[Sarai Newsletter]September 2002

[The Sarai Programme]

Contents

1.      Sarai Presentation in Indore
2.      Sarai team participates in Emoção Art.ficial Exhibition, Sao Paulo.
3.      The Making of New Delhi, urban workshop report
4.      Films @ Sarai
5.      Forthcoming Announcements.

Sarai Presentation at the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan, Indore

Ravikant from Sarai made at the  54th National Convention of Hindi Sahitya 
Sammelan held in Indore between the 17th and 20th August, 2002. Organized 
by the Madhya Bharat Hindi Sahitya Samiti, the convention offered a range 
of platforms for debates and discussions amongst people who work in Hindi. 
These were the four panels: 1. Concerns of Literature, 2. Hindi and 
Nationalism, 3. Hindi in Globalized times, 4. Gender Discourse in Hindi 
Literature, 5. Hindi Cinema in the world Context. The convention also 
hosted a number of ‘Meet-the-author’ sessions. Ravikant spoke on the 
‘Media, ICT and Hindi. Some of the other speakers in the panel included 
Prabhash Joshi and  Ashok Chakradhar (who presented his usual entertaining 
package on what computers can do) from Delhi, the editor of Dainik Bhaskar, 
Indore and a representative from webdunia.com. Most of these speakers 
talked critically about the developments in the Hindi domain.


Sarai at the Emoção Art.ficial Exhibition & Symposium at the Itau Cultural 
Centre, Sao Paulo, Brazil.

A team from Sarai (Ravi Sundaram, Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula, 
Shuddhabrata Sengupta and Supreet Sethi) visited Sao Paulo, Brazil earlier 
this month to participate in the Emoção Art.ficial Exhibition & Symposium 
at the Itau Cultural Centre. (www.itaucultural.org.br)

The Itau Cultural Centre is a space for exhibition, publication and 
documentation of contemporary art and cultural practice in Brazil. The 
Emoção Art.ficial Exhibition and Symposium was an initiative to showcase 
contemporary new media arts practices and had invited several international 
new media initiatives, such as Laboratorio Arte Alameda (Mexico City), 
Banff New Media Institute (Alberta), Mecad (Barcelona), V2_Organisation 
(Rotterdam), WRO Centre for Media Art (Wroclav), ZKM Centre for Art and 
Media Education (Karlsruhe), and Ars Electonica Futurelab (Linz).

Raqs Media Collective presented Location (n) - an inter-media installation 
produced at the Sarai Media Lab at the exhibition. The installation was 
conceived and created by the Raqs Media Collective, software coding was 
done by Supreet Sethi, the sound design by Vipin Bhati. Parvati Sharma, 
Ashish Mahajan and Pradip Saha, assisted in production.

"Location(n)" is an installation with eight clocks (representing eight 
cities located in different time zones), seven computer terminals, a video 
projection and a multi layered soundtrack designed to offer the visitor to 
the work a critical meditation on simultaneity, time and emotion across the 
world. Ravi Sundaram and Monica Narula  made presentations at the symposium 
that took place in tandem with the exhibition.

The Making of New Delhi: Urban Workshop at Sarai

Sarai organised a one-day workshop on August 24th  to explore the 
possibilities of collaborative research on contemporary and historical 
Delhi. The workshop was attended by over 30 young scholars. Ravi Sundaram 
and Awadhendra Sharan, Sarai fellows, began the proceedings by outlining 
the research projects currently being undertaken at Sarai. This was 
followed by presentations by other participants on their research 
interests, methodological issues and theoretical approaches to urban 
studies. The workshop was conducted in an  interactive style, so as to 
promote dialogue and seek out possible areas of collaboration.

Labour, violence, planning and welfare emerged as some of the issues on 
which there was general interest. Participants agreed that we should meet 
regularly, on the last Saturday of the month, to do a set of readings on 
these themes.  Prabhu Mahapatra,together with Shankar Ramaswamy and Navin 
Chander, volunteered to put together the first set of readings on the issue 
of labour and the city.

The next meeting is proposed to be held on Saturday,28th September. For 
details write to sharan at sarai.net


Curated Film series:  City in Film Noir
Time:  every Friday 4.30 pm

Films @ Sarai: The City in Film Noir

- Curated by Ranjani Mazumdar, Film Scholar and Independent Film maker

Noir is the French name for black. As one of the important Hollywood genres 
that flourished in the period 1941-1955, film noir emerged in the post war 
crisis of American society. The genre used low-key photography to imbue the 
cinematic image with darkness in both form and content. Drawing on the 
cinematic traditions of German expressionism of the 1930's and French 
street realism of the 1920's, film noir absorbs the facts of economic life 
and then expresses it in the movies as moods and feelings. Thus experiences 
of loss and alienation expressed by many of the characters in film noir can 
be seen as a product both of post war depression and of the reorganization 
of the American economy. Bringing together the stylistic and narrative 
devices of the gangster and the detective genre, film noir was an attempt 
to interrogate and explore the dark side of the American city.

Like the expressionists, film noir projects violent emotion on to the world 
as all the characters seem to map out their own death wish. The characters 
motives are usually furtive, ambivalent and psychologically driven. Their 
innermost conflicts are rooted in urban claustrophobia as they walk a 
shadowy borderline between repressed violence and vulnerability. The genre 
also explores the negative power of sexuality seen primarily as a battle 
between the sexes, thus leading to the emergence of the classic femme 
fatale of Hollywood cinema.

The city as a maze and labyrinth is crucial to entering the psychological 
and aesthetic framework of film noir. The city is seen as a jungle of human 
construction, steel, stone and glass, after hour offices, dark alleys, 
decaying industrial zones, rain slicked streets, cars and trains. Through a 
melancholic and baroque framing, noir seeks to interrogate the monumental 
spectacle of the modern city.

The films in the series have been selected as representative of the genre 
directed by some of the most well known film makers of the period.

The Series begins with a thematic introduction by the curator on September 
6th, 2002 at 4.30 PM.

September 6, 2002, 4.30 pm
Double Indemnity (1944), 107 minutes
Director: Billy Wilder

Double Indemnity directed by Billy Wilder has been called a cynical, witty 
and sleazy thriller. Narrated in the past tense, Double Indemnity is the 
story of Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) and Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara 
Stanwyck) involved in a plot to kill the latter’s husband for lustful 
desire and financial gain. The perfect crime leads to guilt, suspicion, 
betrayal and thrilling intrigue.


September 13, 2002, 4.30 p.m
Out of the Past  (1947), 97 minutes
Director: Jacques Tourneur

Out of the Past directed by Jacques Tourneur is considered one of the 
greatest multi-layered film noirs of all times. An ex-detective, 
Jeff(Robert Mitchum) has traded his .38 for the ownership of a gas station. 
Suddenly Kathie Moffet (Jane Greer), a woman from Jeff’s past comes back 
into his life, forcing him to confront old enemies including gangster Kirk 
Douglas.


September 20, 2002, 4.30 pm
Kiss Me Deadly (1955), 106 minutes
Director: Robert Aldrich

Kiss Me Deadly directed by Robert Aldrich follows the exploits of Mike 
Hammer(Ralph Meeker). Hammer is searching for a mysterious box that leads 
him and his assistant Velda (Maxine Cooper) into a convoluted network of 
murder, shadowy deceit and military conspiracy.


September 27, 2002 4.30 pm
Touch of Evil (1958), 106 minutes
Director: Orson Welles

Touch of Evil directed by Orson Welles is an exceptional film noir portrait 
of corruption and morally-compromised obsessions starring Welles himself as 
Hank Quinlan, a perfect police chief who frames a Mexican youth as part of 
an intricate criminal plot. Charlton Heston plays an honorable Mexican 
narcotics investigator who clashes with the bigoted Quinlan after probing 
into his dark past.

Forthcoming Announcements

Announcements for Short Term Independent Research Fellowships: Sarai will 
be soon calling for proposals for short term fellowships. This will be a 
special announcement in this list.

Call for Sarai Reader 03: The call for submissions for Sarai Reader 03 will 
also be made in a separate announcement.















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