From dak at sarai.net Wed Jul 7 15:31:59 2010 From: dak at sarai.net (The Sarai Programme) Date: Wed, 07 Jul 2010 15:31:59 +0530 Subject: [Sarai Newsletter] City as Studio: EXB 10.03 --- OPEN DAY --- Message-ID: <4C345097.10201@sarai.net> *City as Studio: EXB 10.03 * *Open Day * *Friday, July 9, 6:30 p.m * *Sarai-CSDS, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi * The artists are ready to share again. The process of EXB 10.03 is reaching a closure. The Ghummakad Baja has been made and aired, the Pink Mountain has been wiped, the camera looks different, the city casts a shadow of its spectacle, and there's some more poetry. Please join us this Friday for another look at EXB 10.03 Artists: Prayas Abhinav, Shamsher Ali, Love Anand, Hemant Babu, Konrad Bayer, Ram Bhat, Nabina Das, Neelofer, Gaigongmei Gangmei, Goutam Ghosh, Deepankar Gohain, Niha Masih, Suraj Rai, Ish S, Nishant Sharma Realised by Iram Ghufran, Amitabh Kumar Produced at Sarai Media Lab, Sarai- CSDS, Delhi April 2010 *WORKS ON DISPLAY:* *LETTERS TO A THOUSAND WORDS, 2010* *Nabina Das + Gaigongmei Gangmei + Niha Masih* Writer and poet Nabina Das responds to photographs by Niha Masih and Gaigongmei Gangmei. This collaboration emerges from their previous work 'Thousands of words' first shown in EXB 10.02 Images can evoke thousands of work and thousands of words can conjure an image. It is to see this interplay between poetry and photographs that we bring forth this collaborative venture. Reading the poems might create an image beyond the accompanying photograph and the single image in itself might provoke thoughts not explored in the poem. Both forms are evocative and by blending the two we wanted to recreate a differential experience for the viewer and the reader. Nabina is an Associate fellow with the City as Studio process. Niha Masih and Gaigongmei Gangmei are graduate students at MCRC, Jamia Millia Islamia. *GHUMAKKAD BAJA, 2010* *Prayas Abhinav + Hemant Babu + Ram Bhat + Nishant Sharma* We plan to use an amplified and meshed version of 2.4 ghz (Wi-fi) transmission, through high powered 4 Watt ERP transmitter-antennas, at city scale, to make unregulated open-to-air audio broadcasting. We are also developing a low-cost device which can receive these audio broadcasts on the move. Leveraging the potential of an open community of content creators, existing professionals, we will be populating multiple channels of community, local and entertainment content on this infrastructure. India has a heavily regulated and censored radio-spectrum use policy for broadcasters. There are no ways for people to create and share audio content in a widely-accessible way. Internet-radio is not localized due to bandwidth access. Community radio is very restrictive, low power and does not allow news and political content. The radio industry is dominated by commercial music syndicates and public bodies which restricts the kind of content possibilities. In comparison, other media (like TV, print, Internet) has much more diversity to offer. Audio platforms have remained mostly one-way, and have not exploited opportunities of p2p broadcasting networks. A meshed Wi-fi local network (wireless ethernet) offering audio content on a low cost device, so that news, local content and entertainment in audio form can be accessed widely. The use of amplified wi-fi bandwidth delivers high speed, interactive audio content city-wide. Our solution will provide a platform much like satellite TV, but on audio and in a on-the-move, outdoor-friendly format. The solution will inherently be capable of being used for p2p data exchange and audio streaming. This will enable people to be active broadcasters and not just passive consumers. *WIPING PINK MOUNTAIN, 2010* *Installation, performance* *Goutam Ghosh* Material: Face massage cream, vaseline petroleum jelly, transparent thread, black plastic sheet,transparent pipe, nylon cosmetic hair, soot, shaving foam, drip syringe and drainage pipe, fog, shaving spray, printer, paper, umbrella The Pink Mountain is a skin that has been hung to dry. Sandwiched between layers of mist, and fluctuating shadows, this skin is opaque and transparent. It forms a diagram of restlessness: some dissolving, some drying, increasing, decreasing. Acknowledgements: Bhagwati Prasad, Agat Sharma *IN BETWEEN DAYS, 2010* *diF * *// Ish S + Konrad Bayer//* *[sound reasons records/ Sarai-CSDS]* Mini DV 6'4" 'In Between Days' 2010 is a post-modern sonic+visual interpretation of Delhi. The video's composition style has a Dadaist approach to it. Here a split screen reflective effect is used to bring out other hidden spaces and activities of the city which are basically over looked in plain video and perception. The video generates a life of it's own while bringing to light objects that fill city spaces.??For the aural landscape sounds like car horns and construction sounds to compose the tracks have been used, as these tracks in some way represent the urban utopia/distopia of materialism hitting a brick wall. On the track 'Blue Hour' car horns which are the most common sound/noise in urban Delhi's soundscape are carefully manipulated to create a trumpet like sound which is juxtaposed with a piano and drums with glitchy highs which are always going in and out of equilibrium. This in turn reflects on a personal unbalanced experience of excessive cars and traffic jams in Delhi. *SO THAT AFFECTION FOR THE CITY ENDURES (Ver 1.3)* *Shamsher Ali + Love Anand + Neelofer + Suraj Rai* Material: Circuit boards (Mother boards, Switches, Computer Cards, Key Boards, LAN cards, RAMs, SMPS), CPU fans, wires, speakers, microphone, adapters, props, lights, cycle rim, Fan motor, Rim stand, miscellaneous objects. Year: 2010 A world gives a glimpse of its existence through symbols that it creates. When these symbols come to form a cluster, they come in contact with other such clusters. It is then that an imagination for a new world begins. The city is being pulled towards a force as if its wants to get enchanted and then get lost. It almost feels like the entire city is waiting in anticipation and something is about to unfold . *SENSE LENS, 2010* *Deepankar Gohain* Material: Tires, ply boards, canvas and oil paints, mirrors, papers, Cloth, wires, bulbs, electronic gadgets Year: 2010 The idea behind the making of this larger-than-life mobile camera is to indulge in an interactive space in the public arena, to understand the binary between the inner and outer landscape of everyday things and life, the banal and the bizarre---all in a more scientific manner. This camera, entitled Sense Lens, comes from the senselessness and the sensitivity of modern senses. Sense Lens, which is a work in progress, will have a vivid display inside depicting the artist's perception of the modern cityscape. It will endeavor to portray the dichotomy associated with the evolution of modern day machines that have made it possible to move across time, but at the same time created new anxieties. The concept of the camera as a spectacle, an entity with a life of its own that distorts perception, is explored in this piece of art. However, this is only a generalized idea of the work as a whole. It has a wider frame of interpretation and understanding and possibilities. Acknowledgments: Bhagwati Prasad, Agat Sharma ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The City as Studio exhibition platform is an artist run space for emerging and experimental contemporary art in the heart of Delhi. Rife with curious energy, open to new practices, sharp and finely tuned to the frequencies of a rapidly changing world and a transforming city. City as Studio is a space hospitable to all those who are willing to re-define art and life, speculate, fantasize, play and take the pulse of a critical time. The platform is closely associated with the 'City as Studio' programme for artists and practitioners at Sarai and committed to showcasing new work and processes on a regular basis. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Exhibition Timings: * *11 am to 5 pm* *Monday to Friday from June 18 to July 14, 2010* For details on the works, go here - http://www.sarai.net/practices/media-forms/city-as-studio-exb/exb-10-03 Reply ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- *[[END OF NEWSLETTER]]* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dak at sarai.net Fri Jul 9 14:04:39 2010 From: dak at sarai.net (The Sarai Programme) Date: Fri, 09 Jul 2010 14:04:39 +0530 Subject: [Sarai Newsletter] A discussion on the Ecology of Fragments Message-ID: <4C36DF1F.3070006@sarai.net> *The Delhi Urban Platform and the Goethe-Institut invite you to an open discussion Ecology of Fragments 6:00 P.M., 15th July 2010 Max Mueller Bhavan, 3, Kasturba Gandhi Marg, Delhi- 1* *Ecology of Fragments* The ecology of the city is changing rapidly in complex ways. It is impossible to capture this moment completely. In nature, as in human societies, altering any part of the ecology of an interdependent networked relationship impacts every other part in the system. In this process, many precious elements can 'disappear,' and become absent. They are apparent to us only as a 'lack,' or absence and gradually, over time. While nature evolves through a constant struggle and adaptation, with each micro niche being fragile and sustainable, there is no single predicted meta outcome, only a constant change. On the other hand, the change in our cities seems to be driven through imaginations which are fixed and pre-decided by capital and social power. Nothing else which could be termed human seems to matter anymore. 'Absences,' can be fragmented and dispersed, and not always visible. They are also markers of the forces behind the change. For example, has the concretisation of every green patch, lead to the disappearance of the house sparrow, or has the conservation of monuments meant that the city has no street performers any more? Will the river once cleaned, kill itself, or is the cleaner city leading more marginalized lives? Maybe it is time we think of 'ecology' not only in terms of 'functionality' (is a tree more useful than a building) and 'aesthetics,' (is a tree more beautiful than a building), but in terms of dominance and loss. Maybe this is what this moment is all about. *Speakers:* *Ravi Agarwal:* An Ecology of Fragments *Sohail Hashmi:* Traditional water systems of Delhi *Anand Vivek Taneja:* Monuments as living entities *Shashi Pandit: *Wastepickers and new marginalisations in privatisation. *Manoj Mishra: *The river as an eco-system, not merely a water channel. *(Chaired and moderated by Ravi Agarwal)* ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ *[[END OF NEWSLETTER]] * -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: