Armaan Pardesi's Animated Poetry Project Is An Inner Journey In Search of Strength

L : A photo of Armaan Pardesi R : A Still From The Project 'Strength'L : LinkedIn R: @armaniosky

Is communication merely an exchange of words? Can we use art to communicate without words? Or rather, supplement words with art to communicate better? Armaan Pardesi’s project Strength beautifully explores these themes using animated poetry as the medium of expression, in collaboration with his friend, Ambika Raina.

Armaan’s project seeks to go beyond words in order to communicate one’s feelings to the audience. He says that as an admirer of communication, verbal communication can sometimes be 'boring' and he seeks to explore other methods of communication such as dance, which is 'ambiguous and diverse'. He made this project in 8 frames per second. It took laying over around 680 frames and painting one by one over the clips. The video clip is a compilation of his favorite dance movements, primarily contemporary and ballet. He has used rotoscoping, a technique used in animation to trace live-action motion picture footage frame by frame, to produce realistic action, and created this 2D animation clip. Putting 20 days of labor into this project, Armaan wanted to portray the connection between words and visuals. The poetry used along with the animation has been written and narrated by Ambika Raina.

Armaan is a visual artist, based out of Mumbai. He has been thoroughly influenced by the works of American visual artist, Erik Winkowski and South Korean photographer, Cho Gi-Seok. American new media artist, Zach Lieberman is also admired by Armaan, because of Liberman’s creative approach.

"It came to me at a stage of life when I was finding my purpose in life. I think everybody goes through that hard time once in a lifetime. I was confused and could not figure out my life path. My inner journey to find myself was too deep and demanded an immense level of strength. This poetry was a take on that. Even today, this visual story still gives me immense strength to fight in my little world, be confident about my principles and breathe the present. I hope it exudes the same energy for everyone else."

Armaan Pardesi