Young Maya

a child of love :)
Maya,


ps- my imac is back and I'm SO HAPPY to be back to my screen again.
that was a long wait! I've never been as pleased to see an inanimate object. :D

Khoya- Back in Black

So right now, I've just started working with Khoya in it's second avatar with the Toy Lab (website coming sooooon)

 I've been thinking about all the narrative possibilities with the I-pad and how 'storytelling' would evolve through it.

So far, a lot of the narrative explorations with the Ipad haven't really opened up to what 'Touch' can do to a story, they seem to be a translation of a book onto 

another medium with minor adaptations like being able to turn a page or make somethings on screen move around.
Imagine...it's the first time we have here Word, Image, Sound, Movement, Time and Touch come together to create a narrative experience. 

It's fascinating! :) 

As you may remember, 'Khoya' means lost, and it's a fantasy narrative for children and adults about the disappearing natural world and the power of the imagination to re-establish a link with childhood, with love and with nature.

In the second chapter, it deals entirely with the Earth element and becomes a journey into the imagination. I've just about started initial interactive explorations with the Ipad but some of the ideas are turning out to be very exciting and unlike anything I've ever heard before.

Bringing together the technological and the tangible. Magic and Machinery. :) 

Back in Black

Lets do a Recap Shall we? :)

Khoya is an interactive fantasy novel for children Illustrated, Animated, Conceptualized
and partly written by me.
What makes it interactive is that is uses a technology called Augmented Reality to bridge the gap between the tangible (a book) and the technological.
It also bridges my two loves (amongst many)- animation and print.
How it does this is that the book has a variety of 'markers' or symbols with limericks on how to use them, the reader, while reading a page, picks up these markers and brings it to their webcam, and using visual recognition the marker triggers off an animation in real time. So in a sense one 'brings the book to life'.

Using this technology one can become different characters in the book, unlock riddles or simply watch as the illustrations in the book start to move. :)
A User-interaction Video coming soon. But here are some spreads from chapter 1 for now.
It's designed for children above the age of 12.


Credit Roll:

Original concept, Illustration, Animation and Design by Shilo Shiv Suleman

Augmented Reality, programming and further conceptualization
Dhruv Nawani
Anders Sandell

Written by Shilo Shiv Suleman and Avijit Michael with inputs from Hari Adivarekar.

Contributers and Conceptualizers

Nilofer Suleman, Arshia Sattar, Molly and Maya, Anders Sandell, Ampat Varghese, Gayatri Ganju, Kunal Sen, Vani Sreekanta, Mana Dhanraj and the Toys Lab