BROADCAST : interrupted

Rupali on the limitations of the current tools we have when it comes to understanding our cities...

“…often what happens is that we get our frameworks of thinking from certain ‘givens’. That is something that we have been arguing, that our ways of understanding cities come from these two disciplines - cartography and statistical ethnography - and what those two disciplines have given us is these two tools - the map and the statistic.…these two tools are limiting in the way they understand life. To give you an example, what a map would require is clear boundaries. So if boundaries are fuzzy, they are corroded, they (maps) would start making no sense. For statistics, you have to simplify things, you have to simplify data. So if things are complex, they will not make sense. The other thing that maps and statistics do is they don’t allow for experiential ways of thinking of space because you need to quantify, you need to simplify. And they also create certain moralities of space - what is standard? What is good? What is best practice? Or also clear separations between what is inside and outside, what is public and private….”

Rupali Gupte is an architect, urbanist and an artist based in Mumbai. She is one of the founder members of the School of Environment and Architecture and currently teaches there. She is a partner at the Bard Studio, Mumbai. She has also been one of the co-founders of the urban research network, CRIT. Rupali has studied architecture (B-Arch, Mumbai University) and urban design (M-Arch, Cornell University). She has earlier worked as: an Assistant Professor at the Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture, Consulting Urban Designer to the Town Administration of Mendefera, Eritrea and Architect at the Kohn Pederson Fox Associates, New York. Her work include research on Indian urbanism with focus on architecture, urban culture, housing, urban form and tactical practices. It crosses disciplinary boundaries and take different forms – writings, drawings, mixed-media works, storytelling, teaching, walks and spatial intervention. This episode was recorded in Nov, 2021

Rupali's Studio -

https://bardstudio.in/

BARD Studio on Instagram -

https://www.instagram.com/bardstudiomumbai/

The school where Rupali is a founder member and teaches currently -

https://sea.edu.in/

Follow us on Instagram for Snippets and Updates on all our upcoming Episodes

https://instagram.com/broadcast.interrupted?igshid=n8p244jdy89u

Here is the link to our Youtube Channel for more such long-form conversations and clips from this episode and all others

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqU4_8rLx_kSSk3SsBWdh8Q

Listen to the audio version of our Podcasts on :

Spotify : https://open.spotify.com/show/6ZaXxvmIRkgTwD78c4g9LE

Apple podcasts : https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/broadcast-interrupted/id1561944644

Google podcasts : https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkLnBvZGJlYW4uY29tL2Jyb2FkY2FzdGludGVycnVwdGVkL2ZlZWQueG1s

Podbean : https://broadcastinterrupted.podbean.com/

Technical Support : Prashant Chavan

Rupali on the limitations of the current tools we have when it comes to understanding our cities...

“…often what happens is that we get our frameworks of thinking from certain ‘givens’. That is something that we have been arguing, that our ways of understanding cities come from these two disciplines - cartography and statistical ethnography - and what those two disciplines have given us is these two tools - the map and the statistic.…these two tools are limiting in the way they understand life. To give you an example, what a map would require is clear boundaries. So if boundaries are fuzzy, they are corroded, they (maps) would start making no sense. For statistics, you have to simplify things, you have to simplify data. So if things are complex, they will not make sense. The other thing that maps and statistics do is they don’t allow for experiential ways of thinking of space because you need to quantify, you need to simplify. And they also create certain moralities of space - what is standard? What is good? What is best practice? Or also clear separations between what is inside and outside, what is public and private….”

Rupali Gupte is an architect, urbanist and an artist based in Mumbai. She is one of the founder members of the School of Environment and Architecture and currently teaches there. She is a partner at the Bard Studio, Mumbai. She has also been one of the co-founders of the urban research network, CRIT. Rupali has studied architecture (B-Arch, Mumbai University) and urban design (M-Arch, Cornell University). She has earlier worked as: an Assistant Professor at the Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture, Consulting Urban Designer to the Town Administration of Mendefera, Eritrea and Architect at the Kohn Pederson Fox Associates, New York. Her work include research on Indian urbanism with focus on architecture, urban culture, housing, urban form and tactical practices. It crosses disciplinary boundaries and take different forms – writings, drawings, mixed-media works, storytelling, teaching, walks and spatial intervention. This episode was recorded in Nov, 2021

Rupali's Studio -

https://bardstudio.in/

BARD Studio on Instagram -

https://www.instagram.com/bardstudiomumbai/

The school where Rupali is a founder member and teaches currently -

https://sea.edu.in/

Follow us on Instagram for Snippets and Updates on all our upcoming Episodes

https://instagram.com/broadcast.interrupted?igshid=n8p244jdy89u

Here is the link to our Youtube Channel for more such long-form conversations and clips from this episode and all others

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqU4_8rLx_kSSk3SsBWdh8Q

Listen to the audio version of our Podcasts on :

Spotify : https://open.spotify.com/show/6ZaXxvmIRkgTwD78c4g9LE

Apple podcasts : https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/broadcast-interrupted/id1561944644

Google podcasts : https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkLnBvZGJlYW4uY29tL2Jyb2FkY2FzdGludGVycnVwdGVkL2ZlZWQueG1s

Podbean : https://broadcastinterrupted.podbean.com/

Technical Support : Prashant Chavan

Isha Bhatt is the Director of Product Management at YouTube Commerce. She studied architecture at the KRVIA in Mumbai and was a part of the first batch of students. After moving to the United States to study industrial she began her foray into the tech world, completely by chance, as a User Interface designer for Rediff in the late 90’s. As she mentions in Part I of the conversation, the world wide web was being designed from scratch and she found herself completely at home as a designer, in an environment surrounded by engineers.

Looking into the rear-view mirror now, she speaks about her journey as a Design Thinker and Leader - especially as a woman in a male-dominated Silicon Valley Tech Industry, as one full of surprises and challenges without much precedence. Isha’s longest stint being Paypal (8 years) she narrates stories of being confronted with cultural differences and socio-economic realities of the different parts of the world while working on the design of a product that is meant to make everyday life easier for people across communities.

In part II Isha also elaborates on her anticipations regarding the future of technological innovations. We discuss with her how she see’s the world of software being received across the world, by communities and what its disruptive capacities might be for various cultural practices. Her wide range of experiences across different product categories like e-commerce (ebay), fintech (Paypal), automobile (Volvo) and currently Youtube gave us a very rich insight into the different aspects of product design.

Isha Bhatt on Linkedin -

https://www.linkedin.com/in/isha-bhatt/

Follow us on Instagram for Snippets and Updates on all our upcoming Episodes

https://instagram.com/broadcast.interrupted?igshid=n8p244jdy89u

Here is the link to our Youtube Channel for more such long-form conversations and clips from this episode and all others

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqU4_8rLx_kSSk3SsBWdh8Q

Listen to the audio version of our Podcasts on :

Spotify : https://open.spotify.com/show/6ZaXxvmIRkgTwD78c4g9LE

Apple podcasts : https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/broadcast-interrupted/id1561944644

Google podcasts : https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkLnBvZGJlYW4uY29tL2Jyb2FkY2FzdGludGVycnVwdGVkL2ZlZWQueG1s

Podbean : https://broadcastinterrupted.podbean.com/

Technical Support : Prashant Chavan

Isha Bhatt is the Director of Product Management at YouTube Commerce. She studied architecture at the KRVIA in Mumbai and was a part of the first batch of students. After moving to the United States to study industrial she began her foray into the tech world, completely by chance, as a User Interface designer for Rediff in the late 90’s. As she mentions in Part I of the conversation, the world wide web was being designed from scratch and she found herself completely at home as a designer, in an environment surrounded by engineers.

Looking into the rear-view mirror now, she speaks about her journey as a Design Thinker and Leader - especially as a woman in a male-dominated Silicon Valley Tech Industry, as one full of surprises and challenges without much precedence. Isha’s longest stint being Paypal (8 years) she narrates stories of being confronted with cultural differences and socio-economic realities of the different parts of the world while working on the design of a product that is meant to make everyday life easier for people across communities.

In part II Isha also elaborates on her anticipations regarding the future of technological innovations. We discuss with her how she see’s the world of software being received across the world, by communities and what its disruptive capacities might be for various cultural practices. Her wide range of experiences across different product categories like e-commerce (ebay), fintech (Paypal), automobile (Volvo) and currently Youtube gave us a very rich insight into the different aspects of product design.

Isha Bhatt on Linkedin -

https://www.linkedin.com/in/isha-bhatt/

Follow us on Instagram for Snippets and Updates on all our upcoming Episodes

https://instagram.com/broadcast.interrupted?igshid=n8p244jdy89u

Here is the link to our Youtube Channel for more such long-form conversations and clips from this episode and all others

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqU4_8rLx_kSSk3SsBWdh8Q

Listen to the audio version of our Podcasts on :

Spotify : https://open.spotify.com/show/6ZaXxvmIRkgTwD78c4g9LE

Apple podcasts : https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/broadcast-interrupted/id1561944644

Google podcasts : https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkLnBvZGJlYW4uY29tL2Jyb2FkY2FzdGludGVycnVwdGVkL2ZlZWQueG1s

Podbean : https://broadcastinterrupted.podbean.com/

Technical Support : Prashant Chavan

Libny on the difficult choices that architects make when presenting project proposals to the public and what is at stake when dealing with the feedback…

“….In this project, the particular museum feasibility proposal, I used Grasshopper and produced these bridges, towers super fast and did some options and I could tweak stuff and we decided – Oh no! It looks too thick, too blah blah blah.. and then BOOM! Enscape – PrintScreen and that’s it! But the thing is Enscape then looks quite realistic. The bridge that I modelled had glass, frames, rails, really detailed. Maybe it was our fault that we detailed it too realistic so that people think this is THE THING. It’s not like an idea.

But then if we would have gone maybe even further and provided a webpage and VR, people would have bought this project! Because it is awesome! You go into this bridge and get a view of the whole city, you really understand the potentials of this project….”

Libny Pacheco is a Project Architect working at White Arkitekter based out of Uppsala, Sweden. Before arriving in Sweden, he experienced both studying and working as an architect across cultures and continents. In his own words, he describes himself as an experienced project architect, computational designer, strong researcher and problem solver. Libny’s interest in software, as he explains during our conversation, comes from his environment and the ‘Heroes’ within the discipline at the time of his education at the Unversidad de los Andes, Venezuela. From studying in Venezuela to working in London, Beijing and now Uppsala, Sweden he lays out for us, during the course of the conversation, a range of experiences – from the abstract universal notions as well the more real and local preferences across cultural boundaries.

Among other more technical and architectural pursuits, Libny is also an active writer/blogger who keeps himself constantly engaged with rethinking architectural thought. He is an avid (re)reader of philosophical, historical and theoretical works and considers these sources to be an integral part of his toolset for architectural production.

Libny’s arcticle on Medium titled, “Parametricism was born Leftish” – https://libnypacheco.medium.com/parametricism-was-born-leftish-18db51ba08dd

Libny Pacheco on Linkedin -

https://www.linkedin.com/in/libny-pacheco-6548b95/?originalSubdomain=se

Follow us on Instagram for Snippets and Updates on all our upcoming Episodes https://instagram.com/broadcast.interrupted?igshid=n8p244jdy89u

Here is the link to our Youtube Channel for more such long-form conversations and clips from this episode and all others https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqU4_8rLx_kSSk3SsBWdh8Q

Listen to the audio version of our Podcasts on :

Spotify : https://open.spotify.com/show/6ZaXxvmIRkgTwD78c4g9LE

Apple podcasts : https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/broadcast-interrupted/id1561944644

Google podcasts : https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkLnBvZGJlYW4uY29tL2Jyb2FkY2FzdGludGVycnVwdGVkL2ZlZWQueG1s

Podbean : https://broadcastinterrupted.podbean.com/

Technical Support : Prashant Chavan

Libny on the difficult choices that architects make when presenting project proposals to the public and what is at stake when dealing with the feedback…

“….In this project, the particular museum feasibility proposal, I used Grasshopper and produced these bridges, towers super fast and did some options and I could tweak stuff and we decided – Oh no! It looks too thick, too blah blah blah.. and then BOOM! Enscape – PrintScreen and that’s it! But the thing is Enscape then looks quite realistic. The bridge that I modelled had glass, frames, rails, really detailed. Maybe it was our fault that we detailed it too realistic so that people think this is THE THING. It’s not like an idea.

But then if we would have gone maybe even further and provided a webpage and VR, people would have bought this project! Because it is awesome! You go into this bridge and get a view of the whole city, you really understand the potentials of this project….”

Libny Pacheco is a Project Architect working at White Arkitekter based out of Uppsala, Sweden. Before arriving in Sweden, he experienced both studying and working as an architect across cultures and continents. In his own words, he describes himself as an experienced project architect, computational designer, strong researcher and problem solver. Libny’s interest in software, as he explains during our conversation, comes from his environment and the ‘Heroes’ within the discipline at the time of his education at the Unversidad de los Andes, Venezuela. From studying in Venezuela to working in London, Beijing and now Uppsala, Sweden he lays out for us, during the course of the conversation, a range of experiences – from the abstract universal notions as well the more real and local preferences across cultural boundaries.

Among other more technical and architectural pursuits, Libny is also an active writer/blogger who keeps himself constantly engaged with rethinking architectural thought. He is an avid (re)reader of philosophical, historical and theoretical works and considers these sources to be an integral part of his toolset for architectural production.

Libny’s arcticle on Medium titled, “Parametricism was born Leftish” – https://libnypacheco.medium.com/parametricism-was-born-leftish-18db51ba08dd

Libny Pacheco on Linkedin -

https://www.linkedin.com/in/libny-pacheco-6548b95/?originalSubdomain=se

Follow us on Instagram for Snippets and Updates on all our upcoming Episodes https://instagram.com/broadcast.interrupted?igshid=n8p244jdy89u

Here is the link to our Youtube Channel for more such long-form conversations and clips from this episode and all others https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqU4_8rLx_kSSk3SsBWdh8Q

Listen to the audio version of our Podcasts on :

Spotify : https://open.spotify.com/show/6ZaXxvmIRkgTwD78c4g9LE

Apple podcasts : https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/broadcast-interrupted/id1561944644

Google podcasts : https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkLnBvZGJlYW4uY29tL2Jyb2FkY2FzdGludGVycnVwdGVkL2ZlZWQueG1s

Podbean : https://broadcastinterrupted.podbean.com/

Technical Support : Prashant Chavan

Mukul on the play of ethics and power dynamics that a documentary filmmaker must consider when wielding a camera…

“….So, it finally becomes this entire act of trying to say that, “Who am I to speak on behalf of somebody else? I can try to be honest about it and I can refer to a thing such as; If I’m looking at the North east [India], “What is my image of the north east? That people are doing a tribal dance all the time…which is the Bollywood image of a certain kind of “tribal”…I mean, for me it’s very very important to say that, I’m aware of the power that I have, wielding a camera and trying to on behalf of speak somebody else. Not for a moment thinking that, “I’m here to do you good.” No, That’s a problem!”

Avijit Mukul Kishore is a filmmaker and cinematographer based in Mumbai, working in documentary and inter-disciplinary film practices. He is involved in cinema pedagogy as a lecturer, and curates film programmes for prominent national cultural institutions. His films as director include 'Snapshots from a Family Album', 'Vertical City', 'To Let the World In', 'Electric Shadows' and 'Nostalgia for the Future'; and as cinematographer:, 'John and Jane', 'Seven Islands and a Metro,' 'I am Micro' and 'An Old Dog’s Diary'.

On this podcast, we discussed some of his work, specifically with regards to where we see the nature of his line of inquiry as a filmmaker. For instance, we spoke to Mukul about his film “Electric Shadows”, which explores a film festival in China where Indian films were screened; and reflects deeply on the impact of cinema on these two cultures, on the act of documentary film-making and the politics of history and memory. For Andy and I, and of course to those of you that are interested in architecture and cities, in the film, ‘Nostalgia for the Future’, Mukul’s commentary on Indian Modernism and especially the nation-building narratives of the time bring into focus the culture of conception within architecture and urban design in the country.

An alumni of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), in Pune, India , he has made films that explore various social realities while simultaneously exploring how those same realities get reflected in cinema. He is actively involved in cinema pedagogy and until recently was the co-curator of a national film archive.

Link to Avijit Mukul Kishore's films -

https://vimeo.com/avimuk

Instagram

Youtube

Technical Support : Prashant Chavan

Mukul on the play of ethics and power dynamics that a documentary filmmaker must consider when wielding a camera…

“….So, it finally becomes this entire act of trying to say that, “Who am I to speak on behalf of somebody else? I can try to be honest about it and I can refer to a thing such as; If I’m looking at the North east [India], “What is my image of the north east? That people are doing a tribal dance all the time…which is the Bollywood image of a certain kind of “tribal”…I mean, for me it’s very very important to say that, I’m aware of the power that I have, wielding a camera and trying to on behalf of speak somebody else. Not for a moment thinking that, “I’m here to do you good.” No, That’s a problem!”

Avijit Mukul Kishore is a filmmaker and cinematographer based in Mumbai, working in documentary and inter-disciplinary film practices. He is involved in cinema pedagogy as a lecturer, and curates film programmes for prominent national cultural institutions. His films as director include 'Snapshots from a Family Album', 'Vertical City', 'To Let the World In', 'Electric Shadows' and 'Nostalgia for the Future'; and as cinematographer:, 'John and Jane', 'Seven Islands and a Metro,' 'I am Micro' and 'An Old Dog’s Diary'.

On this podcast, we discussed some of his work, specifically with regards to where we see the nature of his line of inquiry as a filmmaker. For instance, we spoke to Mukul about his film “Electric Shadows”, which explores a film festival in China where Indian films were screened; and reflects deeply on the impact of cinema on these two cultures, on the act of documentary film-making and the politics of history and memory. For Andy and I, and of course to those of you that are interested in architecture and cities, in the film, ‘Nostalgia for the Future’, Mukul’s commentary on Indian Modernism and especially the nation-building narratives of the time bring into focus the culture of conception within architecture and urban design in the country.

An alumni of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), in Pune, India , he has made films that explore various social realities while simultaneously exploring how those same realities get reflected in cinema. He is actively involved in cinema pedagogy and until recently was the co-curator of a national film archive.

Link to Avijit Mukul Kishore's films -

https://vimeo.com/avimuk

Instagram

Youtube

Technical Support : Prashant Chavan

On the core values that Journalists try to abide by…

“…I wouldn’t say that I have something memorized, Reuters has what’s called the trust principle which we are all supposed to adhere to and we all do. But I like those because they are just common sense, basically – Don’t do anything where somebody feels like their trust has been violated, you know. Don’t represent things in a way that’s gonna make the reader think you’re misleading them. Always be completely upfront with your sources, if you’re gonna quote them and they wanted to be anonymous, talk to them about – Can I say you work for this ministry…just be completely upfront about everything. At the end of the day the trust principle is – Don’t violate the reader’s and the source’s trust…”

Jake Spring is an American journalist for the Reuters News Agency currently covering Environment and Commodities in Brasilia, Brazil. He has written vivid stories as the first reporter from a major news outlet on the ground during the 2019 Amazon fire crisis and while covering historic fires in the world’s largest wetlands in 2020. Jake has covered Brazil’s environment and government regulation of agriculture, mining and energy, including votes in Congress and field reporting on the impacts of major policies. Before moving to Brazil he covered the automobile industry from Beijing, China writing on a number of important aspects like the electric car boom and self-driving cars.

Jake is also the host, producer and editor of the Foreign Correspondence Podcast. On the podcast he speaks to journalists from all over the world about their journeys as professionals and collects stories that shed light on the diversity of interests embedded within journalism. He completed a Bachelor of Arts in Asian Studies from Northwestern University in Illinois.

During the course of this conversation we cover quite a wide range of topics like the specifics of working in capital cities as a journalist to discussing why brutalism in architecture has seen a resurgence as a style over social media.

On the core values that Journalists try to abide by…

“…I wouldn’t say that I have something memorized, Reuters has what’s called the trust principle which we are all supposed to adhere to and we all do. But I like those because they are just common sense, basically – Don’t do anything where somebody feels like their trust has been violated, you know. Don’t represent things in a way that’s gonna make the reader think you’re misleading them. Always be completely upfront with your sources, if you’re gonna quote them and they wanted to be anonymous, talk to them about – Can I say you work for this ministry…just be completely upfront about everything. At the end of the day the trust principle is – Don’t violate the reader’s and the source’s trust…”

Jake Spring is an American journalist for the Reuters News Agency currently covering Environment and Commodities in Brasilia, Brazil. He has written vivid stories as the first reporter from a major news outlet on the ground during the 2019 Amazon fire crisis and while covering historic fires in the world’s largest wetlands in 2020. Jake has covered Brazil’s environment and government regulation of agriculture, mining and energy, including votes in Congress and field reporting on the impacts of major policies. Before moving to Brazil he covered the automobile industry from Beijing, China writing on a number of important aspects like the electric car boom and self-driving cars.

Jake is also the host, producer and editor of the Foreign Correspondence Podcast. On the podcast he speaks to journalists from all over the world about their journeys as professionals and collects stories that shed light on the diversity of interests embedded within journalism. He completed a Bachelor of Arts in Asian Studies from Northwestern University in Illinois.

During the course of this conversation we cover quite a wide range of topics like the specifics of working in capital cities as a journalist to discussing why brutalism in architecture has seen a resurgence as a style over social media.