to ‘tune in’ and recharge to brace for an environment of relentless technological change.
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Asian Art Museum,
San Francisco, 1989.
THE ELECTRONIC SKETCH BOOK OF TIBETAN THANGKA PAINTING
World's First Multimedia Learning system of any kind
At PARC, during 1985-7, my work explored visual, kinesthetic gestures as a means to interact with computers, and these gestural interfaces served as a way to humanize the then popular button pushing paradigm of interactions with computers. As early as 1985, I built a system in which one could wave a gesture on the screen and the computer would ‘understand’ what the gesture meant and translate it into parameters for the design of, say, a Tibetan deity.
Remember that these were designed in a period when the screen was text based. Gradually, my work added video representations on the screen and the Electronic Sketch Book of Thangka painting project developed one of the world’s first ‘multimedia leaning system of any kind.
Intellectual Traditions of Banaras
Throughout the centuries literature and cities have shared a special symbiotic relationship. Modern metropolitan cities carry the complexity and tension of modern life. The creativity they inspire bears a special genre of literature of discontent and tension conflict and existential angst. In comparison Kashi, Banaras, the ancient city of enlightenment, revels in a generative environment of traditional learning. As early as the 7th century B C, the sacred city became the focal point of increased intellectual and spiritual activity. And since then, has flourished as one of the greatest centers of traditional learning and of established theological and philosophical discourse.
From Makkuni. R., and Khanna, M., "Banaras: The Crossing Project," Sacred Word Foundation, 2002.
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Classical Sitar Music
In parallel to his work in technology and design, Ranjit Makkuni is a Sitar virtuoso, and was emerging as as a rising star in the Indian classical music scene in the early 2000s before his design works on new museums consumed him entirely.
Having studied under the maestro Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, Ranjit carries jewels of composition from bygone eras. His early years spent on guitar allow him a unique modern musical style yet grounded in deep classicism.
His geometric compositions, Intricate fret work, cross rhythms produce deep exhilarating energies, and the audience is transported beyond the realms of “here and now” to higher states of consciousness. He has been interested in the connection between sound structures and visualisation structures found in Tantra Yoga.
In addition to his visual works which focus on both abstraction and ornamentation, Ranjit has been searching for correspondences between scales and visual abstractions, especially looking at how how higher energies can communicate with human beings through economy and abstraction in music.
The Mahamaya Experience is a project from sitar player and composer Ranjit “Mahamaya” Makkuni. In a modern world that encourages instant gratification and constant stimulus, Mahamaya’s compositions offer ‘pause’ for transcendence. By fusing ancient musical traditions with a psychedelic mindset inspired by 1960’s musical styles, these compositions encourage the listener to unplug from the never ending stimulus of digital life and focus on finding their harmony in and with the universe.
JP WIlson.
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