Design Portfolio_Karthikeyan

Hello!

I am karthik, an architect, designer and a musician based in germany. I am currently pursuing my Master’s of arts in architecture degree at DIA, Bauhaus

My work reflects my interest in art , music and creating expereinces from the conceptual stage ranging through multiple disciplines. I immensely enjoy solving problems by coming up with a creative solution.

About me

I would like to work on large and small scale design problems by proposing solutions ranging from spatial interventions, performances to branding. I have an expereince of 2 years in the design field and a year working as a freelance architect. In the coming future, i would like to combine my skils and aspire to become a multi disciplianary designer.

Table of contents

Germany

Much Ado About Nothing - Speculative and critical design

Oasis - Urban art installation

The twelve gates - Public art installation

Into the Wild - Mental mapping/ Publication

Visual coding - Visual programming experiments

India

Ape Shift Theory - Visual Branding/Performance lighting

Death Rave - Video/ Art direction

Much ado about nothing

Ongoing master thesis Studio 2021/2022

For Dessau International Architecture, Dessau.

Mentored by :

Prof. Ivan Kucina

Ar. Egor Kuzmin

Project type :

Speculative and critical design

Softwares : Autocad,Blender, Sketchup, Lumion, Illustrator, Photoshop

In the open letter that has been published in the Domus, architect Jack Herzog has answered the question of another architect David Chipperfield to what architects should do about environmental catastrophe, social inequality, poverty, pandemic:

DearDavid,theansweris NOTHING

The design studio explores the multi disciplinary perspectives of the concept of nothingness and intend not to propose a solution but to navigate through these perspectives. My journey started by identifying a specific group of people who are considered to contribute nothing to the society. In depth research into this user group, reveals a vicious circle of never eneding suffering that these people have been put through. I intend to create an expereince, that would propose not the solution but a cataclyst for a change in the existing social strata.

“Believe and accept nothing”

This journey towards defining what ‘Nothing’ as a concept is very much self introspective.

The first task was to select the concepts i liked out of a collection of articles about nothingness and represent them graphically. The results were a series of illustrations on how i perceived nothigness. These illustrations would serve as the intital phase of research The articles are as follows.

1. Hinduism And It’s Beautiful Offering: Nothingness!

2. Parviz Tanavoli: Iranian artist who made some

3. Human Nature, Constructive Anarchy, and How Silence Helps Us amplify Each Other’s Goodness

“The Rudimentary conclave”

“Embracing nothing”

“Alex wilkinson model”

The first place i looked in was my religion. And it says,

“That eternal vastness of emptiness or nothingness is the source of creation of everything physical in nature and any physical entity or creation, eventually merges into nothing.

In other words, everything comes out of nothing and finally ends up into nothing”

Then arises the question, if Nothing is the ultimate entity, why go for something in this life?

Why chase after your dreams?

Why do anything that we do, do?

The question that could crumble the very fabric of our reality and it’s answer is one word - Karma

““Nothing

is omnipresent. Nothing is the ultimate””

Can someone contribute nothing to the modern society? This question is further explored and the factors to contributing nothing are identified.

In depth research reveals a particular user group who are exposed to all the factors to contributing nothing. They belong to one of the ancient tribes of South India called the Irulars. A detailed analysis shows the constant suffering they’ve been through, unable to rise among the ranks and so on. The complex systems of the state have made it really hard for these people with/without their knowledge. The research board in the next slide illustrates the how this user groupcontributes nothing to society

“Nothing is omnipresent. Nothing is the ultimate”

Research board about a specific user group contributing literally nothing to the society.

Program Diagram

The program diagram is devoloped by the keenly following the lives of the tribal people through keen research. The program diagram has two clusters - Actions of Tribulation and actions of deliverance. Then the programs are furthermore categorised based on their impact and feeling in which they are done. The result is an infographic map of the actions and the attributes.

Attributes

Actions of Tribulation

Degraded

Digging the grave

Getting discriminated

Repressing their feeling

Mourning

Getting condemned and punished

Obstruction of knowledge

Hatefully

Forcefully

Anxiously

Intensely

Habitually

To suffer

To be exiled from the society

Burning of eyes due to smoke

Cooking in the open

Living in the dark

Actions of Deliverance

Friendly banter after work

Flirting under the leaky roof

Praying before the hunt

Eating herbs before the hunt

Firewalking

Attributes

Carefully

Sincerely

Mindfully Happily

Casually

Excitedly

Invasion of privacy

Getting burned

Getting robbed by the law

Getting assaulted

Stealing rice from the rats

Getting lured into bonded labor

Experiencing a snake bite

Burning of lungs

Walking the flooded house

Getting no identification

under someone’s heel

To obey

To pray

Sleeping under a leaky roof

giving into suicidal thoughts

Listening to parai

dancing to parai

Praying in the beach

Casual hunting

Drinking honey from honeycomb

Sacrificial lamb offering burning herbs

Bathing in open water bodies

Cooking and eating together

Making jewelry from flowers

Imagining an alternate life

Listening to the snake charmer

Watching the snake dance

Dancing around the snake

Using waterworn stones for tombs

Giving the dead a place to stay

Calling ancestral spirits for assistance

Serving the king’s guard

Believing death leads to eternal light

Nailing amulets

Finger painting on the walls

Erecting scare crows

Dancing around the ceremonial pyre

Hatefully Habitually

Forcefully Mindfully Happily

Anxiously Carefully Casually

Intensely Sincerely Excitedly

Kulam Monument for the Dejected Courts of Injustice Makam

Friendly banter after work

Drinking honey from honeycomb

Cooking and eating together

Casual hunting

Praying before the hunt

Bathing in open water bodies

To be exiled from the society

Thieve’s Abode + Slither

Flirting under the leaky roof

Imagining an alternate life

Naliking amulets

Living in the dark

Sleeping under a leaky roof

Walking the flooded house

To suffer

Experiencing a sanke bite

Getting no identification

To obey

Living in the dark

Degraded

Getting discriminated

Obstruction of knowledge

Invasion of privacy

To obey

Getting condemned and punished

Getting burned

Getting robbed by the law

Getting assaulted

Under someone’s heel

Giving into suicidal thoughts

Sacrificial lamb offering

Listening to parai

Dancing to parai

Listening to the snake charmer

Watching the snake dance

Using waterworn stones for tombs

Giving the dead a place to stay

Calling ancestral spirits for assistance

Believing death leads to eternal light

Dancing around the ceremonial pyre

The final outcome is avisual narrative journey imagined in the metaverse. The narrative clusters are mindfully stitched together to form a strong narrative that would tell the world of the tribal community.The design of spaces and the narrative have been derived from instances that happen around the user’s life.

The spaces are imagined to exist completely in the metaverse. The narrative is an interactive and immersive expereince. The following graphic storyboards are a representation of the user’s

The Rudimentary conclave

On getting closer, the 12 headed golden snake made itself evident under the shrine. The glinting idol tempted me into reaching out for it. Almost out of habit, as if to receive blessings. Instantly, there appeared a figure before me

As I stepped into the wide welcoming platform, the water tank ahead of me rallied me into reminiscing about the ablution tanks at the Hindu temple complexes where one cleanses oneself before entering the sacred space. A slight shimmer caught my eye..surrounded by incomplete and unstable pillars in the middle of the tank, stood a strange shrine guarded by its peculiar crystal organisms

“For centuries, we have been forbidden from the ablution tanks of temples.”, he said. “The uppers believe that honey gatherers like us contaminate their holy water. So,we built our own temple. Fascinatingly enough, 15% of honey is actually water. Anyway, let’s move along, shall we?”. Speechless by his nonchalant stating of blatant bias, I simply followed him ahead

A Miserian, he called himself. A single representation of his collective. My guide, narrator and companion through the journey ahead

The initial wide platform transported us into a flooded verandah of someone’s house. The uneven distorted lattice on the Ceiling pulled my attention upwards.

The flooding water rose higher as murky sewage water overflowed and mixed. The brief moment of pure beauty had ended as soon as it began.

I saw two figures, embracing each other tenderly under the moonlight like illuminance. A beautiful, pure moment, frozen and kept behind a rigid lattice.As if to keep it safe from being stolen away, again. A persistently increasing sound of dripping water eerily filled up my ear. I couldn’t find the source but quickly this sound took over my senses and disoriented me

Soon I realised the figures hang under an almost dilapidated roof. Clattering and leaking in the rainstorm. The sound grew larger

A slither through darkness

I found myself in contemplation as I stood alone before a deep dark tunnel. Hesitantly, I stepped inside, almost glad to get away from the rattling sounds from the roof.

But soon spine chilling hissing sounds filled my ear. And the lack of vision of what’s ahead, only added to my fear of the unknown. After what felt like an eternity, I finally saw a break of light at the end of this

A made a dash for it, only to end up on what looked like a fragile narrow path. It hovered above a colossal pit filled up to its brim with slithering snakes. “My walk from home, every day! We don’t even notice the snakes anymore”, said the Miserian, now walking ahead of me towards a towering structure in the distance.

Monument for the Dejected

We approached the large foundation plinth of the structure completely clad with what looked like drainage outlets.

“The blood of our ancestors!” He exclaimed grandly. Slightly disturbed but curious to see beyond, I entered the tower

We rose gradually along this peculiar machine-like massive monument, made up of multiple units. Each resembled the divine inner sanctum of the temple endlessly stacked above and beside each other.But instead of an idol, these cylindrical capsules held glowing light within.“That, my friend, are the souls of my ancestors.” Said the Miserian, noticing my awe struck demeanor.

“Mere cogs just to power what’s above us. What remains below here is just a perpetual force- a battery for the judiciary. This is our eternal damnation.”What looked divine to me earlier, now looked like a crypt of graves with no boundaries or horizon in sight. Eager to see what system this graveyard fueled, we made our way up

The courts of injustice

A mix of the royal judicature of the ancient kings and the gram panchayat which is the judicial body of a village, this grand courtroom before us stood on an intimidating scale. I noticed platforms on either side stirring me within to make a decision and take a side. To protest against or to hold my silence. I choose the latter owing to my lack of judgement. The tall speakers at the back summon the accused.

To my surprise, my companion, the Miserian, had to ascend into the trial barricade before the central figure which resembled a unified entity of the creator, destroyer, and protector of thisjudicial realm. They pressed charges against him without any evidence and offered him no opportunity for Defense. the cries from the protestors on the platform across were acompletely muted.

Declared guilty and sentenced to death, I watched him exit his existence before he could say a word. There it was, the glowing light on its way to the crypts below. The lights at the court shone brighter now. But powered by injustice towards the Miserians time and again. I watched Their eternal damnation begin while they were still alive.

This grave epiphany drained me- my mind and my body. I froze absolutely motionless, helpless and weak. just a witness at the Court of Injustice.

I heard a voice “Your journey is not over yet.”

In what seemed surreal now, I suddenly found myself at the entrance of a grand carnival- A Makam. I walked down a path flanked by an endless sea of technicolored tent-like structures inhabiting thousands of people. Diametrically distinct from all the other spaces so far, I seemed to have fallen into an abyssa dream sequence

“Take a dip into the pool and complete this expedition.” said the voice.

“ Guilt. Guilt for what happened to me. For choosing to remain helpless. That’s what I see in your eyes. The dip in the pool is a chance to absolve you from it. From all your sins. It is what every person of privilege does and has done before you. An empty gesture to wash away the crimes against us along with any responsibility that society has towards us. You don’t need us anyway. Except to power your courts of injustice till the end of time. My soul is on its way to the labyrinth to provide you with unending energy. Why should this time be any different? Go on… take a dip and exonerate yourself.”

The path led me to an enfilade of golden archways lined up like a fortress bracing a sanctum within. I arrived at yet another ablution tank Surrounded by an array of towering speakers facing outwards.

Instantly, I found myself before the courts of injustice again. This time I chose to not remain silent. I chose to join the protesters. To amplify their cries one voice at a time and to fight for justice at the Sanctuary of the damned

Semester design studio, 2021, Summer

For Dessau International Architecture, Dessau.

Mentored by :

Project type : Frederik Skatar

Urban art and architecture

Softwares : Autocad, Sketchup, Lumion, Photoshop

OASIS is a tranformative urban organism which was the result of the revitalisation program of unused corners. This design was proposed to revitalise an unused park in dessau. The design is imagined as an urban organism made of scaffolding tubes, that could extend in any direction and in no time, to urbanise the given place. The tubes provide the necessary matrix for the art installations to be placed in desired places.

The history of this park has been tainted by series of hate crimes and mishaps. The art installations are made in a way to bring in more interaction from the users with empathy as the core concept.

Stadt park, Dessau Rosslau

Scaffolding Tubes for the structure

“Can i see your thoughts”

Exploded view “Come together” “The reality around us”

Extended pathways

Existing central node

Bridges

WPC weatherproof planks

Exterior elevation view

Multi coloured facade glass

Tempered Glass for handrails

View from the extended pathway

The reality around us

‘The reality around us’ is a chance for everyone to expereince the life and death happening around you in the form of an art installation. The light installation is a consequence of the data fed into the systems. The Data is based on a pattern created using the number of births and deaths happening in the host city/town of where the installation is being planned.

Keywords : Visual, Introspective

This artistic interpretation of demographic data is intended to engage people’s emphatic understanding of cold statistics.

Whenever a baby is born, a burst of blue light would appear

Whenever someone died, a burst of red light would appear

Can i see your rhythm?

‘Can i see you rhythm?’ gives the user a glimpse into another person’s mind. The idea was to convert heart rhythm patterns of the user to audio and then to vibrations. These vibrations create visually stunning surfaces with sand/water. Heartmath sensors are implemented to measure the heart rhythm patterns of the user.

Keywords : Auditory, Visual, Introspective

This artistic interpretation the heart rhythm patterns produce similar pattern among us, sending out the message that we are all equals.

Speakers Speakers

Springs

Sand/water 2mm wooden board

User interacting with the headset

Dichroic film for facade

Patterns are created on the sand by the sound from the speakers

Pattern 00

Pattern 01

Pattern 02

The result is a light show of leds created by the users/audience.

Come together

‘Come together’ is an extended expereince of the first installation,”The reality around us”. This installations offers an interactive expereince among the users with Two consoles with two buttons which would trigger the lights . The light patterns are programmed to be triggered when specific button combinations are pressed. The users becomes the performers by taking control of the lights around them.

Keywords : Visual, Introspective, Kinesthetic

This installation gives the user the control of things when they work together. This scenario demands various users to work together to put out a light show, promoting togetherness.

P1... P2...

Console

Console

Patterns of light are triggerd by the combinations obtained from the consoles

Dichroic glass film

Two consoles with two buttons act as the controller for the installation.

The combinations of buttons trigger a series of leds in a programmed pattern.

The Twelve Gates

03

Master’s elective, 2021, Winter

For Dessau International Architecture, Dessau.

Mentored by :

Project type :

Softwares :

Prof. Alfred Jacoby

Art installation

Autocad, Sketchup, Lumion, Photoshop

In order to propagate the immaterial as well as material content of the appointment as world heritage, the Government of Rhineland palatinate has decided to establist an information centre to accompany tourists as well as propagating the issue around the appointment as a heritage site. The twelve gates is an art installation which depicts the twelve tribes of israel The design is inspired from marc chagall’s, ’Twelve maquettes’ stained glass paintings.

To pay homage to the ancient jewish tradition, the flora inside the site is left undisturbed while executing the design. The installation can house print media exhibits for an outdoor exhibition. The design was imagined with the idea of promoting the jewish culture by not just letting the world know of their suffering but by thier immense contribution to the artistic community.

Existing pathway

Newly added pathway Gate 01

Entry to the park

Frame, 8ftx11ft 4mm glass

4mm stained glass

LED strip

Exhibitprint media

Base

Conceptual section of the window fame

Aluminium frame LED fixture

Stained glass

Plain glass

Into the wild Mental mapping

Master’s elective subject, 2021, Summer

For Dessau International Architecture, Dessau.

Mentored by :

Prof. Ivan Kucina

Softwares Creative mapping/Publication design

Project type :

Procreate, Illustrator, Photoshop, Indesign

Mental mappping is an experimental methodology which explores subjective pereception and expression of a specific expereince. The methodology demanded us to stay in the site atleast for eight hours and map down our expereince throughout the stay. The final deliverable could be any product translating the expereince in a expressive way. The result was a book of illustrated poems and six posters on my stay there an.

“Between Seasons”

“Red pill or blue pill?”

“Gandalf and the white dragon”

“Crossroads”

“Komorebi”

“Back home”

Audio Visualization

Personal project, 2021/22

For Dessau International Architecture, Dessau.

Software :

Project type : TouchDesigner, Rhino, Grasshopper

Visual based coding

TouchDesigner is a node based visual programming language for real time interactive multimedia content to create performances, installations, and fixed media works. The idea behind this project was to visualise the song by feeding in the audio to an algorithm created in touchdesigner. The output is a realtime visual rendering of the algorithm. The noise parameter in the algorithm controls the feedback loop of a circle image which goes through colour ramp ro produce the final set of images. I took up this project personally to learn the basics of the Touchdesigner and to know more about generative art.

Screenshots of the algorithm from Touchdesigner

1. An attempt to visualise a song and be able to produce illustrations from the algorithm at any given point in the song.

“There is no man” Illustrations

The Third eye

Academic project, 2021/22

For Dessau International Architecture, Dessau.

Mentored by Frederik Skatar

Software :

Project type : Rhino, Grasshopper, Twinmotion

3D modelling, Generative modelling, Realtime Rendering

Blender and Grasshopper are two softwares that i’ve been experimenting with in order to make my work more diverse. Both these softwares make use of visual based coding, which lets you manipulate data as you want.

I extensively learned and used Rhino3d’s Grasshopper tool to generate this sculpture. This sculture is imagined as a clairvoyant system which is used toamplify mass surveillance set in the far dystopian future. This project was done as a creative exercise for CAD logic course during my master’s degree.

1. Creating a planarsurface and populating it’s geometry using random points

2. Extending lines through the points in z axis and interpolating the curves

3. Mirroring the existing geometry to get the required form of the sculpture

4. Twisting the lines that were extended and iterations are carried out

5. Mirroring the form again on z axis to get the final required form for the eye

6. Creating the 3d geometry around the lines using the pipe variable to get the final

Spatial exploration of Fractals

Personal project, 2021/22

Software : Project type : Blender, Twinmotion

3D Modelling, Realtime Rendering

Blender and Grasshopper are two softwares that i’ve been experimenting with in order to make my work more diverse. Both these softwares make use of visual based coding, which lets you manipulate data as you want.

I extensively learned and used Blender’s geometry nodes in this project to come up with the fractal formations. The idea is to instance objects over instanced objects. These are few of the projects that i have worked on while learning the software during my master studies in germany.

Ape Shift Theory

Performance lighting course, 2022

For MELD , Chennai, India

Project type : Software :

Illustration, Performance lighting, Music score

Autodesk sketchbookv, Illustrator, Photoshop

Ape shift theory was initially imagined for a music album but later evolved into a much more of a design project. The title represents the shift in our perseptions caused by external elements capable of incepting new schools of thought. The album art takes inspiration from one of the theories of evolution, Ape shift theory. The colour scheme was carefully chosen to also be further used in a photoshoot.

By collaborating with my friend and fellow designer, Daksha Suryavamshi, we were able to experiment on black light and it’s effect on different objects. We managed to collect different objects and experiment with them under the black light which reflected our colour scheme.

The knowledge we gained from the Performance lighting course we did together called INFOCUS hosted Tech quartet really healped us put together this little photoshoot in my bedroom. The result was an interesting collection of grainy photographs with altered perceptions of our realities.

Music Video, 2020

For MELD, Chennai, India

Project type : Software :

Death Rave

Art Direction, 3D Modelling, Music score

Blender, Ableton, Adobe Premier pro

Death Rave was an inhouse project that we devoloped at MELD to create more social media presence. Death rave tells the story of the human’s never ending need to escape reality. The video was imagined as a person and his pseudo self running through a world of mirrored landscapes and to merge with the source of creation. Different colour maps were used to show the change in the rhythm and mood of the song.