This wall-mounted object will measure the pauses in our conversations. Total of all the pauses measured will be stored by it and displayed permanently.

It will play a sound when there is a silence of more than a certain duration.

A flow of the logic:

A picture of the prototype of the circuits (am trying to get a custom PCB made):

Components: arduino, wave shield, seven-segment displays, microphone.

I am working on a body / chassis / shell for the circuits. Will put up a picture soon.

~~DISCUSSION~~

Cities are organized around ideas of prestige, social standing and manufacturing in/visibility. Successful cities never show what and who they are ashamed of. Symbolic capital and the motifs of social power actively shape urban social spaces.

Paper Tiger investigates the justification we use for our smugness. What allows us to be smug, pucker up our nose to that which we consider unworthy and aspire to be like some other.

The markets pretend to have created a level playing field, fueled by competition, merit and desire. This ʻlevel playing-fieldʼ is controlled by images. Images which we aspire to, images which we assume, which we abhor, images which we accept as the truth.

As a part of Paper Tiger, I want to analyze and archive such images through performances, publications, graphics, web archives and music.

Which are these symbols of 'false' power, through which we manage to create an impasse / stalemate / 'cold war' in social relations?

• What do you feel good about?
• What do feel privileged about?
• How do people know you?
• What is the source of honor for you?
• What do you feel proud of in your community and society?

Metropolitan areas of the affluent, upwardly-mobile India. Bangalore, Kolkatta, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Guwahati, Shillong will be initial bases for research and projects.

Am I perceived as being privileged? Do people let me get away with things?

If so, there must be something about my appearance and manner that seems to suggest and demand differential treatment. Paper Tiger wants to identify some of these reasons. More than a laundry list of common stereotypes; something other than the conclusive pronouncements of empirical research; personal narratives of self-observation.

I will put together a record of this effort to understand the way social power and hierarchy works. Can I then delude these systems with masquerade, lies and tricks?

Through projects, interventions and thought experiments I will see if some of these systems can be reversed/upturned/wriggled-out-of?

Some related questions that will be explored as a part of this process:

• what are the physical indicators of common definitions of success and failure,
• what is good advice?,
• what is the concept of marriageability?

Coming Next: Some project concept sketches

~~DISCUSSION~~

a hello world post. more things will appear here soon.

~~DISCUSSION~~