PROJECTS // Antariksha Sanchar Dance Performance

These are the highlights from the Bharatanatyam dance performance we are doing a collaboration with for its next episode. Were supposed to be a part of this one at Kamani Auditorium in September, but were stuck in Berlin. Bangalore and Mumbai are the next stops for this show, and we hope to travel abroad with it someday soon.

Antariksha Sanchar is a thematic dance ensemble presented by Jayalakshmi Eshwar with her disciples along with the disciples of Shashadhar Acharya (Chhau). It is an enchanting and enlightening performance on the evolution of flight and aircrafts. Using advanced music and stage settings, the performance borrows from ancient Sanskrit and Tamil literature to present a nuanced story of the celestial beings and flying machines of yore.

PRESS // CoDesign Studio in Platform Magazine

Our sister (or brother) studio 'CoDesign' got featured in an issue on emerging studios in India in the recent issue of Platform Magazine. Headed by Rajesh and Mohor Dahiya, CoDesign is one of the leading communication and interaction design studios in the country. Read more in the article, and check their website www.codesign.in for more. CoDesign is also partners with Quicksand and BLOT to form the BOX Collective based out of New Delhi.

PRESS // TechnoDrome Festival in Time-Out Delhi

We got a generous helping of press for the Mocha ArtHouse TechnoDrome Festival in the September edition of Time-Out Delhi. Vandana Verma was the writer responsible for this feature and she did a sweet job. Thanks VV. 

GIG VIDEOS // Berlin Music Week Clubnacht, Tresor, Berlin

So we got to play an early morning set at Tresor Berlin on Clubnacht (almost 50 clubs in Berlin through open their doors for a city wide party all for a 12 Euro band). The set was to start at 6am (!) and end at 9am Sunday morning..turns out we were the last on the line up, and the people kept pouring in (and not leaving), so we ended up playing a 5 hour set till 11 am! They got a new sound system and a nice projection set up as always, so it was quite fun, though terrifyingly tiring considering we had not slept in 2 nights! Check out the video >>

REVIEWS // BLOT on Motor FM Germany

We also got an interview on air, hopefully we will find a copy of that somewhere! Thanks Markus (Motor FM) for an inspirational tour of the studio and the interview!

REVIEWS // New Culture Mash Up Review by LoveStruckCow

Thiruda from lovestruckcow on Vimeo.


LoveStruckCow (http://lovestruckcow.blogspot.com) posted a video from our new project 'New Culture Mash Up' recently as part of the Mocha ArtHouse TechnoDrome Festival. Check it out! its fun :-)

And here are some excerpts from her review of the evening >> (thanks!)

"A couple of days ago Rin and I landed up at a free show of audio-visuals and music. Upon reaching, got super excited to see the set up: An empty gallery with 2 projectors playing videos submitted for the 'EyeMyth' film festival. The set up reminded of a formal dance night at the school auditorium which we never had. Amazing music, crazy visuals and an excited audience. The event was organized by mocha Arthouse and B.L.O.T. with its founding partner Thiruda (it has to be the best name ever) arranging for the music and visuals"

PRESS // EyeMyth Film Festival on CNN GO Mumbai

PROJECTS // Art Workshop with Puma India

Funny Feral shows off

Feral's Transfer Technique makes for a cool shoe

Puma India brought us in for a cool art and design workshop last month - to play around with their new DIY shoe system, and also to fool around with some blank sneakers. Here is a super cool experiment that Funny Feral tried out with printouts and a transfer technique using a paint fixer. 

PROJECTS // To the Toy Factory We Go

So we started off work on our line of Tin Toys couple of weeks back. I went back to previous avatar of being a toy designer, and visited an old company where I used to work almost a decade back! Back then it was small set up exporting toys to Europe - handmade, vintage reproductions. These are my favourite toy category as a designer, and it was nice to see some designs I made as a 20 year old still being produced and sent to strange corners of the world :-) The amazing thing is that I found a toy I had designed on sale in Hamburg in a speciality store we were visiting last week. Here are some pictures from the factory. We hope our own toys will be ready in 3 months before our visit to the International Toy Fair in Nurnberg, Germany Feb 2011.

TRAVEL // A Sunday in Berlin

Trip to the Boxhagener Platz Flea Market was amazing...look at the table full of stuff (junk for some) I busted my money on :-) Got a crazy lamp from the 1930s, and some shoe lasts from the 1920s. Rounded it up with cupcakes for Julia, Arne and Lile (see picture) - our lovely hosts in Berlin (almost every time now!)

PIXELS // New Culture MashUp @ The TechnoDrome Festival

Check out these pictures from our new project with Nucleya (www.myspace.com/nucleya) - its called The New Culture Mash-Up and its a crazy journey through popular culture as an AV mash-up with Dubstep, Drum n Bass, and much more! My first experience of an audience laughing, dancing and watching cinema all at once for 90 min straight. At the Goethe-Institut New Delhi. The performance was preceded by a screening of the EyeMyth Visual Music Film Festival - also a part of TechnoDrome (this is a screening of about 17 experimental visual music films from around the world) Look out for more!

PIXELS // Parallel Dimensions 03 at TechnoDrome Festival

Some pictures from the recently concluded Parallel Dimensions gig at the Lodi, Delhi, featuring Sattyananda (Audio Aashram) and Thiruda (BLOT). This was the third installment of this psybient, outdoor project, and part of the Mocha ArtHouse TechnoDrome Festival that we curate as BLOT. Rain played havoc almost so the set up was a challenge (finally the task was to fit 2 performers, the sound system, 2 projectors and screens and consoles inside one small tent :-) Thanks Akshita for the pictures!

BLOT // Berlin Music Week in a few pictures

Pictures from our recent trip to Berlin Music Week as part of a 10 member delegation representing electronic music in India, Bangladesh and Iran, thanks to the super awesome wonderful Goethe-Institut New Delhi. (thanks ma faiza for lending us the wonderful panoramic camera)

BLOT// Berlin Buffoons

G-Star has a twin, who fortunately is as much (or more) of a hypochondriac (to be), and ironically goes by the name Dualist Inquiry (check out his music on www.myspace.com/dualistinquiry)

BLOT // G-Star meets his match

Just another funny evening during Berlin Music Week with the Indian gang walking around the train stations getting lost.

GIGS // Sakog, Salzburg with T. Raumschmiere

So I found myself one nippy evening with Funny Feral in a small village 40km from Salzburg, Austria, close to the German border, in a old coal mine complex which is now the uber cool Sakog.net, doing visuals for the (insane) German musician T. Raumschmiere - a crazy mix of punk rock, electronica, technology and whisky :-) superb, unpredictable set that really had me playing catch up on the visuals. I passed the test I think :-) We are thinking of doing a small project next time in Berlin, and trying to maybe get him to India next year for a collab. Here are some pictures from the night and will try and put videos sometime too..this guy was crazy :-)

And here are some nice panoramic pictures from the gig itself >>