From dak at sarai.net Thu Jan 5 09:15:31 2006 From: dak at sarai.net (dak at sarai.net) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2006 04:45:31 +0100 (CET) Subject: [Sarai Newsletter] JANUARY 2006 Message-ID: <1044.61.246.29.163.1136432731.squirrel@mail.sarai.net> ********************************************************************************************** ************************** SARAI NEWSLETTER JANUARY 2006 ****************** ************************************************************************************************************ Dear All, We begin the New Year with a mix of seminars, discussions and the ongoing ‘evenings @ sarai’ events. Aditya Nigam will present and discuss his new book, and Shahid Amin will present fresh work on language and history. We look forward to seeing you at the listening lounge featuring audio work by Sara Kolster and Sophea Lerner, artists in residence in Sarai. This month’s Open Mic/Open Screen invites friends to share video, audio and text work. This month’s film curation includes new films by Amar Kanwar and Atul Gupta on Burma and Kashmir. They will be present to introduce and discuss their films. Do spread the word! Very happy New Year to all! Aarti Sethi [Outreach] ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ *[[CONTENTS]] * EVENTS 1. Discussion: "The Insurrection of Little Selves: The Crisis of Secular-Nationalism in India", Aditya Nigam + Rajeev Bhargava, Ashis Nandy, Shuddhabrata Sengupta and Ravi Sundaram 2. Seminars @ Sarai: “Grierson, Ram Garib Chaube and the Great Linguistic Survey of India”, Shahid Amin 3. Listening Lounge @ Sarai: “Transit Lounge...Sonic Landscapes: Journeys in Sonic Fieldwork”, Sara Kolster + Sophea Lerner 4. The 'Bare Acts' Picnic II: Sarai Reader 05: Bare Acts discussion, Lodhi Gardens, Delhi 5. Open Mic/Open Screen: An Evening of Experimental Video, Audio-work, Poetry and Spoken Word. WORKSHOPS 6. Call for Applications: Blogs/Zines/Comix: Anand V. Taneja, Samit Basu + Sarai.txt Editorial Collective + Vishwajyoti Ghosh, Sarnath Bannerjee FELLOWSHIPS 7. Independent Fellowships and Student Stipendships FILM 8. Film @ Sarai: An Eye on the State FORTHCOMING 9. World Book fair 2006 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ *[[EVENTS]] * ========== Discussion ========== The troubled futures of Secular Nationalism: A Round Table. A discussion around Aditya Nigam’s new book: "The Insurrection of Little Selves: The Crisis of Secular-Nationalism in India" Oxford (2006). 3 PM, Tuesday, 12 January 2006 CSDS Seminar Room Can the secular survive the crisis of the national? Can it indeed deal with the challenges of the postsecular world? How does the production of the majority and minority affect post-colonial culture and politics in India? Join us for a roundtable on Aditya Nigam's new book,"The Insurrection of Little Selves: The Crisis of Secular-Nationalism in India" Oxford (2006). Speakers include Ashis Nandy, Rajeev Bhargava, Shuddhabrata Sengupta and Aditya Nigam. Ravi Sundaram will chair the session. [Aditya Nigam is Fellow, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies.] ================ Seminar @ Sarai ================ “Grierson, Ram Garib Chaube and the Great Linguistic Survey of India”, Shahid Amin 3:30 pm, Wednesday, 25 January 2006 Seminar Room CSDS Shahid Amin will present fresh work on language, history, vocabulary and the making of ‘common speech’. [Shahid Amin (Delhi) is Professor of History, University of Delhi. Among his publications are Event, Metaphor, Memory: Chauri Chaura, 1992-1995 (1995), and, as co-editor, “Peripheral’” Labour? Studies in the History of Partial Proletarianization (1997). He is a founding editor of the journal Subaltern Studies, and had edited a Concise Encyclopedia of North Indian Peasant Life, (Manohar 2005)] ======================== Listening Lounge @ Sarai ======================== “Transit Lounge...Sonic Landscapes: Journeys in Sonic Fieldwork” Sara Kolster + Sophea Lerner 5:30 PM, Tuesday, 24 January 2005 We invite you to be transported by a selection of sonic journeys and composed field recordings featuring: SoundTransit a collaborative sonic world tour Sara Kolster & Derek Holzer “Many sounds in our everyday lives slip past our notice simply because they are too small, or because we lack the proper receivers to pick them up. 'resonancity' is an ongoing project to gather these microscopic sounds from various cities, and to amplify and transform them. The goal is to build a new city of sound and visuals inside the old one, and to inspire curiosity and exploration of one's own environment.” [Sophea Lerner is an Australian radiomaker, sound engineer and new media artist currently based in Helsinki where she teaches media and sonic arts at the Centre for Music & Technology. Her work combines experimental radio and new media art into a collaborative practice that explores audience interaction through movement and sound. Sara Kolster is a visual artist with a background in design. Recently, the focus of her work shifted more towards video and film; capturing details from urban locations, visualizing fragments of stories of these environments. She uses different strategies, from time-based media (video, film, photography) to appropriated research methods belonging to different observational disciplines (journalism, documentary & archeology).] ================================================ Sarai Reader 05: Bare Acts Picnic II: The Border ================================================ *The Border* Lodhi Gardens, Delhi 3:00 pm, Saturday, 14 January 2006 Directions: Gather at Lodhi Gardens, Gate No. III (next to India International Centre, Joseph Stein Marg) at 2:30 PM. >From last 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 14th of January, 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 / Open Screen ====================== Open Mic/Open Screen: An Evening of Experimental Video, Audio-work, Poetry and Spoken Word. 5:30 pm, Tuesday, 31 January 2006 Last month’s open mic was great fun. Jeet Thayil and Denzel Smith performed two short fictional pieces, Monica, Anand and Vivek read their own poetry and others read selections from favourites. This month we also invite friends interested in experimenting with the film, video and audio forms 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 screen/play video/audio works, and read/perform text based work. You can share video, audio, 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 screening/performance order will be decided on a first-come-first-serve basis. So come, spread the word and invite your friends! +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ [[WORKSHOPS]] Call For Applications: BLOGS/ZINES/COMIX 17, 18, 19 February 2006 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 different print media forms like broadsheets, stickers, pamphlets and more with the Sarai.txt team. The three day workshop will consist of practitioner presentations on the first day in which facilitators will introduce the forms. Participants will then choose to work on and produce one form in a group over the next two days. Sessions will focus on both the conceptual and practical aspects of media work. Last date for registration 5 February 2005. The workshop is free but limited seats are available so do get your application in on time J Send a short bio and why you wish to attend the workshop 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: January – February 2005 ===================================== An Eye on the State We begin the New Year on a note of caution, with a curation of films that keep a watchful, wary eye on the excesses of the state. A majority of the films here are documentary, but the concerns and themes of this curation are unified by the dystopian fantasy of ‘Brazil’ (Terry Gilliam), which exemplifies the terrors of ‘bureaucratic excess’, where the often faceless state and its blind desire for continued perpetuation allows for no mistakes and no dissent, and where freedom and human lives are subservient to the brutality of administrative ‘logic’; in Kashmir, on the way to the electric chair, in Nazi Germany, in Burma, in ‘Brazil’ All films at Khoj, Thursdays, 5.30 pm All films at Sarai, Fridays, 4.30 pm **** 5th January, Khoj 6th January, Sarai Brazil (Director’s Cut) Directed by Terry Gilliam 142 minutes, 1985 (Shuddhabrata Sengupta will introduce the film) The film is set in a futuristic world in which government branches and the people who run them wholeheartedly pursue goals of questionable use. This is a world where a notorious rogue is a wanted man because he fixes people's plumbing without authorization. This is a world where a man tries to correct an administrative error, but becomes a fugitive from justice because he is in a system that does not allow for errors and it is illegal to fix them. This is ‘Orwellian paranoia’ encased in a production design seemingly pieced together from the shared dreams of Franz Kakfa and Salvador Dali'. **** 12th January, Khoj 13th January, Sarai Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. Directed by Errol Morris 91 minutes, 1999 A documentary about Fred Leuchter, an engineer who became an expert on execution devices and was later hired by revisionist historian Ernst Zundel to "prove" that there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz. Leuchter published a controversial report confirming Zundel's position, which ultimately ruined his own career. **** 19th January, Khoj 20th January, Sarai Waiting Directed by Atul Gupta 39 minutes, 2005 (The filmmaker will be present at the screenings) People are missing in Kashmir - boys and men picked up by security forces. And then they vanish. Where have they gone? Since the men are missing, not declared dead their wives are not widows but ‘half widows.’ These women are true survivors of a cruel period in the history of this ‘paradise on earth’ **** 26th January, Khoj 27th January, Sarai Somewhere in May and The Face Directed by Amar Kanwar (The filmmaker will be present at the screenings) Amar Kanwar will present the first pair of films from his ongoing project (a four film series) on Burma - THE TORN FIRST PAGES. Somewhere in May (37 minutes, 2005) Somewhere in May traverses normalcy, freedom and claustrophobia in exile in Norway, quietly creating an unease that needs to be explored. The film emerges from the 17th of May celebrations of the Norwegian National Day in 2004, which was also the day the Burmese military dictatorship began a sham National Convention for Democracy inside Burma. Through the 'Democratic Voice of Burma' (DVB), a small radio station in Oslo, the Burmese resistance reports on this sham convention as it broadcasts news, which is secretly heard by thousands within Burma. The Face (4 mins 40 sec, 2005) We know what Pinochet looks like, we know what Idi Amin looked like but do we know what General Than Shwe looks like? A film about the visit of Senior General Than Shwe, the Supreme Head of the Burmese dictatorship to the cremation memorial site of Gandhi in New Delhi. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ [[FELLOWSHIPS]] Successful applicants for the Sarai-CSDS Independent Fellowships and the Student Stipendships have been informed of their selection. A list of selected projects will be available shortly on the Sarai website. Watch this space! +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ [[FORTHCOMING]] ===================== World Book Fair 2006 ===================== This year the World Book Fair, 27 January to 4 February 2006 at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi, will feature for the first time a Sarai-CSDS stall. All Sarai publications in English and Hindi will be available for sale here. Watch this space for further details of location and stall number. We hope to see many friends there. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ END OF NEWSLETTER The Newsletter of the Sarai Programme, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054, www.sarai.net Info: dak at sarai.net From dak at sarai.net Tue Jan 24 16:21:32 2006 From: dak at sarai.net (The Sarai Programme) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 16:21:32 +0530 Subject: [Sarai Newsletter] Forthcoming Events Message-ID: <43D606B4.1060101@sarai.net> ================ Seminar @ Sarai ================ “Grierson, Ram Garib Chaube and the Great Linguistic Survey of India”, Shahid Amin 3:30 pm, Wednesday, 25 January 2006 Library, CSDS Shahid Amin will present fresh work on language, history, vocabulary and the making of ‘common speech’. [Shahid Amin (Delhi) is Professor of History, University of Delhi. Among his publications are Event, Metaphor, Memory: Chauri Chaura, 1992-1995 (1995), and, as co-editor, “Peripheral’” Labour? Studies in the History of Partial Proletarianization (1997). He is a founding editor of the journal Subaltern Studies, and had edited a Concise Encyclopedia of North Indian Peasant Life, (Manohar 2005)] ======================== Listening Lounge @ Sarai ======================== “Transit Lounge...Sonic Landscapes: Journeys in Sonic Fieldwork” Sara Kolster + Sophea Lerner Sara Kolster and Sophea Lerner are artists in residence at Sarai-CSDS as part of "Towards a Culture of Open Networks", a cross-cultural collaborative intiative supported by the EU-India Economic and Cross-Cultural Programme. 5:30 PM, Tuesday, 24 January 2005 We invite you to be transported by a selection of sonic journeys and composed field recordings featuring: SoundTransit a collaborative sonic world tour Sara Kolster & Derek Holzer “Many sounds in our everyday lives slip past our notice simply because they are too small, or because we lack the proper receivers to pick them up. 'resonancity' is an ongoing project to gather these microscopic sounds from various cities, and to amplify and transform them. The goal is to build a new city of sound and visuals inside the old one, and to inspire curiosity and exploration of one's own environment.” [Sophea Lerner is a radiomaker, sound engineer and new media artist currently based in Helsinki, Finland where she teaches media and sonic arts at the Centre for Music & Technology. Her work combines experimental radio and new media art into a collaborative practice that explores audience interaction through movement and sound. Sara Kolster is a visual artist with a background in design. Recently, the focus of her work shifted more towards video and film; capturing details from urban locations, visualizing fragments of stories of these environments. She uses different strategies, from time-based media (video, film, photography) to appropriated research methods belonging to different observational disciplines (journalism, documentary & archeology).]