From dak at sarai.net Mon Mar 6 19:32:06 2006 From: dak at sarai.net (The Sarai Programme) Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 19:32:06 +0530 Subject: [Sarai Newsletter] MARCH 2006 Message-ID: <440C40DE.4020100@sarai.net> ********************************************************************************************************* ***************************************** SARAI NEWSLETTER MARCH 2006 *********************************** ********************************************************************************************************* Dear All, A short newsletter this time, to announce the March film curation: Cyberpunk, and Open Mic/Open Screen on the 10th. The last Open Mic saw people come together to share and experience an evening of film, video, audio works and poetry, a brief report of which is enclosed below. We hope this time too many of you will make your way to Sarai and share an evening with us. Warmly Aarti Sethi [Outreach] +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ [[CONTENTS]] *EVENTS* 1. Open Mic/Open Screen: An Evening of Mixed Forms *FILM* 2. Film @ Sarai: Cyberpunk *RESOURCES* 3. Sarai.txt 3.1: City Games CONVERSATIONS 4. "Building Sight": Curatorial Project by Raqs Media Collective +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ [[EVENTS]] =============================================== Open Mic/Open Screen: An Evening of Mixed Forms =============================================== *Open Mic/Open SCreen: An Evening of Experimental Video, Film, Poetry, Prose, Spoken Word, Photographs, Audio & Sonic Work and Performance* 6:00 P.M., Friday, 10 March 2006 Sarai-CSDS, 29 Rajpur Road, Civil Lines, (opp. transport authority), Delhi -110054 For details, contact: aarti at sarai.net At the last Open Screen/Open Mic on the 31st of January at Sarai, about 30 people came together to listen, watch and experience mixed media forms over a period of about three hours. The open invitation had asked people to bring as diverse a range of works as they wished, and the selection was truly varied. Works included a short film on dance, a video loop called "Gurgaon Giraffe" which was a mesmerising meditation on a bulldozer, a student film on 9/11, a video project on love and longing in Bombay, travels in abandoned landscapes in Latvia, a* short photo-essay (?)* on demolitions in Delhi, a exuberant film on popular Islamic devotional music and iconography. Highlights of the evening included a selection of Bhojpuri song recordings from the 1960s, and a poetry-performance by Harlow. Some people showed completed works, some culls from works-in-progress, and some shared photographs. We wish to continue these sessions as a way for people working across a diversity of forms to come and share their work in an open, fun and relaxed context. We like the dynamic that is produced when all kinds of forms are brought together in the same space, a feast with many dishes to choose from, so to speak. The next Open Screen/Open Mic is on the 10th of March. Perhaps you might want to transfer some older footage onto DVD/VCD format, or forage through photographs and select some you would like to share, or choose a piece to read/perform aloud. Everyone gets upto 10 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 is decided on a first-come-first-serve basis. Film, Video, Animation and Audio pieces should be between 1-10 minutes long, and on DVD/VCD format only. Alternatively you can also pipe from a laptop. You can share a complete work, parts of a work, a work in progress, even stills, in B/W and/or colour. Do come, tell your friends and share an evening with us! Works Screened/Performed last time included: *Jannat Ki Rail/The Train to Heaven* Film by Yousuf Saeed *Bhojpuri Songs from the 60s* Curation by Irfan *Untitled* Photo-essay by Anand V. Taneja *Om* Poetry-Performance by Harlow *At The Midnight Hour* Film by Samit Sen *Summer Flowers* Video project by Hansa, Minu, Anita and Gissy *Green House* Film by htc *Gurgaon Girraffe* Video Loop by Ruchir Joshi *Preface to a Ghost Story* Raqs Media Collective *Location* Video by Sara Kolster *Dancing Aloud* Film by Sandhya Kumar *Tea Ceremony Likhna TV and Time The Mobile *Animations by the Cybermohalla Ensemble *Tamasha* Image/Sound work by the Cybermohalla Ensemble *The Zoo* Sound/Text work by the Cybermohalla Ensemble *Here *and* Untitled* Films by Priya Sen *Mongrel Cities* Video Project by Iram Ghufran, Taha Mehmood, Anand V. Taneja, Aarti Sethi +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ [[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: March – April 2006 ===================================== *CYBERPUNK* Essentially a reinvention of science fiction in general, and dystopian fiction in particular, Cyberpunk occupies a significant space in the genre of fiction known as Hard (or Hard Core) Science Fiction because of its heavy reliance on technology or biology to tell a story. Although cyberpunk writers/filmmakers are obsessed with technology, it's the combination "cyber" + "punk" that makes the genre truly genuine: the merge of complex technology and street culture. Cyberpunk is undoubtedly the most streetwise of the different science fiction genres; the remorseless attitude, harsh dialogue and dry sense of humor resemble the hard-boiled film noir style. An essential concept is EDGE, with capitals: everything, which is extreme, fast, smooth, clever, bizarre, decadent, sexy. Steering clear of mainstream cyberpunk, i.e. the Matrix and its sequels, Blade Runner, Terminator etc, the curation this month is an esoteric, dark stew of totalitarian states; paranoia, corporate dominion, monstrous urbanisation, terminal decay and environmental collapse. ********************************** 9th March, 6:00 pm KHOJ 10th March, 4:30 pm SARAI Special Feature *||The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer|| * The Brothers Quay 1984, 14 mins The "dark side" of animation. Their films have been called "dreamlike" and "nightmarish". The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer might almost be a medieval cyberpunk drama revolving around a professorial puppet, with metal pincers for hands and an open book for a hat. and... *||Alphaville||* dir Jean-Luc Godard, 1965, 1hr 39 min. In Alphaville, Jean-Luc Godard fuses a hardboiled detective story with science fiction. Lemmy Caution (Eddie Constantine), a hero Godard borrowed from a series of French adventure films, comes to Alphaville, the capital of a totalitarian state, in order to destroy its leader, an almost-human computer called Alpha 60. While on his mission, Lemmy falls in love with the daughter of the scientist who designed Alpha 60. Their love becomes the most profound challenge to the computer's control. Void of any flashy special effects, Alphaville uses 1960s Paris to depict the city of the future. ********************************** 16th March, 6:00 pm KHOJ 17th March, 4:30 pm SARAI *||Cube||* dir. Vincenzo Natali 1997, 1hr. 32 min. Fear... Paranoia... Suspicion... Desperation = Cube Seven ordinary strangers awaken from their daily lives in a world created by Salvador Dali or M.C. Escher and need to find a way out before they kill each other in spasms of paranoia. Trapped in a surreal prison, a seemingly endless maze of interlocking cubical chambers armed with lethal booby traps. Among them, a cop, a professional thief, a student math whiz, a psychologist and an autistic adult. The assortment of individuals seems random, even perverse. None of these people know why or how they were imprisoned, but it soon emerges that each of them has a skill that could contribute to their escape. ********************************** 23rd March, 6:00 pm KHOJ 24th March, 4:30 pm SARAI *||Fahrenheit 451|| * dir. François Truffaut 1966, 1hr 52 Minutes Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to burn books, which are forbidden, being the source of all discord and unhappiness. Even so, Montag is unhappy; there is discord in his marriage. Are books hidden in his house? The Mechanical Hound of the Fire Department, armed with a lethal hypodermic, escorted by helicopters, is ready to track down those dissidents who defy society to preserve and read books. This is the premise of Ray Bradbury's acclaimed science-fiction novel Fahrenheit 451, which became the source material for French director Francois Truffaut's English-language debut. The film stands as a prophetic account of Western civilization's enslavement by the media, drugs and conformity. ********************************** 30th March, 6:00 pm KHOJ 31st March, 4:30 pm SARAI *||Dark City|| * dir. Alex Proyas. 1998, 1 hr. 35 min. If you ever wondered what dark tasted like, this is it. A hard-boiled detective, his eyes shaded by the brim of his fedora walks into in a hotel room with no memory, which soon proves to be but one of many troubles. He is being sought by police, who believe him to be a serial killer, and also by a group of mysterious men with psychokinetic powers. Furthermore, something appears to be wrong with the world at large: time, memory, and identity behave in unusual ways. **** 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]] ========================= Sarai.txt 3.1: City Games ========================= *Sarai.txt 3.1: City Games* is out! City Games treats the material and immaterial surfaces of the city as a site for the elaboration of questions and provocations, rather than as a stable structure. It turns the ordered forms of urban space inside-out, and opens up a poetics of the ‘interiority’ of exposed spaces in the routine of the city. [Sarai.txt 3.1: City Games is a special edition of Sarai.txt, as part of "Building Sight" curated by Raqs Media Collective. Co-produced by Wurttembergischer Kunstverein in the context of the exhibition "On Difference #2. Grenzwertig", 2006. Supported by Kulturstiftung des Bundes and European Commission, Culture 2000.] Write to broadsheet at sarai.net with your postal address to ask for a print copy to keep, and share. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ [[CONVERSATIONS]] =============== Building Sight** =============== *Building Sight* A Curatorial Project by Raqs Media Collective for On Difference #2 Concept : Iris Dressler / Hans D. Chris Kunstverein Stuttgart, Germany 18 February to 30 April, 2006 [with Sanjak Kak, Ruchir Joshi, Satyajit Pande, Solomon Benjamin, Ravikant Sharma, Prabhat Kumar Jha,Nancy Adajania,CyberMohalla Ensemble, Sarai Media Lab and the Sarai.txt Broadsheet Collective] Cities are building sites.Construction never ends; work is in progress. “Building Sight” - brick by retinal brick, pixel by pixel, frame by frame - is a consideration of what it means to start a conversation standing where we are located, in Delhi, with the body of the world,and its soul. The city can strike you as a maelstrom. The city swells, becomes strange, crowded, dense. Evictions breed evictions. A city becomes something you hang on to as you lurch into daily uncertainties. Yet, time is sought for pauses, for breath, for play, for dreaming, for the carving out of spaces, handholds and corridors which make the city livable. “Building Sight” is a sketch of how a way of thinking about a city can be constructed. It is also a provisional index of conversations that we have been having for some time with friends, colleagues and correspondents – architects and urbanists, filmmakers & cinematographers, researchers, practitioners, editors and designers – who have helped us to think about what it means to live in cities. Many of them are from Delhi, some from Mumbai and Bangalore. To us, their work anticipates, rather than represents, what the response of contemporary art practice to the South Asian city can be. Visit: http://www.wkv-stuttgart.de/en/programme/2006/exhibitions/on-difference-2 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 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.