From dak at sarai.net Tue Feb 1 19:27:27 2005 From: dak at sarai.net (The Sarai Programme) Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2005 19:27:27 +0530 Subject: [Sarai Newsletter] FILMS IN FEBRUARY Message-ID: <200502011927.27505.dak@sarai.net> FILM @ SARAI MIRROR WORLDS - REALITY/?/REPRESENTATION In February we continue last month's curatorial interest in interrogating the difference between illusion and reality, by focussing on three award-winning films that question truth claims and representations of reality. 'Cardboard Days', tells a story of the Cartoneros or "cart people" in Buenos Aires, exploring their means of self-organization and solidarity, their underworld of despair and defiance, their fearsome pride against the odds. A black-comic mock documentary, 'Man Bites Dog', spoofs Reality TV, and interrogates violence in the media. The last film in this series, Errol Morris' landmark documentary that revolutionized the form, is a reconstruction and investigation of the 1976 murder of a Dallas policeman, and the subsequent arrest and sentencing to death of a man who claims to be innocent. Friday, February 4, 2005, 4:30 pm Días de Cartón [Cardboard Days], (2003), 51 minutes Directed by Veronica Souto 'Cardboard Days' is a story of a group of Cartoneros, who assemble every night to scavenge the city's streets and rubbish dumps for cardboard to sell for a pittance. It focuses on the lives and labours of the cart people interspersed with the opinions of experts and intellectuals. Shot by the Cartoneros themselves, the film also serves as a reflection on the remorseless megalopolis as well as on recycling, alternative lifestyles and economic inequity. It tells a tale of dignity and the will to survive in the face of extreme poverty. The film has won several awards including the 1st prize at the International Documentary Festival of Rome. Friday, February 11, 2005, 4:30 pm Man Bites Dog (1992), 95 minutes Directed by Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel, Benoît Poelvoorde Documentary filmmakers André and Rémy have found an ideal subject in Ben. He is witty, sophisticated, intelligent, well-liked and a serial killer. As Andre and Remy document Ben's routines, they become increasingly entwined in his vicious programme, sacrificing their objectivity and their morality. Winner of the International Critics' Prize at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival, 'Man Bites Dog' stunned audiences worldwide with its unflinching imagery and biting satire of media violence. Friday, February 18, 2005, 4:30 pm The Thin Blue Line (1988), 103 minutes Directed by Errol Morris 'The Thin Blue Line' is a documentary about the conviction and imprisonment of Randall Adams for the killing of a Dallas policeman. The shooting death of a police officer is a sensational subject. Most audiences would expect a documentary made about this subject to be sensational also. But Errol Morris' film is not sensational in any traditional sense. Instead, it is a masterful film that slowly reveals a hidden universe by simply allowing everyone involved - criminals, judges, police officers, and witnesses - to talk and then talk some more. Slowly, the viewer is pulled into the surreal world of Randall Adams (the accused), David Harris (the accuser), and a small Texas town's justice system. -- Ranita Chatterjee The Sarai Programme Centre for the Study of Developing Societies 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 Tel: (+91) 11 23960040 (+91) 11 23942199, ext 307 Fax: (+91) 11 23943450 www.sarai.net From dak at sarai.net Fri Feb 4 09:22:08 2005 From: dak at sarai.net (dak at sarai.net) Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2005 04:52:08 +0100 Subject: [Sarai Newsletter] FEBRUARY 2005 Message-ID: CONTENTS: FEBRUARY NEWSLETTER Events: Film @ Sarai: Mirror Worlds – Reality/?/Representation 4th Días de Cartón, dir. Veronica Souto 11th Man Bites Dog, dir. Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel, Benoît Poelvoorde 18th The Thin Blue Line, dir. Errol Morris 21st Maternal Politics – Discussion/ Screening of Pudovkin’s classic film ‘Mother’ (1926) 23rd-24th Cyberfeminism Workshop Event Reports: Contested Commons/Trespassing Publics Conference History, Memory, Identity Seminar Sarai Outreach Programme PPHP CD -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear Friends, In this month’s newsletter we bring you information on Sarai’s outreach programme; the Sarai Broadsheet, Sarai.txt 1.2; and the new PPHP CD, which will give you more than an insight into the research work of one of our core research projects – PPHP. You can also find out how to access the audio archives of the recently concluded Contested Commons/Trespassing Publics Conference. And of course, details of the events at Sarai, in February. Keep reading… ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MEDIA PUBLICS AND PRACTICES SEMINAR Monday, February 21, 2005, 3:30 pm Maternal Politics by Irina Aristarkhova, National University of Singapore Irina Aristarkhova will discuss and screen the film ‘Mother’ (1926), 85 minutes Directed by Vsevolod Pudovkin Mother is usually put within "family" discourse, or, if at all, to position her socially within "family law" discourse (Hegel, for example). The Mother was positioned differently in Gorky's novel when he suggested "political consciousness" on her part, separate from her son and her husband. But it was just a beginning of what was to come within Soviet society, when women became political citizens without reference to religious or liberal discourse (that is, Kollontai or Lenin, for example). As a result, we see experimentation with the political, and so, with the aesthetic. Pudovkin's film, 'Mother', is based on Gorky's novel with the same title. The novel was named by Lenin as the first example of Bolshevik/Soviet literature, its seminal masterpiece. Aristarkhova would like to pay attention to the social and cultural situation of gender relations in pre-Soviet and Bolshevik Russia, tracing the significance of the emphasis on political subjectivity and citizenship of women within communist and socialist cultural artefacts. 'Mother' in that respect (a Soviet mother with a political consciousness) would signify an important shift from the traditional family and community separation towards a new political order that is still to come. Russian director Vsevolod Pudovkin's 'Mother' is the chronicle of an individual's transformation from political naivete to Marxist awareness, set during the 1905 Russian Revolution. Pudovkin uses innovative montage techniques and camera angles to tell this story of national unrest through the eyes of a working-class woman. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- WORKSHOP @ SARAI February 23 & 24, 2005 Cyberfeminism Workshop by Irina Aristarkhova, National University of Singapore This two-day workshop will focus on issues of technology, culture, gender and identity. Irina Aristarkhova has published and lectured widely on cyberculture and cyberarts. She has a range of research interests including aesthetics and technologies of virtual reality; immersive and interactive virtual environments; critical issues in image processing; ethnicity and gender in cyberspace; technological embodiments; contemporary psychoanalytic theory; postcolonial new media theory, and cyberethics. She has taught courses in Cybertheory, Feminist Theory, Feminist Aesthetics, Technology and Embodiment and Contemporary Psychoanalytic Theory. To register, send an email with your name, address and phone number to aarti at sarai.net. --------------------------------------------------------------------- FILM @ SARAI: MIRROR WORLDS - REALITY/?/REPRESENTATION In February we continue last month's curatorial interest in interrogating the difference between illusion and reality, by focusing on three award-winning films that question truth claims and representations of reality. 'Cardboard Days', tells a story of the Cartoneros or "cart people" in Buenos Aires, exploring their means of self-organization and solidarity, their underworld of despair and defiance, their fearsome pride against the odds. A black-comic mock documentary, 'Man Bites Dog', spoofs Reality TV, and interrogates violence in the media. The last film in this series, Errol Morris' landmark documentary that revolutionized the form, is a reconstruction and investigation of the 1976 murder of a Dallas policeman, and the subsequent arrest and sentencing to death of a man who claims to be innocent. Friday, February 4, 2005, 4:30 pm Días de Cartón [Cardboard Days], (2003), 51 minutes Directed by Veronica Souto Introduced by Iram Ghufran, Sarai 'Cardboard Days' is a story of a group of Cartoneros, who assemble every night to scavenge the city's streets and rubbish dumps for cardboard to sell for a pittance. It focuses on the lives and labours of the cart people interspersed with the opinions of experts and intellectuals. The film also serves as a reflection on the remorseless megalopolis as well as on recycling, alternative lifestyles and economic inequity. It tells a tale of dignity and the will to survive in the face of extreme poverty. The film has won several awards including the 1st prize at the International Documentary Festival of Rome. This screening is in collaboration with Breakthrough (www.breakthrough.tv) Friday, February 11, 2005, 4:30 pm Man Bites Dog (1992), 95 minutes Directed by Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel, Benoît Poelvoorde Introduced by Ranita Chatterjee, Sarai Documentary filmmakers André and Rémy have found an ideal subject in Ben. He is witty, sophisticated, intelligent, well-liked and a serial killer. As Andre and Remy document Ben's routines, they become increasingly entwined in his vicious programme, sacrificing their objectivity and their morality. Winner of the International Critics' Prize at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival, 'Man Bites Dog' stunned audiences worldwide with its unflinching imagery and biting satire of media violence. Friday, February 18, 2005, 4:30 pm The Thin Blue Line (1988), 103 minutes Directed by Errol Morris Introduced by Khadeeja Arif, Sarai 'The Thin Blue Line' is a documentary about the conviction and imprisonment of Randall Adams for the killing of a Dallas policeman. The shooting death of a police officer is a sensational subject. Most audiences would expect a documentary made about this subject to be sensational also. But Errol Morris' film is not sensational in any traditional sense. Instead, it is a masterful film that slowly reveals a hidden universe by simply allowing everyone involved - criminals, judges, police officers, and witnesses - to talk and then talk some more. Slowly, the viewer is pulled into the surreal world of Randall Adams (the accused), David Harris (the accuser), and a small Texas town's justice system. ----------------------------------------------------------- EVENT REPORTS: CONTESTED COMMONS/ TRESPASSING PUBLICS: A Conference on Inequalities, Conflicts and Intellectual Property January 6-8, 2005 India Habitat Centre, New Delhi The conference was an initiative of Sarai-CSDS, and the Alternative Law Forum Bangalore, in collaboration with the Public Service Broadcasting Trust, Delhi. The last decade has seen conflicts over the regulation of information, knowledge and cultural materials increase in intensity and scope. These conflicts have widened to include new geographical areas particularly China, India, South Africa and Brazil. The domain of intellectual property has expanded to include almost all areas of social life. The issue then is no longer restricted to the remote and esoteric quibbling of patent lawyers, corporations and governments but impinges on the exigencies of daily living. We also see that the defense of intellectual property is increasingly framed in terms of remuneration for creative labour, and claims of originality. Quite clearly there is, here, an elision of other forms of knowledge production, which do not hark back to the "original" author, and other definitions of work practice which draw on a collaborative understanding of knowledge production. In the light of the above transformations the conference was an attempt to revisit earlier discussions on creativity, innovation, authorship and the making of property. The pervasiveness of the language of intellectual property requires that we employ frameworks of analysis that cut across traditional disciplinary boundaries. Panels ranged from debates around traditional knowledge, authorship and anxieties around copyright regimes, cinema and piracy, patents and public health, to sessions that looked at the entry of the language of copyright in theological dilemmas. The attempt was to address theoretical concerns regarding the conceptual underpinnings of the idea of the public domain, as well as to reflexively engage with practices such as community radio, that strove to strengthen the public domain howsoever defined. The conference did not attempt to arrive at any definitive statements. Rather the aim was to open out a set of debates/dilemmas, both theoretical and in the more pragmatic realms of practice and policy. Plenary sessions were followed by public lectures every evening. A full report of the conference will be available soon. Audio recordings of the panels and public lectures are being uploaded on our website and the complete audio archive will soon be available for free download at http://www.sarai.net/events/ip_conf/ip_conf.htm Interviews with panelists, reports, and other materials from the conference are beginning to appear in various web and print forms. Below is a link to an article in Business World on Doron Ben Attar's public lecture on intellectual piracy and the making of America. http://www.businessworldindia.com/feb0705/index.asp The full text of the article is also available at http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/2005-January/004905.html We will keep you posted as other materials become available. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- HISTORY, MEMORY, IDENTITY Seminar January 14-16, 2005 Sarai-CSDS The seminar was organised by Sarai, in collaboration with The Millenium Lecture Series, Institute for Humanities, and Department of History, University of Delhi. This inter-disciplinary seminar brought together practitioners in the field of history, film and cultural studies to reflect on the methods and materials that can be used to understand the nature of memory, formations of identity, and the way these concerns shape our analysis of the historical process. It included presentations by Shahid Amin, Ira Bhaskar, Partha Chatterjee, Natalie Zemon Davis, Ranjani Mazumdar, Louisa Passerini and Ravi Vasudevan. Two films - Duvidha (Mani Kaul, 1972) and Memento (Chris Nolan, 2002) – were also screened. Presentations touched on the distinction between history and subjective memory; the relationship between history and cinema; the use of documentary footage as evidence; the construction of state history through the institutionalisation of public memory; and the need to recognise the difference between film and historical text as two different kinds of discursive access to reality. The seminar concluded with a presentation on theoretical issues and research methods in oral history and the construction of memory by Luisa Passerini. A more detailed report of the seminar will soon be available. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- SARAI OUTREACH PROGRAMME Sarai.txt 1.2 is out! This issue was designed as a run up to the Contested Commons/Trespassing Publics Conference. The issue is a whimsical meditation on the many meanings and associations that derive from the term, and the act of, "copying". Do send us an email with your name and postal address, and we will mail you a copy. We now wish to open up the space of the broadsheet to ever-widening sets of interlocutors and conversation partners. In this attempt to build a discursive community around the broadsheet, we are organising small discussion sessions in colleges around the city. We hope to have engaged discussions in an informal setting for an exchange of ideas, excitements, and provocations. If you think your college, department or institution would be interested in engaging with Sarai through discussions, workshops, readings and film screenings, write to us at outreach at sarai.net -------------------------------------------------------------------------- PPHP CD "Publics and Practices in the History of the Present" (PPHP) focuses on the way contemporary media histories have developed and intersected within the history of Delhi. The main objects of the research programme are film, video and video compact disks, cable networks and media markets, and the computer trade as it operates in the informal sector. While looking at long run currents in the history of certain media practices, especially film, the project is specifically focused on the way media forms converge through new electronic and digital technologies, their systems of reproduction, distribution and delivery. In turn, the project seeks to understand how these changes have provided new circumstances for consumption practices and links to global economies in the highly stratified and unequal conditions of urban life in India. There is a commitment to making the research public, and in this endeavour, we engage with a variety of forms of presenting research - staccato field notes, news clippings, more 'poetic', evocative texts, archival resources, other 'intermediate' forms of writing not yet polished into an essay or scholarly article; these modes of writing are put out into the public domain via new forms - the broadsheet, the hyperlinked CD, and a reader. The PPHP CD has field notes, articles, some information bytes, a glimpse of the extensive range of archival collections. In a nutshell - it contains PPHP research work of the last three years. The CD is now available online at http://pphp.sarai.net This page is also linked from the following page: Please click on '*Research Postings and Notes '* http://www.sarai.net/mediacity/filmcity/filmcity.htm We look forward to you feedback, so do write in with comments to ritika at sarai.net ----------------------------------- Cheers, Ranita Chatterjee The Sarai Programme Centre for the Study of Developing Societies 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 Tel: (+91) 11 23960040 (+91) 11 23942199, ext 307 Fax: (+91) 11 23943450 www.sarai.net Programme subject to last-minute changes.