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Aparna Krishnakumar
rmed with easel andpaintbrush, canvas andoil paint, a Web site, a
CD-ROM, an Apple G4, a 22-inchLCD Cinema Display, and morethan a fair share of commonsense, Jaideep Mehrotra isquietly conquering new worlds.
Mehrotra on the art scene isjust like the view from hiselegantly comfortable home onthe Mumbai seafront—calm,
serene, and almost noiseless.Which is why, although he is oneof India’s most accomplishedpainters and sculptors, his nameis hardly taken in the samebreath as his other media-savvy colleagues. It is apity, really, becauseMehrotra’s work
is as important as any othercontemporary major artist.
He is also a pioneer—he wasthe first artist in India to set uphis own Web site, and later, thefirst to create and market a CD-ROM of his work.
It is not an exercise in vanity;in fact, it is a productivity toolfew can afford to miss.
It has been a long time sinceMehrotra set up his Web site, andbegan marketing his CD-ROM.Three years, in fact. And his tech-
nology training has taken thesame route as his art education—everything he does is self-taught.Whether it is creating art instal-lations, wood art or even fabricart, Mehrotra has never had anyformal training.
First Among EqualsIt was not a Eureka moment thatbrought about the idea of a CD toshowcase his art, and expand hisaudience manifold. Mehrotra hasbeen drawn towards technology
for quite some time now—he wasVSNL’s 35th customer for anInternet account at a time whenit cost in excess of Rs 10,000 for a100-hour registration. Prior tothat, he was also part of theLiveWire Bulletin Board Servicerun by the Nanda brothers—Suchit and Anish—India’spioneering digital entrepreneurs,whose foray into BBS was viewedwith much scepticism in 1992.
It would take three days fora message to reach the US,
and another threefor a reply if it was
posted. “It was
47SEPTEMBER 2004 DIGIT
Share yourInternet
Technology For Personal and SoHo ProductivityWiFi-ing yourway through62 64
ToolsDigital
Jaideep Mehrotra is India’s first artistto use a CD-ROM and the Webeffectively to promote his work. Here’show he has harnessed technology totake his art across the globe
A
Documentssans paper50
A Brush With TechnologyJumpstart
PhotographsM
exy Xavier, Imaging Atul D
eshmukh
would make his work accessibleto a larger section of art connois-seurs and peers, both Indian andfrom across the world.
The CD itself is a digital jour-ney into the artist’s life. Dividedinto sections that detail his life,his work is in the form of paint-ings and lithographs.
It even includes his posterdesign for the Dev Benegal filmSplit Wide Open. It then recordshis views in the form of newspa-per and television interviews.
“It has my work from 1984onwards. Each of the paintingsincludes a description of thework along with the attachedprice, if it is still available forsale. You can find my sculpturesand other art work too.”
Interestingly, Mehrotraauthored the CD on his own forboth Windows and Apple plat-forms compatibility.
Veteran actor and one of theearly adopters of the Web inIndia, Shammi Kapoor, launchedthe CD in 2001, and Mehrotra hassince sold over 300 CDs, a uniqueachievement for something thatis as niche as an art CD-ROM.Mehrotra later sold through mid-day.com (the Web site of a popularevening newspaper in Mumbai) tosell the CD, a move that resultedin a lot of enquiries from the USabout his work.
Why CD-ROM?Mehrotra feels that a CD-ROM isimportant for any individual or
48 DIGIT SEPTEMBER 2004
Digital Tools l Jumpstart
faster than snail mail, though,”says Mehrotra.
The Internet, therefore, wasa natural progression. Hecreated a self-titled Web site, forwhich he learned to authorHTML pages. “It was great fun,”he remembers.
It all began when, in the late’80s, Mehrotra began experi-menting with digital litho-graphs, something he woulddevelop into a fine art, and aconstant revenue stream. He wasin New York then.
Later, in the ’90s, he createdexquisite works of art using bothtwo-and-three-dimensional soft-ware. Adobe Photoshop andFractal Design Painter were hiseasels; his Wacom cordless penand a digitiser, his brushes.
And A CD Takes BirthThe CD-ROM would seem a run-of-the-mill idea, but when Mehrotrapioneered it in 2001, it was noth-ing less than revolutionary.
Even today, no other Indianartist has developed a CD-ROM.Mehrotra is quite reticent aboutit, though.
“I have done a lot of diversework since 1967. I felt I shouldpreserve my work in a mediumdifferent than a glossy catalogue.The CD-ROM idea came primarilywith that objective in mind.”
Mehrotra also wanted it to beinteractive. A CD-ROM would bethe best medium, then, given hisneeds. The medium, he hoped,
Online Art Will Be Big... Soon
Experts say technology will only enhancethe art experience. It is only a matter of
time before artists in India begin toprocess, catalogue and archive their worksdigitally. Art critic Jasmine Shah Varmabelieves the Internet has opened a newvista for Indian artists.
Dinesh Vazirani, co-founder ofSaffronart.com’s India chapter, says the Nethas helped promote art in a big way. “It hasprovided an objective platform for artists todisplay their works to a global audience.”
He adds that the Net is increasinglybeing used by artists to experiment andusher in new movements in terms of style.
Mehrotra is probably the first Indianartist who experimented with digital media,but others are following suit. Says Vazirani:“Digital art is not a hot trend due to lack ofawareness, and due to the misconceptionthat digital art can be reproduced a milliontimes over. This has resulted in a cautiousapproach towards this medium.”
Shah Varma, meanwhile, feels thattechnology has some way to go before it wecan confidently say that the time for it hasarrived.
“It is a relatively new field, and only twoother major contemporary artists—AkbarPadamsee and Gulammohammed Shaikh—have experimented with this medium,” shesays. “The awareness of digital art and use oftechnology in art among art buyers ispractically non-existent, and art buyers aremore comfortable with traditional media likeoil and watercolour.
“It is hard to say whether the market fordigital art will thrive in India in the currentscenario.”
But she is also certain that technologyis making inroads into the field of artisticcreation. “Many artists have been usingvideo and computers as media to make anddisplay art. Gradually, we will see greateruse of technology, but it is hard to predicthow soon and to what extent.”
The CD-ROM isan impor-tant step inmakingpeopleaware ofmy work...I am happythatseveralartists arenow goingdigital.
JaideepMehrotra
How it Works
The artist createshis painting
He thenarchives themon a CD
TheseCDs aresoldthroughretailstores
CDs arealsoretailedthroughWeb sites
Thus aregeneratedenquiriesabout CDs
Paintingsare sold.The artist’swork islongerrestrictedtogeographicboundaries
Info
grap
hic
Solo
mon
Lew
is
small company as an effective marketing tool. “A CD shouldbe created from the long term business point of view. Unlikemusic or films, the success of a CD cannot be just determinedby sales alone; people buy the CD and may even take years tobuy my work; this is just a step towards making my workknown to people.”
The initial reaction to Mehrotra’s CD was that of fasci-nation, since nothing of this sort existed in the art worldbefore. “But now I see a change,” he says, “Severalcolleagues of mine are now going digital.” There is a senseof accomplishment in his eyes when he says this, even if some of the purists have not accepted this form of build-ing awareness.
Technology And Art: Do The Twain Meet?Mehrotra defends digital art not with the irrational fanati-cism of a blind supporter, but with the reasoned rationale ofa seasoned parliamentarian: “Digital art is equally creative.There is a misconception that digital art is dependent onlyon the computer’s capabilities. This is simply not true. Unlessyou give the necessary commands to the machine, and incor-porate your ideas, how in the world is the computer going tocreate art?
“Technology has ensured that art sites have mushroomed;one is now able to look at pieces of work that were not acces-sible earlier. It has brought art to the common man. Earlier,making a film was considered a multi-layered process; todayone can shoot on a personal video camera, and edit picturesat home on a personal computer.”
Even as art dealers and artists try to get comfortableabout the use of technology, Mehrotra has only shown theway. He says the day is not far when the world’s first digitalpainting with a digital signature of a prominent artist wouldgo on sale for half a million dollars. “This will make peoplenotice digital art,” he believes.
Meanwhile, at Crossword, a nationwide chain of book-stores, Mehrotra’s CD sells as the sole representative of a CD-ROM on art. For now, he can be happy that he still remainsthe only Indian artist to have dabbled in this medium. Itwon’t be long before he has followers.
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