<nettime> (Announcement) SARAI NEWSLETTER 09. JANUARY 2002

[Shuddhabrata Sengupta <shuddha@sarai.net>]

Dear All at Nettime,

The Best wishes to everyone for 2002. May this year be less plagued by war 
then the last year has been.

We thought that we would like to let everyone on the Nettime list know more 
about what is happening at Sarai : The New Media Initiative, Centre for the 
Study of Developing Societies, Delhi. I am enclosing below a programme for 
the month of January at Sarai. To know more about Sarai, please see our 
website www.sarai.net or write to dak@sarai.net

Cheers

Shuddha
______________________________________________________
SARAI NEWSLETTER 09. JANUARY 2002

Table of Contents

Talks @Sarai
Installations @Sarai 
Workshop @Sarai: Introduction to Cyberculture
New Discussion Lists: Community Radio and Solaris
Films @Sarai: Remembering Subrata Mitra
---------------------------------

Sarai wishes all of you a very happy new year.

I. Talks @ Sarai

We start the New Year with a series of lectures and presentations  - grouped
thematically under our three Occasional Seminar Series. All talks and paper
presentations will take place at 3:30 pm, in the Seminar Room, Centre for the
Study of Developing Societies, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi - 110054

1.Media Publics and Practices Seminar 

i.    January 2, 2002, Wednesday
Politics of Information in Bio-technology 
Mike Fischer 
MIT Program on Science, Technology, and Society    

ii.   January 8,  2002, Tuesday
Technology, the Turing Test & Artificial Intelligence 
Sanmay Das, 
MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab, Boston

iii. January 16,  2002, Wednesday
Politics of Global Circulation of Human Genetic Materials 
Kaushik Sunderajan 
MIT Program on Science, Technology and Society, USA



2. Language beyond Literature Seminar  
January 10, 2002,  Thursday

Hindi Commercial Press & the Urban Publics: The Case of Late Colonial 
U.P.     
Charu Gupta 
Department of History, Motilal Nehru College (E), University of Delhi 



3. Urban Cultures and Politics Seminar  
January 30, 2002, Wednesday

The Idea of Bombay 
Gyan Prakash 
Department of History, Princeton University, USA 
     





II.Installations @ Sarai
The Sarai Interface Zone will host three installations by artists and media
practitioners through the month of January. Unless otherwise specified, the
artists will be available for discussions.
All installations and exhibitions will be located in the Interface Zone at
Sarai.
i). January 2nd  - 4th 2002

Dilliwale Kaun? Baharwale Kaun? 
A photographic exhibition on a digital platform by Syeda Farhana  

Dilliwale Kaun? Baharwale Kaun? is an exhibition of Syeda Farhana's
photographic
& textual narratives on the theme of "The Outsider". Focussing on Bangladeshi
migrants, the exhibition is a product of her part - residency at the Interface
Zone at Sarai. This residency is a 
collaboration between Sarai and the Khoj International Artists Residency
Programme. 

Syeda Farhana is a photographer based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. She will be
present
through the exhibition at the Interface Zone.

ii)January 11th - 18th  2002

The Wrong City : Paris@Delhi 
An Installation by Olga Kisseleva 

This Installation explores what happens when the reality of one city enters
the
imagination of another. The installation is paired with another Wrong City
Installation - Delhi@Paris that will occur concurrently in Paris. The url for
the Paris event is www.mainsdoeuvres.org

Olga Kisseleva is a digital artist with special interest in cities - Some of
her earlier work has been on New York, St Petersburg and Paris.

iii. January 24 and 25, 2002

Initializing History  
An Exhibition of the Video Art of Peter Callas

Peter Callas will present his work in the form of an illustrated lecture on
January 25, 2002. The Screening-Lecture will be followed by a discussion. (A
version of) This work is also available at
http://www.anu.edu.au/ITA/CSA/callas/CAN_+main_I.html

Peter Callas, based in Sydney, Australia, is one of the internationally
recognised exponents of Video Art. He is currently visiting India on an
Asialink Artists Fellowship. 


III. Workshop @ Sarai
January 31 - February 1, 2002 
10:30 am - 4:30 pm, Interface Zone, Sarai 
Introduction to Cyberculture  
with Patrice Riemens

The workshop on Cyberculture will focus on:

i.Digital Divide and how to address it
ii.Hackers & 'Hackerism'
iii.From Proprietary Knowledge to Intellectual Property
iv.Networked Communities

Patrice Riemens is an independent theorist and cyber activist , and a
geographer at the University of Amsterdam. He is in India as a part of the
exchange programme between Sarai and the Society for Old and New Media,
Amsterdam - www.waag.org


IV.New Discussion Lists 

>From the 1st of January, 2002, Sarai will start hosting a new 
Discussion List: 

Community Radio-India. 
This is a mailing list to campaign for the opening up of community-radio
stations in India. It is aimed at supporting a campaign by development
workers,
NGOs, academics and media persons 
interested in unleashing the potential of low-powered, local radio for the
benefit of development in the country. This list was set up following a
national conference on community radio, held in mid-2000 in Hyderabad. It is
open to all who believe that India too should 
harness the power of community radio. 

To subscribe write to cr-india-request@sarai.net   with "subscribe" in the
subject field, or in the body of the message. You could also ask to be
subscribed by mailing either Subramaniam Vincent subbuvincent@yahoo.com  or
Fredrick Noronha fred@vsnl.com.


V. Films @Sarai

Remembering Subrata Mitra
We start the new year with a set of screenings of films shot by the
distinguished cinematographer, Subrata Mitra who passed away in Calcutta in
December 2001.

Subrata Mitra was the cinematographer for the first 10 films of Satyajit Ray,
including the Apu Trilogy and Charulata. He also shot some of the earlier work
of Merchant Ivory Productions. He was awarded the Kodak Award for
Excellence in
Cinematography.

Mitra revolutionized prevailing aesthetics in Indian cinematography with
innovations designed to make light in film both more realistic and poetic. 

The screenings, at 4:30 pm in the Seminar Room, CSDS will be followed by
discussions on the role of the cinematographer.

The films are listed in the order of screening.


1. January 4, 2002  
Aparajito 
1956, 127 minutes 
Director: Satyajit Ray

This second film of the Apu trilogy marks Mitra's first technical innovation.
Thanks to monsoon rain art scenes in the Benaras house had to be shot on
studio
sets. Mitra realised that he could never recreate the diffused lighting of
typical Benaras courtyards with the 
conventional studio lights.  Thus was born the bounce light - that he later
considered to be one of his most important tools.   


2. January 11, 2002  
Charulata 
1964, 117 minutes 
Director: Satyajit Ray

Charulata, or The Lonely Wife, has been widely acclaimed as the highlight of
Mitra's cinematography. Beautifully rendered sequences of Charulata
daydreaming
in the garden,or observing a set of 19th century Bengali stereotypes with her
opera glasses through her windows remain etched in audience memory. 

While shooting Charulata, Mitra invented the 'dabba' - as source of soft
diffused light - a breakthrough in international cinema.


3. January 18, 2002  
Teesri Kasam 
1966, 159 minutes 
Director: Basu Bhattacharya

Teesri Kasam marks Mitra's only foray into mainstream cinema. Mitra's passion
for beautiful frames comes out in the film's seamless lyrical imagery. This
was
the only time Mitra got an opportunity to film song and dance sequences
extensively - something that he always wanted to 
do.

---------

This is also the time when i bid a goodbye to this list. Ranita Chatterjee,
who
joins Sarai as the new Programme Coordinator, will administer this list
henceforth. Any queries may please therefore be directed to ranita@sarai.net.

Signing off, I wish to say that it has been an enjoyable experience to
administer this list. In little more than six months this list has grown to
more than a thousand members. I hope this community  friends of Sarai 
continues to grow. I wish all of you a very happy new year again.


Saumya

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