Conceptual Studies

This is my conceptual studies. It is divided to three context/content which is mainly related to my own personal concept. 

Mindmap

This is a simple mind map of my project.

Survey Questions

This is the survey conducted to know what might my contents will be. After spamming in YM and Facebook, I got total of 12 responders to my survey. 

There were total 12 responds to my survey questions. Most have my responders  have attended an Indian Wedding before and most of them find it interesting.

Based on the results shown, as I expected not all the responds knows well about the rituals, reason and facts about the ceremony. All of them would like to know more about the facts and meaning behind every rituals conducted in the Indian Wedding. 

This are the responds given by the responds when asked what they would like to know about Indian Wedding.

Wedding (installation)

This is another interesting Wedding Installation that I found. It didn't inspire me much with my my fyp but its just a another finding. Its not that they have alot of wedding installations, but here is some of it.

Wedding (installation)

Inspiration: Reversed Remediation: Evelien Lohbeck’s noteboek

This is an interesting video of multimedia artwork that inspired me to work on something interesting like this.

Evelien Lohbeck’s multimedia artwork noteboek (2008), has been selected as a Top Video in theBiennial of Creative Video, the showcase organized by the Guggenheim Museum and YouTube. ¹Noteboek exemplifies what I call ‘reversed remediation’. ² This aesthetic strategy subverts Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin’s notion of ‘remediation,’ which serves a historical desire for immediacy.³Countering Marshall McLuhan’s fear of the narcotic state that the user of a medium can enter when becoming a closed system with the medium; reversed remediation offers a chance to wake up the viewer. ⁴ It creates a state of critical awareness about how media shape one’s perception of the world. (Art)works that employ reversed remediation destabilize remediation mechanisms, by making media visible instead of transparent. It makes critical awareness possible because it lays bare the workings of media instead of obfuscating them. The following discussion distinguishes between the theories of remediation and reversed remediation and applies this theoretical foundation to Lohbeck’s noteboek.


Hypermediacy, Remediation, and Reversed Remediation

Hypermediacy, the multiplying of technologies, is the central operational method for both remediation and reversed remediation. According to Bolter and Grusin, in remediation, hypermediacy is used to enable a seamless transition between different (older and newer) media in order to render all media transparent, which follows a historically-determined desire for immediacy. In reversed remediation, hypermediacy is used to display the incongruities between media in order to frustrate immersion and fosters critical awareness. Hypermediacy’s oscillation between remediation and reversed remediation has at its mid-way point a fulcrum, where the movement hovers for a moment and can be pushed in either direction. To push it towards remediation, the multiple media used must work together to create a familiar outcome that soothes the user into immersion. To push it towards reversed remediation, the multiple media used must work together to create an unfamiliar (uncanny) outcome that propels the user out of immersion and into a state of critical awareness. In Lohbeck’s noteboek, this happens when one wants to manipulate a drawn duration bar but suddenly realizes that an analog environment is inserted into a digital environment, calling one’s attention to this irreconcilable incongruity between different registers of media.

Hypermediacy achieves a sense of immediacy through an illusion of transparency. Bolter and Grusin’s critique of transparency as a feature of hypermediacy only concerns “the tension between regarding a visual space as mediated and regarding it as a ‘real’ space that lies beyond mediation”.⁵They acknowledge instances in which the medium is foregrounded rather than made transparent. For example, they suggest that the viewer of a collage becomes hyperconscious, as s/he oscillates between interpreting the paper clippings and torn up photographs and looking through the actual objects into an imagined representational space beyond the surface. They do not however, explore the possibility that this oscillation space offers artists the ability to critique the medium that is used and for viewers the opportunity to contemplate how one perceives and makes sense of multiple layers of media. In other words, they use the notion of hypermediacy exclusively as a vehicle for explaining remediation where it could serve just as well as a vehicle for explaining its opposite - reversed remediation. Hypermediacy creates an opportunity to actually see the media at work. It can interrupt the advancement of remediation, render turbid the metaphorical transparent window between user and medium and transform it into a mirror. Reversed remediation thus can be explained as a strategy that purposely makes media visible by displaying its characteristics in order to raise the awareness of the workings of the media employed.

The Visible Entanglement of Different Media in noteboek

Lohbeck’s Noteboek is an example of contemporary art dealing with the entanglement of media that eventually reverses the mechanism of remediation. Rather than obfuscating them in favor of a seamless transition between old and new media in order to establish an immersive relationship between user and media, Lohbeck displays the characteristics of a medium, revealing them as media per se. With her artworks in general she attempts to “confuse reality and challenge the expectations of the audience” (Lohbeck, 2008).⁶ This attempt already succeeds with the ironic title ofnoteboek, it seems that she has made an error by typing an ‘e’ instead of an ‘o’ in the word boek, but boek is the Dutch word for book and when pronounced, it sounds the same. By strikingly drawing our attention to the word boek, she makes the viewer aware of the exact word that stresses the relationship between the digital laptop and the analog (note)book.

Because noteboek’s ‘native’ environment is online, there are many different ways one might arrive at the artwork. One way to begin one’s experience of the piece is through Lohbeck’s main website, which combines hand-drawn and digital elements. By clicking the hand-drawn Internet Explorer icon one can access the ‘/films.html’ page, which offers a display of stills representing fourteen motion graphic works, including noteboek. The stills are live links to the respective videos. Clicking on a still opens an embedded YouTube video on a small screen on a new page with an identical layout.

(Reversed Remediation: Evelien Lohbeck’s noteboek) via rhizome.org

Precedence Studies

Here are some videos of other artist's impression on Indian Wedding. 

Pre-wedding

Wedding

Post-Wedding

Second Half.. Part III..

Tamil Post-Wedding Rituals

After organizing an enthralling wedding ceremony, the family of the bride and the groom head towards preparing the venue for the post-wedding celebrations. While grihapravesh is the post-marriage custom common in almost every region in India, the Tamil Brahmins have their own way of culminating the auspicious ceremony. Apart from grihapravesh, wherein the bride enters the groom's house formally in order to prosper his life there, many other rituals are exclusive to the Tamil-speaking Brahmins in India. Learn more about the Tamil post-wedding rituals in the article.

Tamil Post-Wedding Customs

Sammandhi Mariyathai 
Depending upon the financial status, the families of the newlywed couple exchange gifts and clothes, to mark the culmination of the wedding. This custom is popularly known as sammandhi mariyathai.

Laaja Homam & Paaladaanam Custom
The bride's brother offers popped rice to the groom, which he offers to the holy fire. By doing this, the couple seeks the blessings of Agni that represents the divine power and light of God.

As a part of Paaladaanam custom, the couple seeks the blessings of the elderly members of the family by touching their feet.

Grihapravesham
After the completion of wedding ceremony, the bride is taken to her husband's house. Aarti is performed to welcome the newly married couple, as they stand at the doorstep to enter the home. Thereafter, a lavish feast is served at the wedding venue, when the newly wedded couple returns from home.

Reception Party
To facilitate intimacy, the groom's family hosts a reception party in the evening. People bless the newlyweds and convey them their heartiest wishes. This is the time, when family, friends, relatives and faraway acquaintances attend the reception party to shower blessings, gifts and best wishes on the newly married couple.

Reference:
http://weddings.iloveindia.com/tamil-wedding/post-wedding-rituals.html

Second Half.. Part II..

Tamil Wedding Rituals

Tamil wedding rituals are very elaborate. They involve a number of ceremonies that are performed to ensure that the bride and the groom, who are going to tie the wedding knot, enter their new phase of life in the most elegant manner. A number of ceremonies revolve around the wedding, which is very charming to look at. Every stage of the rituals is performed with religious observance. The ambience is filled with festivity. You would be highly enthusiastic about what is going to happen next, if you witness a typical Tamil Brahmin wedding. Go through the following lines to know more about the Tamil Brahmin wedding rituals. 

Tamil Wedding Customs

Mangala Snaanam & Kashi Yatra
After applying oil, and a tilak of haldi-kimkum, the bride and the groom take the mangala snaanam (holy bath) at the respective homes, on the dawn of the wedding day. After having the mangala snaanam, the bridegroom pretends that he is leaving for Kashi and he is no more interested in performing the role of a householder. He stops only when the girl's father persuades him to take the responsibility of his daughter, by marrying her. Then the groom heads his way for the wedding pandal, where the bride and her family receives him. This beautiful custom is known as kashi yatra.

Exchange Of Garlands & Oonjal
After the groom enters the pandal, he exchanges garlands for three times with the bride. This ceremony is full of fun and frolic. Thereafter, they are seated together on a swing. Married women give the newly weds spoonful of milk and banana pieces to eat.

Kanyadaanam & Muhurtham
As the groom reaches the mandapam, the bride's father welcomes his son-in-law. The groom's mother-in-law puts kajal in his eyes. Thereafter, his father-in-law washes his feet, considering him as God. The bride is then seated in her father's lap with a coconut in her hands. Thereafter, the bride and her father offer coconut to the bridegroom. In the meantime, the bride's mother puts water over the coconut. This gesture symbolizes the kanyaadaan of their daughter. The bridegroom's family presents their daughter-in-law a nine-yard sari that she has to wear, when the mangalsutra will be tied around her neck.

Seeking the help of her sister-in-law and aunts, the bride wears the nine-yard sari and enters the mandapam. A sack of paddy is kept on the floor and the bride's father is made to sit on it. The bride is asked to sit on her father's lap. Paddy represents abundance and good fortune. The yoke of a farmer's plough is taken and touched to the forehead of the bride. It is done with the hope that the couple will always walk together. The priest and the relatives touch the Mangalsutra and thereby, bless the newly wedded couple. Thereafter, a sacred yellow thread is handed over to the bridegroom, which he puts around his wife's neck and ties two knots. The third knot is tied by the groom's sister. The three knots symbolize the union of the mind, spirit and body.

Saptapadi
The bridegroom takes his wife's right hand in his left hand and leads her around the holy fire for seven times. In every round, she touches her feet to the grindstone hoping that their union will be firm forever. 

Reference:
http://weddings.iloveindia.com/tamil-wedding/wedding-rituals.html

Second Half.. Part I..

Tamil Pre-Wedding Rituals

Tamil wedding is a vast affair, wherein a number of rituals are followed. Well before the wedding day, people (including the family members of the prospective bride and the groom) are engaged in the preparations of the ceremony, which is considered a very important turning point in the couple's life. This is the reason why, marriage is given supreme importance and a number of ceremonies are conducted before, during and after it. You would just like to stand and witness the typical Tamil Brahmin wedding, which incorporates unique customs. Explore all about the Tamil pre-wedding rituals in the following lines.

Tamil Pre-Wedding Customs

Panda Kaal Muhurtham
Panda Kaal Muhurtham is a pre-wedding ritual conducted by the Tamilians, in order to seek blessings from the Almighty. Generally, a short ritual is performed a day prior to the wedding, wherein both the families of the bride and the groom offer prayers to the Lord. This is done to ensure that the wedding preparations proceed without any hassle.

Receiving the Groom
When the groom's family reaches the wedding venue on the morning of one day before the wedding, they are greeted and welcomed warmly, by the bride's family, by offering them a tray containing flowers, beetle nuts, fruits and mishri. Rose water is also sprinkled on them.

The bride's brother applies tilak made by mixing sandalwood paste and kumkum, on the groom's forehead. Thereafter, the brother also puts a garland around the groom's neck. Then, the bride's mother serves a delicious dessert prepared from condensed milk. Thereafter, aarti is performed by an elder female member of the bride's family. In order to culminate the ritual and to ward-off the evil eye, a coconut is broken on the ground.

Vratham & Pallikai Thellichal
Vratham (fasting) takes place one day prior to the marriage. The fasting is performed by the bride as well as the groom's family. In the mean time, Vedic hymns are chanted, which is conducted by the priest (Vaadyar). This ritual is performed to invoke the blessings of ancestors and the Almighty.

Pallikai Thellichal ceremony is also held a day before the wedding. It involves the filling of clay pots with nine varieties of grains. Married women pour water from either sides of the pot. This is followed by singing of traditional songs. The grains are allowed to sprout, by soaking them in water for a day or two. Then the clay pots are kept inside the pond, so that the fishes can feed on the sprouted grains and shower blessings to the couple, who is going to tie the nuptial knot.

Naandi & Jaanavaasam
Naandi ceremony is conducted to honor the Pithrus (ancestors) and seek their blessings for a long and prosperous life. The ceremony is conducted by Brahmins, who are presented with gifts and sweets. Families seek the blessings of their ancestors, to ensure that the wedding is carried on smoothly.

Although the ritual of Jaanavaasam has faded away with the passing time, it is still followed by some Tamil Brahmin families. During Jaanavaasam, the groom boards a beautifully decorated car. He is accompanied by a large marriage procession of close friends and relatives. Professional musicians are invited to entertain the procession, by playing traditional wedding songs. Fireworks form a part of the marriage celebrations. The bride's brother puts garland around the groom's neck, in order to welcome him at the entrance of the wedding hall.

Nicchiyadharatham
The bride's parents offer prayers to Lord Ganesha, who is believed to banish all obstacles. A puja is conducted in the presence of priest. The groom's family presents a new sari to the bride. Her forehead is adorned with a tilak made from chandan and kumkum and her sari's pallu is filled with fruits, beetle nuts, turmeric, kumkum and coconut. In addition, a flower garland is tied around her waist. Aarti is done for the bride.

Reading Of Lagna Pathirigai
The priest plays a prominent role in the reading of Lagna Pathirigai, a pre-marriage ritual conducted by the Tamil Brahmins. He also announces other details related to marriage, including the muhurtam and the venue for the wedding. Thereafter, mouthwatering lavish dinner is served.

As I know not all the above as being practiced back here in Malaysia, mainly most of it they find it irrelevant or they bring forward to wedding day or organize it according to their timing and convenience.. As I am here to dig the reasons behind those rituals and the complete rituals of each ceremony..  


Reference:
http://weddings.iloveindia.com/tamil-wedding/pre-wedding-rituals.html

First Part for the Contents..

Tamil Wedding Ceremony

Tamilians have their own rituals followed before, during and after the wedding, which look very vibrant. All the customs are followed with religions observance. All the people right from the prospective bride and the groom to the family members, friends and relatives have the festive mood, which is set by the ceremony. the ambience's is filled with nothing but happiness and celebration. the festive spirits are boosted up among

the people, witnessing the ceremony, by the colorful and elaborate rituals that are

conducted before, during and after the marriage. 

The pre-marriage rituals followed by the Tamil speaking Brahmins include fasting, puja and exchange of gifts. The groom is received by the family of the bride. The wedding ceremony is also elaborate, which incorporates the rituals that are typical to the Brahmin community, such as oonjal, kashi yatra and kanyaadaan (wherein the bride sits on the lap of her father). Post-marriage, the bride and the groom are given treats and gifts. After swearing in as the wife, the bride enters the groom's home to prosper his life there. This is the way most of the marriages are conducted among the Tamil speaking Brahmins in India and all over the world. In this section, we have given detailed information on the traditional Tamil wedding ceremony.

Tamil Pre-Wedding Rituals

Tamil wedding is a vast affair, wherein a number of rituals are followed. Well before the wedding day, people (including the family members of the prospective bride and the groom) are engaged in the preparations of the ceremony, which is considered a very important turning point in the couple's life. This is the reason why, marriage is given supreme importance and a number of ceremonies are conducted before, during and after it.

Tamil Wedding Rituals

Tamil wedding rituals are very elaborate. They involve a number of ceremonies that are performed to ensure that the bride and the groom, who are going to tie the wedding knot, enter their new phase of life in the most elegant manner. A number of ceremonies revolve around the wedding, which is very charming to look at. Every stage of the rituals is performed with religious observance.

Tamil Post-Wedding Rituals

After organizing an enthralling wedding ceremony, the family of the bride and the groom head towards preparing the venue for the post-wedding celebrations. While grihapravesh is the post-marriage custom common in almost every region in India, the Tamil Brahmins have their own way of culminating the auspicious ceremony.

Reference:
http://weddings.iloveindia.com/tamil-wedding/index.html

What Is Indian Wedding?

Lets us start from the beginning before going any further. This topic interest me in a way that I myself was impressed with my culture and religion that I would like to share with others. The colors, the rituals, people, and everything related to it is so magical that made me to research about it more and show it to the world in a different way that it can impress them as well. 

Indian Wedding is a perfect blend of serious rituals and customs along with other fun filled rituals and frothy moments.Wedding marks the beginning of a new relationship not just between two individuals but also between two families and thus, there are various moments in the wedding ceremonies that help to build new relationships. Every caste and community has its own tradition and culture. India with such diverse cultural background showcases variety of rituals and customs. Here are few very interesting facts about various kinds of Indian Wedding:

Interesting Indian Wedding Facts

• In many communities in the Hindu Religion, there is a wedding ritual in which the sisters-in-law hide the shoes of their jija or brother-in-law and return them only in exchange for money. It's a very fun filled and enjoying ritual.
• In some communities, there are rituals where the hands of the couple are covered with a sacred cloth to ward off ill omen and evil eye during the pheras.
• In Parsee marriage ceremonies, the sisters-in-law take gifts from their brother-in-law during the ritual of Haath Boravanu where the groom puts his hand in water and cannot remove them until he pays money to them, Pag Dhovanu is another such ritual where the groom is threatened with milk on his shoes and chero chorvanu is a ritual in which seven strands of thread tying the couple are removed on payment.
• In Gujarati custom the groom's mother-in-law tries to catch his nose on arrival of the baraat, as a reminder of the fact that he is taking away their daughter and is now responsible for her happiness.
• Aeki-Beki is also very fun filled rituals among the Gujarati community. A tray or pot of water is mixed with milk and vermillion. A ring and a few coins are thrown into the mixture. The bride and groom are given seven chances to fish out the ring. The winner is considered as having a dominating personality and it is predicted amidst much laughter that he or she will rule the roost!
• In Punjabi custom the bride's wear a Chuda, this is a set of red and ivory bangles by her maternal uncle. This custom is considered good omen for the bride as it is said to bring good luck to the bride in her new home.
• Punjabi brides wear Kaleeres. These are silver or gold plated ornaments tied to the Chudas. It is said that the bride has as many friends as there are leaves in the Kaleere. One interesting ritual related with the Kaleere is the custom in which a bride shakes her Kaleere over the unmarried girls in her family. It is said that if the Kaleere falls on the head of any of them, she is the next one to be married.
• Another ritual which is found in almost every community is when the groom brings home his new bride; the groom's sisters block the entrance to the home and demand money from their brother as a shagun before they let him in. This is a fun filled and amusing ritual.

All this and more will be uncovered by me. What is more interesting is, it will be an interactive installation whereby users can actually hands on and meddle with it. Indians are stand of different ethnics, cast, language and rituals as well their living style. So I am gonna focus on Tamil Wedding, to be more specific. Tamil people who belong to the South part of India and they mainly speak Tamil as their mother tongue. As in today, in Malaysia, almost 80% speaks Tamil and practice their wedding in Tamil style. So lets find out more facts and contents on it.. 


Reference :
http://weddings.iloveindia.com/indian-weddings/indian-wedding-facts.html