Psyche Inspired: Janani Lakshmanan

Institution: Arizona State University

Major: Mathematics (Astronomy minor)

Psyche Inspired Class: 2019-2020

Reflections from Janani

Psyche’s Jewel

Psyche’s Jewel

Janani Lakshmanan

November 8, 2019

Major: Mathematics (Astronomy minor)

Genre/Medium: Bharatanatyam (Indian Classical Dance)

About the work: Bharatanatyam is a 3000-year-old traditional art form from southern India. Initially, it was used to tell devotional stories from Sanskrit literature. This art originated in the dance halls of temples before spreading to courts of royalty and to stages all over the world. Bharatanatyam performers are trained in all of the following techniques: abhinaya (emotive), nritta (rhythmic), and nritya (a combination). The first of these has its roots in the operatic style of theatre, from which all classical Indian dance forms are said to originate. This piece represents a storytelling endeavor. I’ve been learning Bharatanatyam for the last sixteen years, and one of the lessons my teacher, Nita Mallya, has taught me is to never forget that all stories are based on several universal truths that connect us across continents and aeons. This inspired me to reach for a myth nearly as old as my own art form. For my first piece, I was inspired by the asteroid Psyche — the eponymous damsel-turned-deity, whose grief from being separated from her lover was enough to turn the minds of the gods.
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Sixteen

Sixteen

Janani Lakshmanan

January 14, 2020

Major: Mathematics (Astronomy minor)

Genre/Medium: Bharatanatyam (Indian Classical Dance)

About the work: Sixteen is a meaningful number to students of the Indian classical arts, as this number of beats are counterpart to common time in Western music. We know the 4/4 time signature as “Adi Talam,” meaning “First Meter,” because it is the most innate counting pattern to humans for reasons that evade detection. Given that 16-Psyche has an inborn connection to my art form, I decided to stretch my metric muscles and write what is known as a Trikala jathi. Read more…

 Power of Suggestion

An illustration of psyche the asteroid and spacecraft carved in sand my an artist's foot.

Power of Suggestion

Janani Lakshmanan

March 13, 2020

Major: Mathematics (Astronomy minor)

Genre/Medium: digital art and Chitranatyam (dance art)

About the work: As someone who has judiciously stayed away from the visual arts for much of my life, I have been in awe of all the project submissions of the other Psyche Inspired interns over the last semester. As my tribute to the Psyche Mission and to the other Psyche Inspired interns, I was very glad to collaborate with Ral Vandenhoudt for this Chitranatyam: a dance-drawing. He provided digital line-art of the spacecraft Psyche orbiting (16) Psyche, and it was my pleasure attempting to model it using my feet. I constructed my own platform for this piece, in accordance with the structures imposed by Chitranatyam, by reusing pieces of wood used previously for cultural festivals. Read more…

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Ad Asteroid

A cutout of the Psyche asteroid stands out against a black background covered in strange, foreign writing.

Ad Asteroid

Janani Lakshmanan

April 27, 2020

Major: Mathematics (Astronomy minor)

Genre/Medium: Hasta Cipher, pen & ink, Pixelmator

About the work: Asamyutha hastas, the narrative alphabet of Bharatanatyam, are a form of sign language representing common words and symbols (flag, lion, bracelet) as well as dependent and independent clauses (“Once upon a time-,” “The flower blooms and withers,”) with a single hand gesture. Using them in dance has turned me into a person who speaks with my hands, but I have always admired the elegance and parsimony with which complex ideas can be conveyed without the use of intelligible speech at all. With this piece, I abstracted the shapes of the twenty-eight asamyutha hastas and devised an entirely novel alphabet — a substitution cipher that pleases the crypto-geek mathematician. I requested a collaboration with the incredible Binh-An Ngyuen. Her “Seeing Psyche” inspired me when she first presented it, for both its stark visual contrast and its interactive nature. Read more…

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