The module focuses on exploring the everyday. It questions the everyday of a person, how the everyday happens not in the macro-retellings of the life, but the micro-details.
We started this module with opening a discussions around the concept of the everyday. What comes under this idea of “everyday”? A politicians idea of the everyday is the routine of a person (that is, the macro-retelling), like, getting up in the morning, brushing your teeth, taking a bath, having breakfast, and so on. But everyday isn’t the routine, but the vague territory that runs parallel along with it, which is left out of the traditional telling of the everyday. This everyday lies in the terrain of the conscious and unconscious mind. It is defined by the dreams, conflicts, hijacks, desires, order and the practices of a person.
Parallel to these discussions around the everyday, this module went forward with watching a number of films and reading books.
The books used as references:
Marcovaldo by Italo Calvino
The Analytical Language of John Wilkins by Jorge Luis Borges
The Infinity of Lists by Umberto Eco
The Garden of the Forking Paths by Jorge Luis Borges
One Way Street by Walter Benjamin
Movies:
The discussions followed with talking about our own individual practices, where and how do they happen. Every individual practice was questioned and explored further. Every alternate day, we collected things around our practices, explored the different forms which could be given to them, which was discussed upon in the class. We also looked upon on the works of different artists, talked about what one entails under the category of the artist.
The practice I explored upon was being consumed by the world of fiction. Hours and hours, days and days, weeks and months and years of reading, leading to the constant hold of fiction on the self. The story lingering in the mind for so long that it branches out. Some parts are altered, leading to alternate endings for the story, branching it out further. Parts of it are extended, changing point-of-views, lingering in some parts to understand different characters, wondering what's going on in their mind, how they'll react to a particular situation, carving a completely different path for them. Adding completely new characters to the story, in a subtle way, not as the main character, but an observer. Striking off parts to create an entirely different storyline. Drifting through the fiction unconsciously, parallel to the conscious mind.
The story I worked upon was Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, exploring the world of Harry Potter and inhabiting it.
The practice was experimented throughout the book by adding notes (margin notes, post-its), different types of pages including the alternate storyline and extended parts (point-of-views, scenes) and gateway sheets.
The pdf file for the book, with the edited parts:
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