From dak at sarai.net Thu Dec 1 18:01:33 2005 From: dak at sarai.net (The Sarai Programme) Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2005 18:01:33 +0530 Subject: [Sarai Newsletter] DECEMBER 2005 Message-ID: <438EED25.4060104@sarai.net> ********************************************************************************************** ***************************************** SARAI NEWSLETTER DECEMBER 2005 *********************************** ************************************************************************************************************ Dear All, Winter is here and we thought it would be a good idea to warm things up with coffee and conversation in the Sarai cafe, and elsewhere in Delhi. Besides the Friday evening film screening at Sarai, and the Thursday evening screenings at Khoj, we also have a series of 'conversational' events lined up this month - book readings, discussions, open mic and more. We are also inviting applications to participate in a gaming workshop facilitated by Josephine Starrs and Leon Cmielewski, media practitioner currently on a residency in Sarai. We look forward to seeing more of you, and to the warmth of conversations. Do spread the word! Warmly, Aarti Sethi [Outreach] +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ *[[CONTENTS]] * EVENTS 1. Book reading @ Sarai: New Life, Sharmistha Mohanty 2. Seminars @ CSDS: Genealogies of Mass Politics, Dipesh Chakrabarty 3. Presentation @ Sarai: The Disappeared Project: Migration, National Identity & Security Panic, Naeem Mohaiemen, Visible Collective 4. The 'Bare Acts' Picnic II: Sarai Reader 05: Bare Acts discussion, Lodhi Gardens, Delhi 5. Open Mic: An Evening of Poetry and Spoken Word, Featured Performer: Jeet Thayil WORKSHOPS 6. Gaming: Josephine Starrs and Leon Cmielewski + Anand V. Taneja 7. Blogs/Zines/Comix: Anand V. Taneja, Samit Basu + Sarai.txt Editorial Collective + Vishwajyoti Ghosh, Sarnath Bannerjee FILM 8. Film @ Sarai: Focus on European Cinema RESOURCES 9. Contested Commons/Trespassing Publics: A Public Record FORTHCOMING 10. Discussion @ Sarai: The Insurrection of Little Selves: The Crisis of Secular-Nationalism in India, Aditya Nigam +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ *[[EVENTS]] * ==================== Book-reading @ Sarai ==================== *New Life* Sharmistha Mohanty 5:30 pm, Thursday, 15 December 2005 Interface Zone Sarai-CSDS We invite you for an evening of coffee and conversation with Sharmistha Mohanty, author of 'New Life'. Sharmistha will read sections from the book and Vivek Narayanan will be the discussant for the evening. "The past comes through in New Life as so many melodic lines converging and then separating in strange yet vaguely familiar ways. These lines, I am afraid, will haunt you, because just when you will begin to think nostalgia is getting you, you will recognise in some surprise that it is not a lost world that Sharmistha Mohanty is invoking but a living world that survives in fragments, tentatively yet confidently, all around us. It is a world that has lost none of its vitality for being half-forgotten or cornered. The search is not for a lost history but for a self within which fragments of past selves will find a place." - Ashis Nandy. [Sharmistha Mohanty received a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (Fiction) from the Iowa Writer's Workshop. She is the author of the screenplay for the film Nazar (1989) by Mani Kaul, and two novels-- Book One (1995) and the just published New Life (India Ink /Roli Books, 2005). Her fiction has also appeared in the journals, Ploughshares (Boston), Siecle 21 (Paris) and Gender and History (London), and Inertia Magazine (New York, online.] ============== Seminar @ CSDS ============== *Genealogies of Mass Politics* A conversation with Dipesh Chakrabarty 3 pm, Friday 2 December 2005 CSDS Library The Centre for The Study of Developing Societies invites you for an adda with Dipesh Chakrabarty on Genealogies of Mass Politics. Professor Chakrabarty is professor of South Asian Languages and Civilizations, South Asian History, University of Chicago. ==================== Presentation @ Sarai ==================== *The Disappeared Project: Migration, National Identity & Security Panic* Naeem Mohaiemen, Visible Collective, New York 3:30 pm, Saturday 17 December 2005 Seminar room, Sarai-CSDS DISAPPEARED IN AMERICA is part of an ongoing project by VISIBLE Collective/Naeem Mohaiemen, which looks at the migration impulse, hyphenated national identities and the fissures that appear when these trajectories collide with security panic. The majority of Muslim migrants racially profiled after 9/11 were from the invisible underclass of our cities. They are the recent arrivals, legal and "illegal", who drive our taxis, deliver our food, clean our restaurant tables, and sell fruit, coffee, and newspapers. The only time we see their faces are when we glance at the scratched hack license in the taxi partition, or the ID card around the neck of a vendor. Already invisible, after detention they become "ghost prisoners." The talk reviews the project and talks about some of the underlying issues facing global cities today. [Naeem Mohaiemen is a visual artist-activist and director of Visible Collective, which created DISAPPEARED IN AMERICA (disappearedinamerica.org), a series of art-interventions that visualize post-9/11 "disappeared" Muslims. Naeem is Editor of Shobak.Org, and Associate Editor of AltMuslim.com. Naeem directed MUSLIMS OR HERETICS (muslimsorheretics.org), a film about struggles between 'moderate' and 'radical' Muslims in Bangladesh, which screened at numerous venues including the UK House of Lords. His work and essays have appeared in Washington Post, Tikkun Jewish Journal, Village Voice, Alternet.org, CounterPunch.org, Chimurenga.co.za (South Africa), Wordt Vervolgd (Netherlands), Voima (Finland), New Internationalist (UK), Rediff (India), Prothom Alo (Bangladesh), and Dawn (Pakistan.)] ================================================ Sarai Reader 05: Bare Acts Picnic II: The Border ================================================ *The Border* Lodhi Gardens, Delhi 3:00 pm, Saturday, 24 December 2005 Directions: Gather at Lodhi Gardens, Gate No. III (next to India International Centre, Joseph Stein Marg) at 2:30 PM. From this November onwards we have initiated a monthly informal discussion around particular texts from the Sarai Readers. We have begun by looking at Sarai Reader 05: Bare Acts. The idea is to get different people to respond to texts from their particular locations and perspectives, and share this with a group of interested interlocutors in an informal, conversational setting. Each month we will consider a different set of texts grouped around a broad theme. Visitors are welcome to bring snacks and beverages to provide the conversation with nourishment! The first picnic was held on the 5th of November at Lodhi gardens around the themes of Gender and Sexuality. This month's session on the afternoon of the 24th of December, is called 'The Border' in which we will try and explore the many ways in which the conditions of the border, or borderline conditions, become generalized. The following texts will be discussed. If you would like to be a discussant for a text, and for more information about the picnic, write to Aarti Sethi: aarti at sarai.net Marginalia by Kai Friese: http://www.sarai.net/journal/05_pdf/03/05_kai.pdf The Discovery of the Fifth World: Stealth Countries and Logo nations by Meta Haven Project: http://www.sarai.net/journal/05_pdf/03/01_metahaven.pdf The Strange Case of Qays Al Kareem, by Tripta Wahi: http://www.sarai.net/journal/05_pdf/03/04_qay.pdf On Smugglers, Pirates and Aroma Makers, by Ursula Biemann: http://www.sarai.net/journal/05_pdf/03/06_ursula.pdf Dreams and Disguises, As Usual, by Raqs Media Collective: http://www.sarai.net/journal/05_pdf/03/09_raqs.pdf Lepers, Witches and Infidels & It;s a Bug's Life, by Francesca Da Rimini: http://www.sarai.net/journal/05_pdf/01/04_francesca.pdf ============================================== Open Mic: An Evening of Poetry and Spoken Word ============================================== * Open Mic: An Evening of Poetry and Spoken Word* 5:30 pm, Monday, 12 December 2005 Featured Performer: *Jeet Thayil* This month we invite friends interested in experimenting with the poetic/prose form to jam in the Sarai cafe. We hope this can become a regular event in which people working across forms such as film, image-making, sound and text can come together and share their work in an open, relaxed and fun context. Everyone will get 5-7 minutes to read, and the mic will circulate. You can share poetry, spoken word, a short prose piece, a performance, singly or in groups, in any language (though do be prepared to translate for those uninitiated :) The reading order will be decided on a first-come-first-serve basis.'Live readings' will be interspersed with recordings of poetry and spoken word by Allen Ginsberg, Langston Hughes, Sylvia Plath among others. This month's featured performer is Jeet Thayil. So come, spread the word and invite your friends! +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ *[[WORKSHOPS]] * Call For Applications: * GAMING* Friday/Saturday, 9 and 10 December, 2005 Facilitated by Josephine Starrs and Leon + Anand Vivek Taneja In this two day workshop Josephine and Leon Cmielewski will demonstrate a range of works exploring different aspects of game culture, including digital game modification, game art, machinima, mixed reality games, locative based gaming and the concept of gameplay. Ideas of 'gameplay' include interactivity design which may take many forms. For example decision making, navigating space, the structure of game content, collaborative or competitive interaction with other players, and the physical aspects of play. The workshop will consist of demonstrations, practical exercises, and experiments in the development of locative games. Participants will combine a walk through Delhi University, the site of the workshop, with Anand, and material they gather will form the basis for developing a gaming experience. [Josephine Starrs and Leon Cmielewski are Australian media artists who have worked together on several projects which incorporate the language and structure of digital games. They use play in their work as a strategy for engaging with the social and political contradictions inherent in contemporary society. Anand V. Taneja is a researcher with the Publics and Practices in the History of the Present project, Sarai-CSDS.] For more details and to register for the workshop, write to: aarti at sarai.net ****** *BLOGS/ZINES/COMIX* January 2006, (Dates to be finalised) Facilitated by: Anand V. Taneja, Samit Basu + Sarai.txt Editorial Collective + Vishwajyoti Ghosh, Sarnath Bannerjee Blogs/Zines/Comix is a workshop designed to introduce you to the discussion and production of three exciting media forms. If you ever wanted to make and design your own blog, edit your own zine or draw your own comics, then this workshop is for you. Interact with leading comic book writers based in Delhi such as former Sarai Independent Fellows Sarnath Bannerjee and Vishwajyoti Ghosh, find out what keeps the blogosphere active by talking to hot bloggers Samit Basu, Anand Taneja and others, and have a hands on experience in designing and editing broadsheets with the Sarai.txt team. More details in the next newsletter. Watch this space! Write to: aarti at sarai.net * *+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ *[[FILM]]* We are happy to announce that film screenings curated by the Sarai programme will also be screened at the Khoj artists collective. This marks a collaborative initiative between Sarai and Khoj. This new series of screenings will run on Thursdays at Khoj at 6:00 pm and on Fridays at Sarai-CSDS at the usual time, 4:30 pm. These screenings have been an integral part of Sarai's programming and public profile for five years. The screenings have been a space for people from diverse backgrounds - academics and students, practitioners, artists and researchers – to converse with each other about the way in which films speak to the times that they were made in, and to the times we live in. We hope that with this initiative a new public will find the Sarai screenings, and that Sarai will find a new public, bringing new energies and approaches into talking and thinking about films. Hoping to see many of you, and many good films. films @ khoj – Thursdays, 5.340 pm Khoj Studios S-17 . Khirki Extension. (Near Sai Baba Temple) New Delhi-17 Call:91-11-55655874\73 www.khojworkshop.org khojinteract at gmail.com films @ Sarai – Fridays, 4.30 pm ===================================== Film @ Sarai: December – January 2005 ===================================== Focus on European Cinema This month's curation ffocuses on some classics of European cinema, worthy of many repeat viewings. This curation programme is part of "Towards A Culture of Open Networks", a collaborative project supported by the EU-India Economic Cross Cultural Programme – a programme dedicated to Media, Culture, Enterprise & University networking between Europe and India. Please see: http://www.opencultures.net/ Umberto D Directed by Vittorio de Sica 1957, 92 minutes Khoj, 1st December Sarai, 2nd December Umberto Domenico Ferrari, an elderly and retired civil servant, is desperately trying to maintain a decent standard of living on a rapidly dwindling state pension. But he's up against his tyrannical landlady, who keeps demanding rent that he can't pay (while renting his room out to prostitutes during the day), and his only friends are the pregnant housemaid and his little dog Flag... This film is considered to be one of the masterpieces of Italian neo-realism. Night and Fog Directed by Alain Resnais 1955, 32 minutes Khoj, 8th December Sarai, 9th December Filmed in 1955 at the post-war site of Auschwitz, the film combines color footage with black and white newsreels and stills to tell the story of not just the Holocuast, but the horror of man's brutal inhumanity. Despite being one of the most powerful documentaries about the Holocaust, the word "Jew" isn't once mentioned in the film. The Gospel According to St. Matthew Directed by Pier Paolo Passolini 1964, 137 minutes Khoj, 15th December Sarai, 16th December A committed but far from conformist Marxist, Passolini took a powerful and immediate approach to Jesus, with no false piety or sentimentality. Employing a cast drawn largely from the peasantry of Southern Italy, where the film was shot, the action has the feel of a mystery play reenacted for the camera. Enrique Irazoqui's Christ is part folk hero, part political agitator, but always pursuing his destiny with unswerving conviction. *Eloge de L'amour (In Praise of Love)* Directed by Jean Luc Godard 2001, 97 minutes Khoj, 22nd December Sarai, 23rd December Éloge de l'Amour begins with a project proposal by Edgar (Bruno Putzulu) concerning the different stages of love: union, passion, separation and reconciliation. These experiences are to be reflected through three couples at various junctures in their lives: young, adult and old. Edgar's search for his cast spells a flashback to a few years previously, where working on an historic documentary he meets the 'characters' upon which he hopes to base his latest venture… **** All screenings at Khoj at 5.30 pm, Thursdays All screenings at Sarai at 4.30 pm, Fridays The programme is subject to last minute changes. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ *[[RESOURCES]] * ====================================================== Contested Commons/Trespassing Publics: A Public Record ====================================================== This compilation links a wide spectrum of political, social and cultural issues embedded in the "property question". Varied voices explore new paradigms of practice in relation to the global intellectual property regime, its enforcement as well as its violation and subversion by a compelling array of resilient figures. These include the hacker, the pirate, the solitary "genius", the reformer, the artist, the judge, the prisoner, the heretic, the thief, the "transformative" author, the theorist, the migrant, the scholar, the vendor, the critic, the aesthete, the scribe, the citizen, the tenant, the worker, the chairman, the rebel, the coder, the squatter, the inventor, the farmer, the smuggler, the spectator... This account describes the radical contemporary shifts in the production, distribution and consumption of cultural materials through the networks of digital media. It deconstructs the capital-driven processes of enclosure in the contexts of software, file-sharing, patents, biopiracy, indigenous knowledge, cyber art, virtual exchange, literary history, theology and law, among others, while celebrating the emancipatory potential of knowledge sharing through the ethical creation of a commons that is vibrant, open and free. The book is available for free download at: http://www.sarai.net/events/ip_conf/ip_conf.htm +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ * [[FORTHCOMING]] ================== *Discussion @ Sarai ================== The Insurrection of Little Selves: The Crisis of Secular-Nationalism in India Aditya Nigam 3:30 pm, Wednesday, 11 January 2006 Seminar Room, Sarai-CSDS Sarai invites Aditya Nigam to read from and discuss his book, 'The Insurrection of Little Selves: The Crisis of Secular nationalism in India'. Secular Nationalism as the hitherto ruling idealogy of the postcolonial Indian state represents a specific, historically constituted idealogical configuration. The 1980s witnessed the explosion of what could be loosely called 'identity politics'. This book is the first to explicitly examine this. Nigam argues that the moments of crisis in the secular consensus have revealed that its latent assumptions are fundamentally Hindu and its quest for a homogeneous national culture has lead, like other universalisms, to privilege the dominant and marginalise minority cultures. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ END OF NEWSLETTER The Newsletter of the Sarai Programme, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054, www.sarai.net Info: dak at sarai.net To subscribe: send a blank email to newsletter-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header. Directions to Sarai: We are ten minutes from Delhi University. Nearest bus stop: IP college or Exchange Stores. You can also take the Metro - get off at Civil Lines station. See Calendar and Newsletter online: http://www.sarai.net/calendar/newsletter.htm From dak at sarai.net Fri Dec 16 18:42:30 2005 From: dak at sarai.net (The Sarai Programme) Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2005 18:42:30 +0530 Subject: [Sarai Newsletter] DISAPPEARED IN AMERICA: A Presentation by the VISIBLE Collective Message-ID: <43A2BD3E.2070107@sarai.net> *The Disappeared Project: Migration, National Identity & Security Panic* A presentation by Naeem Mohaiemen, Visible Collective, New York 4:00 PM, 17 December 2005, seminar Room, Sarai-CSDS *DISAPPEARED IN AMERICA* is part of an ongoing project by VISIBLE Collective/Naeem Mohaiemen, which looks at the migration impulse, hyphenated national identities and the fissures that appear when these trajectories collide with security panic. "The majority of Muslim migrants racially profiled after 9/11 were from the invisible underclass of our cities. They are the recent arrivals, legal and "illegal", who drive our taxis, deliver our food, clean our restaurant tables, and sell fruit, coffee, and newspapers. The only time we see their faces are when we glance at the scratched hack license in the taxi partition, or the ID card around the neck of a vendor. Already invisible, after detention they become 'ghost prisoners'." The presentation reviews the project and talks about some of the underlying issues facing global cities today. [Naeem Mohaiemen is a visual artist-activist and director of Visible Collective, which created DISAPPEARED IN AMERICA (disappearedinamerica.org), a series of art-interventions that visualize post-9/11 "disappeared" Muslims. Naeem is Editor of Shobak.Org, and Associate Editor of AltMuslim.com. His essay "Hip Hop's Islamic Connection" will be published in Sound Unbound (MIT Press, DJ Spooky ed.) and 'No Vietcong in Iraq' will be published in Men of the Global South (Zed Books, Adam Jones ed.). Naeem directed MUSLIMS OR HERETICS (muslimsorheretics.org), a film about struggles between ?moderate? and ?radical? Muslims in Bangladesh, which screened at numerous venues including the UK House of Lords. His work and essays have appeared in Washington Post, Tikkun Jewish Journal, Village Voice, Alternet.org, CounterPunch.org, Chimurenga.co.za (South Africa), Wordt Vervolgd (Netherlands), Voima (Finland), New Internationalist (UK), Rediff (India), Prothom Alo (Bangladesh), and Dawn (Pakistan).]