Evolution needs Innovation

I was privileged to be part of the Film4 Innovation Forum, held at Channel 4 on Tuesday 18th November. A very surreal but inspiring experience, being amongst a collection of varying creative minds with each striving for the same thing; innovative storytelling. I'm choosing to write a short post about the things I discovered yesterday, not because they are a matter of fact, indeed their beauty is that they are quite the contrary, but because the technologies we embrace say a lot about human behaviours and needs. Fear not, my blog is not about to turn into a diary, but I just have to share my insight from the day.

The key note speech was delivered by Frank Rose, author of 'The Art of Immersion'. He described a world in which storytelling is becoming non-linear, participatory, and immersive. The boundary between fact and fiction is evermore blurred, and this was reiterated throughout the day with the likes of 'Frank' discussed by Hugh Garry, the projects of National Theatre Wales, and the 'Karen' app  from Blast Theory. What each of these artistic projects have in common is the way in which they use our basic human needs; the want to constantly know more, and be more involved with a world that extends our own. 

Throughout the day, many questions ran through my mind. Why are we so willing to share so much information in the public sphere of social media, some of which we do not share with our nearest and dearest? Why are we so fascinated by the lives of others, whether they're famous, or not in the case of @JonBurroughs83, star of 'Frank'? 

The incomplete conclusion I have come to for these types of questions, is that we as humans have a need to evolve, we need to be challenged by the platforms we invest our time into. In order to create a challenge, we need to experience something new, something innovative. A story told with multiple layers gives the viewers more paths to explore, different images to portray onto themselves and provides a different experience with each participation in the story. We follow people on twitter because we want to know something more about that person; the story of their life has us hooked. The sense of feeling like we don't know everything, means we want to know more, so again, we are hooked. 

The message I want to leave you with, is one of encouragement to extend your mind left and right, rather than just aiming to an assumed target ahead. Discover unknown territories. By immersing ourselves further into other worlds, story worlds through which we are lead, we uncover more about ourselves through the questions posed by the challenge.

Many thanks to the whole team at Film4 for the event! 

November 11th: Remember the Sikhs.

© Manvir Rai, 2014.

November 11^th, Remembrance Day. As part of a remembrance parade in the West Midlands, the 1914 Sikhs Organisation were amongst the marching troops, representing the thousands of Sikhs who committed themselves to fighting for Britain in the Great War.

The Sikh Empire of the Punjab was the toughest for the British to conquer during their rule of India. Hence why, in 1914 when the Great War was declared and across the continent enemies were being fought and killed, Great Britain called on their dominion to help defend against the German empire. A large number of their recruits were Sikhs, who made up 20% of the 1.2 million Indian recruits. With this it is easy to forget that Sikhs only make up 2% of the Indian population. The volunteers were sent to the front line to fight in battles across Europe, the Middle East and East Africa, and it has been noted that Sikhs were allowed to fight with their traditional weapons such as talwar swords.

An expert from the Guardian reportage of the First World War describes ‘when the Indians arrived’. ‘To show their contempt for death, some Sikh’s had refused to hide in trenches’. It describes that the Indians looked like kings, sat proudly in their saddled. The Sikh men walked at a ‘brisk pace’, all ‘big and strong’.

© Manvir Rai, 2014.

Another part of the report tells the story of a Sikh sapper, who had a ‘Black Maria’ fall next to him while he was firing at the enemy. It did not harm him, so when the smoke had cleared, he found the hole that had been created at his side provided a comfortable position to fire from. From here, he killed 15-20 Germans according to his accompanying troops. This Sikh snapper was happy to remain in this position, but he had to be ordered to retreat. When he was congratulated for his efforts, he failed to see he had done anything remarkable.

During this time, the British Empire was beginning to loosen, and events in occupied India began to deteriorate. Yet despite this, Sikhs and thousands of Indian warriors continued to put their lives on the line willingly, and fought for the safety of a country they did not know. For people they would never meet. For an ally that had invaded their own land, and taken some of their own deserved human freedoms. Their sacrifice needs to be honoured and remembered on this day.

Please follow the following links that helped inform this post:

http://www.1914sikhs.org/

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/14/excerpts-guardian-reporting-first-world-war

© Manvir Rai, 2014.