Proposal- SPORTS & SPIRITUALITY

The idea behind putting up this multi screen audio-video installation is to depict the experience of spiritual flow through sports.
In many ways, sports represent the very best of the human spirit. And yet, some may find it odd to suggest a connection between sports and spirituality, as though these are two completely distinct facets of human life with very little in common, if anything at all. As it turns out; there is an extraordinary overlap between sports and spirituality—and this overlap is the essence of this installation.
In fact it’s possible to say that - depending on your definition of spirituality - the desire to experience spiritual well-being is one reason we play sports. According to psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, sports is important because it’s one of the most readily available ways of generating the state of being he calls ‘flow’. This is the state we experience when our attention is completely absorbed in an activity, and our awareness of our surroundings even of ourselves fades away. ‘Flow’ enables us to take control of our own consciousness.
As a football player, when I play the game; have a general sense of well-being, a feeling of complete control over my world. Whether these states are genuinely ‘spiritual’ or not is debatable, since they don’t involve experiencing any transpersonal or transcendent reality. Perhaps we can think of them as a kind of ‘base level’ spirituality, the point when spiritual experience begins.
But sports can sometimes enable us to reach these higher levels too. Once a sportsperson is ‘locked into’ a state of flow, his or her absorption might intensify further, until it reaches a state which is similar to meditation. At this point unusual things may happen.
Spiritual teachers tell us that psychic and paranormal abilities emerge naturally in higher states of consciousness, as a ‘side effect’ of spiritual progress, and sportspeople occasionally experience these. They often speak of being ‘in the Zone’.
The new age writer David Icke was once a professional football player - a goalkeeper - and regularly experienced ‘the Zone’. He recalls how once, when he was playing in an important match, somebody fired a shot from close range, which looked unstoppable:
"As the Barnet guy made contact everything went into slow motion for me. I moved across, watching the ball drifting slowly to my left and then I dived, lifting my right hand to turn it over the bar. All was like a slow-mo replay and everything was quiet, like some mystical dream, until my right hand made contact with the ball. Then everything zipped back into conscious time, I landed and bounced on the floor and the noise erupted, as if someone had turned off the mute button."
Experiences like these are usually temporary, but it seems that the best sportsmen are always ‘in the Zone’ to a degree, or at least have the ability to slip into it.



My motive of making this video installation is that people will come to see and experience by interacting with the atmosphere of the surrounding & physical involvement with it.
1. Khadau- an Archaic slipper. In Indian culture, Khadau is a type of wooden slipper in the shape of a flat wooden base with a toe hold sticking out. Khadau was traditionally considered to be the slipper of Lord Ram, in Ramayana. Ramyana, the holy book, is the soul of India. Khadau is a symbol of god's feet. These khadaus symbolize God's presence

Khadau is an archaic slipper, this is the wooden sandal, is symbolizes masters, the awakened one.
The Khadau will be having football studs fitted below, to symbolize football shoes.


2. The placement of the video in this sandal, in the hollow part. The size of the screen approximately will be 5/ 4 inches.

3. This pair represents one individual player,whose action will be shown in the videos simultaneously. The video clippings will shows the agony, pain and the happiness of the individual player during game. The short, vivid, narrative-based videos on 100 famous sportsmen will be on multiple screens about the psychological impact & inter-personal conflict a player has to go through.

4. It is my plan to install the entire videos on the raised pillar kind of form like this. All the videos will be hooked in rows as mentioned in the drawing.

5. The video will be placed as shown in the drawing. It will sensitize the intricacies and ambiguities of players’ emotion.

6. Here my idea is to make the viewer stand wearing the sandal placed below particular space and then see the videos .video will move in front of the viewer slowly as the pillar moves clock wise . The pillar represents a stupa. Stupa is a symbol of enlightened mind, (the awakened mind, universal divinity) and the path to its realisation.
Stupa is a symbol of "Spiritual Monument". The stupa represents the Buddha's body, his speech and his mind, but most especially his mind and every part shows the path to Enlightenment

7. The pillar is in motion , right to left (clock wise) the symbol which I am using the form of the pillar is very important symbol of a stupa rising high from the ground mostly used in Indian spiritual practice in temple and monasteries

8. The whole installation room in silent except the sound of “Omkara” will come from in side the pillar .The chanting of Omkara sound will be continuously played along with the video installed in the pillar.

9. The door of the installation room to enter must be small, so that the viewer has to come inside bowing down. They will be instructed to open their shoes outside as if they are entering a sanctum.