From dak at sarai.net Fri Oct 4 14:59:46 2002 From: dak at sarai.net (The Sarai Programme) Date: Fri, 04 Oct 2002 14:59:46 +0530 Subject: [Sarai Newsletter]October 2002 Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.0.20021004145537.00a630d0@mail.sarai.net> Contents: I Independent Research Fellowship Presentations @Sarai II Sarai @ Vidarte 2002, Mexico City III Sarai @ Free Software and Liberal Arts Conference, Trivandrum IV Sarai @ Linux Workshop, Kolkata V Presentation @ Sarai VI Films @ Sarai: Asian Film Cultures: Iranian Cinema --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I. Independent Research Fellowship Presentations @ SARAI The last month saw the completion of presentations by the first group of Independent Research Fellows of Sarai. Below is a synopsis of their presentations. Dalit Public Culture in Maharashtra Sharmila Rege Sharmila Rege's enquiry into Dalit public culture took her to Nagpur and to areas in Mumbai where Ambedkarite Dalits often congregate. She has extensively collected and documented materials available in these spaces including cassettes, Ambedkarite calendars, books etc. She has also interviewed performers and visitors to these local gatherings to build an insight into a Dalit public "counterculture" that has rarely been studied. Sharmila Rege is in the process of building an archive on Dalit counterculture. Changing Identities? Urban neighbourhoods and caste formations in Delhi. Akshay Mukul Akshay Mukul has been researching 'biradiri' communities in Delhi, specifically the Chandelas, who have a long history in Delhi; the Mirpuris, who migrated to Delhi after Partition; and the Gawalas, mainly consisting of Gujjar families who have been slowly settling in Delhi over the last century. He focused on the changing identities within the communities and their relationship to the power structures in the city. Urban Landscapes : Publics & Public Time/Space Composites Yasmeen Arif Yasmeen Arif concentrated her study on the area around the Jama Masjid. She has used early Delhi Master Plans, tourist guide books and interviews with people living and working in the area to examine the layered spatiality and temporality of one of the city's old landmarks. II. Sarai @ Vidarte 2002, Mexico City Ranita Chatterjee from Sarai curated a set of new media works from India for Vidarte 2002, the Festival of video and electronic arts, held at the Palacio Postal, Mexico City, from August 27 to September 7, 2002. The festival had a competitive section open to artists from the Americas and also showcased contemporary new media art works from Australia, Africa, Israel, Eastern and Western Europe, as well as from the United States. Participants included Bill Viola, independent video artist; John Hanhardt, senior curator of films and media arts at the Guggenheim Foundation, New York; David Ross, Director, Planning Committee, Rhizome; Benjamin Weil, curator of new media at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Ars Electonica (Linz) and Experimenta Media Arts, Australia. She also participated in the conferences that were held in tandem with the festival. III. Sarai @ Free Software and Liberal Arts Conference, Trivandrum Supreet Sethi and Tripta Chandola from Sarai participated in the conference held on September 8, 2002. Discussions focused on the many ways free software philosophy, open source and copyright issues are currently perceived in India. Some of the presentations included 'Free Software and IPR Paradigms' by Satish Babu, President, Free Software Foundation, India; 'On Economics of Free Software' by Alexandre Gaudeil, Research Student, University of Toulouse, France; 'Omega: Philosophy and Practice' by John Plaice, Developer and 'Freedom in Creativity and Creativity in Freedom' by Waagish Shukla, Director, Mahatma Gandhi International Hindi University. IV. Sarai @ Linux Workshop, Kolkata The workshop held on September 18 and 19, 2002, was conducted by Mrityunjoy Chatterjee and Pankaj Kaushal from Sarai and by Linux Users Group Calcutta. An introductory talk on the history and philosophy of Linux was followed by a demonstration of Linux based programs including the operating system Open Office and Gimp, an image manipulation software. The participants, which included software programmers, artists and film makers, also learnt to install Linux on their desktops. V. Presentation @ Sarai Monday, October 7, 2002, 4.30 pm Digital Arts, Sustainable Knowledge by Michael Saup Professor of Digital Media & Media Art, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany This presentation is in collaboration with Max Mueller Bhavan, New Delhi. VI. Films @ Sarai: Asian Film Cultures: Iranian Cinema All screenings are on Fridays, 4:30 pm, at the Seminar Room, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi -110054. The films are listed in the order of screening. October 4, 2002, 4:30 pm Gabbeh Director: Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Iran, 1996, 72 minutes 'Gabbeh' is a brilliantly colorful, profoundly romantic ode to beauty, nature, love and art. Mohsen Makhmalbaf originally traveled to the remote steppes of southeastern Iran to document the lives of an almost extinct tribe of nomads. For centuries, these wandering families created special carpets, `Gabbeh', that served both as artistic expression and autobiographical record of the lives of the weavers. Spellbound by the exotic countryside, and by the tales behind the Gabbehs, Makhmalbaf's intended documentary evolved into a fictional love story which uses a gabbeh as a magic story -telling device weaving past and present, fantasy and reality. On the banks of a stream, an old woman and her husband are washing their Gabbeh. From this carpet comes forth a beautiful young woman aptly named Gabbeh who shares her epic tale: she is desperately in love with a mysterious horseman who follows her clan from afar. Delicately interlaced with this simple and touching love story are the people whose lives are shaped by the rhythms of nature, and who instinctively express the joys and sorrows of life through song, poetry and the tales they tell in their brilliantly-hued weavings. October 11, 2002, 4:30 pm Kandahar Director: Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Iran, 2001, 85 minutes Nafas is a young Afghan journalist who has taken refuge in Canada. She receives a desperate letter from her little sister, who has stayed behind in Afghanistan and has decided to end her life before the imminently approaching eclipse of the sun. Nafas fled her country during the Taliban civil war. She decides to go and help her sister in Kandahar and attempts to cross the Iran-Afghanistan border October 18, 2002, 4:30 pm A Moment of Innocence Director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Iran/France, 1996, 78 minutes As a teenager Makhmalbaf had been a member of a militant anti-Shah group and at 17 he was arrested and imprisoned for an incident in which a policeman was stabbed. Twenty years later, during the cattle-call casting session that served as premise for Salaam Cinema that same policeman, now a civilian, would unexpectedly turn up hoping to land an acting job. Makhmalbaf refused him an audition, but later convinced the ex-cop to collaborate with him on another film project: a reconstruction of the events which had first brought them tragically together so many years before. The wickedly original 'A Moment of Innocence' is both the comic record of that collaboration and the intriguing result: a puzzlebox blend of documentary and drama in which conflicting memories and long-hidden secrets recast reality in ever new and revealing ways. October 25, 2002, 4:30 pm The Circle Jafar Panahi, Iran, 2000, 90 minutes Jafar Panahi's 'The Circle' focuses on the story of three women who have just escaped from jail. The film anxiously and poetically flutters away from one story to another, each telling the tale of a woman (or women) afflicted with the pains of second-class citizenship. During the film's 90-minute time span, we never learn why the women were in jail or where they are running to and who they are running from. Carried by Panahi's panicky camera, the women seem to recognize the nature of each others plight and find that their connections to each other can be as emotionally liberating as they can be logistically dangerous. ------------------------------------- That's the programme for the month. Cheers Ranita The Sarai Programme Centre for the Study of Developing Societies 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi - 110054. Tel: (+91) 11 3960040 (+91) 11 3951190 Fax: 3943450 www.sarai.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dak at sarai.net Wed Oct 30 18:50:14 2002 From: dak at sarai.net (The Sarai Programme) Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 18:50:14 +0530 Subject: [Sarai Newsletter]Films @ Sarai: Italian Neo Realism Message-ID: <02103018501404.00973@saumya.sarai.kit> Dear Friends, Sarai invites you to a series of Italian Neo-Realist films this November curated by Madan Gopal Singh, film scholar. We start the series with an introduction to Italian Neo-Realism accompanied by clips. This will be followed by a screening of Rome Citta Aperta (Rome Open City) Director: Roberto Rossellini, Italy, 1945, 105 mins on Friday, November 1, 2002, 4:30 pm, at the Seminar Room, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi -110054. Cheers, Ranita Chatterjee Programme Coordinator Sarai:The New Media Initiative Centre for the Study of Developing Societies 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 Tel: (+91) 11 3960040 (+91) 11 3951190 Fax: (+91) 11 3943450 www.sarai.net