From dak at sarai.net Sat Mar 1 13:22:51 2003 From: dak at sarai.net (The Sarai Pogramme) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2003 13:22:51 +0530 Subject: [Sarai Newsletter] March 2003 Message-ID: <200303011322.51846.dak@sarai.net> Contents: March 2003 I EVENTS - 3-5 Crisis Media Workshop 12 Media Art Presentation - Activating the Public 14 Launch of 'Sarai Reader 03: Shaping Technologies' Inaugural Siddhartha Ghosh Memorial Lecture The Home & Beyond: Domestic and Amateur Photography by Women in India (1930 - 1960) II FRIDAY FILM @ SARAI - Asian Film Cultures : Japanime 21 'My Neighbour Totoro' 28 'Perfect Blue' III ANNOUNCEMENTS - City One Audio CD Arundhati Roy Supports Sarai Film Studies @ Sarai ---------------------------------------------------------------- I EVENTS March 3-5, 2003 Crisis/Media: The Uncertain States of Reportage Sarai-Waag Workshop The 'Crisis/Media' Workshop at Sarai opens framed by the memory of one crisis, and the anticipation of another. Exactly a year ago, at the end of February and the beginning of March 2002, we witnessed a pogrom in Gujarat, in western India. Today, as we write this statement, the world stands a hair's trigger away from a war in Iraq, the consequences of which on a global scale seem too difficult to even imagine. These are times for sober reflection, and that, precisely, is what we often find missing as we open the newspaper, listen to the radio, or continue to be lobotomised by television. Yet, a variety of different, dissident, passionate and sane voices are also making themselves heard, through combinations of new and old media, as never before. The 'Paid For' news of the mainstream media is often exposed for what it is, even before it appears, by an increasingly vigilant network of independent local-global media initiatives. The numbers that turn out on the streets of the world's major capitals to protest against the plans for war against Iraq seem to suggest that despite huge propaganda efforts, 'the spin' isn't working, at least not all of the time. We live, as the Chinese curse has it, in 'interesting times'. For more information and detailed programmes of the workshop please check out http://www.sarai.net/events/crisis_media/crisis_media.htm. Unfortunately registration is closed but detailed reports of the workshop will be available on the site. March 12, 2003, 4:30 pm MEDIA ART PRESENTATION @ SARAI Activating the Public: Action Research on Urban Public Space by Astra Howard, artist and designer The relationship people develop with their internal body and external urban environments is dependant upon the particular capabilities, limitations and operative structures inherent in these spatial systems. Alternate interactions form when either a system is challenged revealing the malleability, fragility, contest and ambiguity that exists inside and between both body and space environments. Astra Howard, artist and designer from Australia, speaks on her research on the transitional nature of urban public space environments. She has been in residency at Sarai with support from the Anne Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship programme. March 14, 2003 Launch of 'SARAI READER 03: SHAPING TECHNOLOGIES' "Shaping Technologies " sets out to ratchet our engagement with the contemporary moment a notch higher, in directions that are sober, exhilarating and discomfiting, all at once. The book brings to the fore a series of situations and predicaments that mark the encounter between people and machines, between nature and culture, and between knowledge and power. The issues covered span a wide range - from the cognitive and ethical dilemmas that beset the engineer, to the legal and cultural implications of copying in a digital realm, from software as art to the history of science fiction, from wireless manifestoes to the domestication of photography, from kitchen utensils to airplanes, from mobile phones to kerosene lamps, from body nets to biotech, from reproductive technologies to technologies of reproduction, from computers to radios and from coal mines to call centres. A cutting edge collection of original writing and images by theorists, critics, photographers, philosophers, engineers, activists, artists, designers media practitioners and programmers from many parts of the world. Contributors include Arun Mehta, Biella Coleman, Ana Viseu, Raqs Media Collective, Rabindranath Tagore, Phanishwarnath Prasad Renu, Sabina Gadihoke, Steve Dietz, Pauline van Mourik Broekman, Amanda McDonald Crowley, Debjani Sengupta, Siddhartha Ghosh, McKenzie Wark, Andrew Feenberg, Eugene Thacker, Joanne Richardson, Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, subRosa, Rupsa Mallik, Veena Das et al Interviews with : Arash Zeini, Janos Sugar Photo Essays by: Shahid Datawalla, Monica Narula, Srinivas Kuruganti Published by Sarai/CSDS, Delhi, and the Waag Society, Amsterdam. For enquiries contact publications at sarai.net. The Sarai Reader 03 is a copyleft publication. PROGRAMME FOR MARCH 14 2:30 pm This Year/This City a public conversation between concerned citizens on how they have witnessed Delhi in 2002-2003 followed by an open discussion. 5:30 pm Siddhartha Ghosh Memorial Lecture Series Inaugural Lecture - The Home and Beyond: Domestic and Amateur Photography by Women in India (1930-1960) by Sabina Gadihoke The Siddhartha Ghosh Memorial Lecture Series is an attempt on our part to inaugurate a process of serious public reflection by practitioners, researchers, theorists and critics on the interface between practice, technology and creativity in the making of a history of the media in India. The lecture series commemorates 'Siddhartha' (Amitabha) Ghosh (1948-2002). Siddhartha Ghosh was a fellow at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences in Calcutta. He contributed immensely to scholarly work on the visual culture of colonial Bengal through his writings as well as his vast collection of old photographs, advertisements, lithographs, song book covers and other pamphlets associated with Bengali popular culture. Ghosh studied Mechanical Engineering at Jadavpur University. During the seventies he was drawn to the Naxalite movement. During those turbulent days he took care of the publication of political literature and started his writing, by translating key texts of international socialist movements in Bangla. He also began writing fiction under the pen name of Siddhartha Ghosh. With over thirty works to his credit, Siddharth wrote primarily in Bengali. He began his professional life at the Birla Industrial Museum, and then joined the Glass and Ceramic Research Institute as a maintenance engineer. By then he was known to a small circle of scholars as a pioneering historian of technology for two of his major works, 'Cchobi Tola: Bangalir Photography Charcha', (Taking Pictures: The Cultivation of Photography by Bengalis), and 'Kaler Shahar Kolkata' (Calcutta: City of Machines). Ghosh also wrote essays, science fiction, short stories and writing for children apart from being a prolific translator and designer. He was closely associated with the initiative to found Khetro, a network of media practitioners interested in urban issues and ecology in Calcutta, and contributed to the visual materials archive of the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta. From dak at sarai.net Fri Mar 28 21:37:12 2003 From: dak at sarai.net (The Sarai Programme) Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2003 21:37:12 +0530 Subject: [Sarai Newsletter] APRIL 2003 Message-ID: <200303282137.12409.dak@sarai.net> CONTENTS I TALK @ SARAI: Media Publics & Practices Seminar 3rd “Film Industry and the Fan Response: The Case of Hong Kong Action Film in India” by S V Srinivas II FILM @ SARAI: Focus on the Documentary 2nd 'Photowallahs', directed by David & Judith MacDougall III FILM @ SARAI: Asian Film Cultures - "Dealing with the Past: Some Unfamiliar Hong Kong Films" 4th 'Shaolin Soccer', directed by Stephen Chow 11th 'Forbidden City Cop', directed by Stephen Chow 25th 'God of Gamblers III: Back to Shanghai', directed by Wong Jing IV ANNOUNCEMENTS Registration for Introduction to Film Studies lecture series ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dear Friends, In April and May we focus on films. Apart from a seminar, curated film series and a documentary we introduce a lecture series on film studies in May for which registrations start now. I MEDIA PUBLICS & PRACTICES SEMINAR April 3, 2003, Thursday, 4:30 pm "Film Industry and the Fan Response: The Case of Hong Kong Action Film in India" by S. V. Srinivas Fellow, Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bangalore II FILM @ SARAI: FOCUS ON THE DOCUMENTARY April 2, 2003, Wednesday, 4:30 pm Photowallahs (1991) Directed by David and Judith MacDougall, 60 minutes 'Photowallahs' is a film about the varied meanings of photography. It is set in Mussoorie, a famous hill station in northern India, which has attracted tourists since the 19th century. In this setting photography has thrived. Without spoken commentary, the film discovers its subject in the streets, bazaars, shops, photographic studios and private homes of Mussoorie. In the process it compares the diverse work and attitudes of the local photographers - Mussoorie's "photo wallahs." Although photography has developed certain culturally distinctive features in India, its many forms and uses in the country tell us much about the nature and significance of photography throughout the world. David MacDougall is a key figure in the development of ethnographic cinema and visual anthropology. As a filmmaker, he has directed in Africa, Australia, India and Europe. He writes regularly on ethnographic and documentary film and articulates central issues in the relation of film to anthropology. A book of his essays, 'Transcultural Cinema', was published by Princeton University Press in 1998. He was one of the founders of the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research at the Australian National University, where he is currently an Australian Research Council Fellow and Convenor of the Program in Visual Research. III FILM @ SARAI: ASIAN FILM CULTURES 'Dealing with the Past: Some Unfamiliar Hong Kong Films' Curated by S V Srinivas, Fellow, Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bangalore The past is a major concern for Hong Kong films across genres. There are interesting parallels and differences between the way in which the past - ancient and colonial - figures in Hong Kong and Indian films. A comparative analysis of the two largest Asian industries is hampered by the limited range of films available for viewing in India. Hong Kong films that have had a theatrical release in India comprise of a very small section of the range of films produced by the industry. The circulation of Hong Kong films in the video market is limited by the non-availability of English dubbed versions. This series comprises of a set of “commercial” films from Hong Kong which may never have been released in the Indian theatrical circuit. All of them are in Cantonese with English subtitles. The attempt is not to make an authoritative statement about the representation of the past in Hong Kong cinema but to introduce films, film makers and genres that deserve closer attention than what the current state of the Indian film market permits. While the first three films are quite similar and belong together, the fourth film ('The Blade') has been included to provide a generic, technical and narrative counter point. The first of another series perhaps.... April 4, 2003, Friday, 4:30 pm Shaolin Soccer (2001) Directed by Stephen Chow, 111 minutes A garbage collector (Stephen Chow) and a disgraced football star (Ng Man Tat) put together a team comprising of former kung-fu students. The team is formed with considerable difficulty and it is only after a humiliating defeat by a team of local toughs that the 'brothers' regain their martial arts skills. In the finals the “Shaolin Team” defeats the “Evil Team”, whose members are pumped with steroids. By the end of the film, the garbage collector's dream of a society founded on kung fu training is fulfilled. The film, made in the run up to the Fifa World Cup in 2002, was Hong Kong's biggest hit in the year 2001. April 11, 2003, Friday, 4:30 pm Forbidden City Cop (1996) Directed by Stephen Chow, 88 minutes An inefficient palace guard, who is also a gynecologist in his free time, succeeds in preventing an invasion of the empire. The film is typical of Stephen Chow's work in the nineties. A mixing of popular genres like the ghost film and the costume drama is combined with overt references of sequences from Hollywood and Hong Kong films to produce a comedy in which the past is at once an object of ridicule and reverence. April 25, 2003, Friday, 4:30 pm God of Gamblers III: Back to Shanghai (1991) Directed by Wong Jing, 116 minutes The director Wong Jing is one of the most interesting film makers in Hong Kong. His hugely successful 'God of Gamblers' (1989, featuring Chow Yun-fat) had a number of sequels (there are two films titled 'God of Gamblers Part Three'). This one, featuring Stephen Chow and Ng Man Tat, is clearly inspired by the Hollywood film 'Back to the Future'. There are numerous irreverent intertextual references to the earlier “God of Gamblers” films. The god of gamblers lands in 1930s Shaghai after a psychic duel with one of his old enemies. His problem is to return to the present and win the gambling competition but before that he has to help his effeminate grandfather woo his grandmother. May 2, 2003, Friday, 4:30 pm The Blade, (1995) Directed by Tsui Hark, 100 minutes Tsui Hark is one of Hong Kong's most prominent film personalities and is a prolific director and producer. This nineties remake of the legendary Shaw Brothers film, 'One Armed Swordsman' (Chang Cheh, 1967) foregrounds a number of issues that have often surfaced in the swordplay film. The love of the sword manufacturer's daughter for two of her father's workers triggers off a series of violent events. The one armed hero, his dead father, the broken sword and the half burnt book stand out as signs of the swordplay film's ability to raise difficult questions about both heroism and history. This an extremely violent film, even by Hong Kong standards, and one which is difficult to watch. 'The Blade' is said to have inspired French avant garde film makers. IV ANNOUNCEMENT INTRODUCTION TO FILM STUDIES 10 day intensive lecture series May 16 to May 25, 2003, 10:00 am - 5:30 pm at Sarai, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi Cinema has arguably been the most powerful cultural phenomenon of the twentieth century. As mass public culture, art practice, vehicle of propaganda and documentary reflection, it has been integral to the development of modern societies. As an apparatus of sense perception, it has been crucial, along with other technologies of perception, communication and transportation, in the transformation of human subjectivity. This lecture series is designed to introduce the student to the various approaches which have been developed to understand this complex cultural form. Lectures will provide an understanding of film theory, including the earlier classical theories, linguistic and psychoanalytical approaches and other forms of cultural theory. There will also be a focus on the various methods used to analyse films, from the analysis of narrative formats, genres and film styles to archival and empirical studies. Film screenings will provide a sense of the variety of cinematic cultures and practices, and their history. The series comprises illustrated lectures, film screenings and discussions. Speakers include: Ravi Vasudevan, Sarai, Series Coordinator Ranjani Mazumdar Independent Filmmaker & Scholar Ira Bhaskar English Department at Gargi College, Delhi University Shohini Ghosh Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia Madan Gopal Singh Coordinator, Film Studies Programme, Institute for Convergence, IMI Raqs Media Collective Sarai Rashmi Doraiswamy Academy of Third World Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia ------------------------------------------------------- Eligibility: The series is for students (continuing BA students and upwards), teachers, academics, film and media practitioners, as well as film enthusiasts. All applicants have to write a one-page statement of purpose explaining why they would like to participate. Fees: Rs 1500/- Registration Schedule: Applications must be submitted latest by April 30, 2003. Limited seats. For registration and enquiries please write to me at ranita at sarai.net, or call 2396-0040. Cheers, Ranita The Sarai Programme Centre for the Study of Developing Societies 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 Tel: (+91) 11 23960040 (+91) 11 23951190 Fax: (+91) 11 23943450 www.sarai.net