[Urbanstudy] the edge in multiple hydras

[solomon benjamin]

Hi,
I was thinking of Ranjini's talk on cinimatizing the
city given at Sarai, wherein the contrast between K3G,
and the RG V series. Then also, Lawrence's question to
Anand Patwardhan at the No-censorship festival, about
the camera panning away from the puja during the
interview at Dharavi, or then in that same film, the
potrayal of the local politicians visiting the slum. 

In the K3G, Bombay our city, and to an extent, the RG
V series, there was a certain type of linearity that
seem to potray one layer of an otherwise multilayered
city politics. 

Another way of terming this multilayered charecter,
and a more anarchic politisized was, is to see it as
an Hydra -- that which refers to forms of networked /
interconnected economies, of quiet politics often by
stealth, of occoupation by defacto, and intensly
material to deeply unsettle global capital. Its also
very different than the efforts at representation by
well meaning NGOs and deeply emersed in the process of
advocacy.  Little wonder that such hydra(s) pose a
fear, threat, and sought to be controlled by a Nation
State or a globalized homogenized big business driven
capital. 

Back to the multiple layers of cities in films. One
could argue that many of these layers, are rather
'hydraish' in that only in the process of experience,
one encounters them. (can you really 'research' such a
Hydra, perhaps not, perhaps only partially).  

Was wondereing if the possibility of the 'digital'
opened up the linarity of film making, and if so, the
possibility to sharped edges along new territories? 

Here, since some efforts via the new media, introduce
the 'public' and thus and emphasize locality, is there
a possibility of an 'encroachment' into the political
in an un-planned and un-expected way? Would the
process of operation of an installation bring in new
edges, un-planned and perhaps different from those
planned in an editing studio? And was there then, a
possibility of providing a glimse of the hydra -- a
fleeting glance just like those in the Chunk king
express?  

Both Lalitha Kamath and Prasad Shetty mentioned about
how some forms of theater opened up possibility for a
a more 'hydraish' perspective. I wondered if between
the K3G, and the bombay our city pendulam swings, one
could visualize a more complex uneven, but yet shaply
political event? Would for instance (if I understood
Shaina's recent installation in Delhi correct) that if
one posed multiple recorders inter-related in a
complexity of territory, the 'puja ceremony' in Bombay
our City that Lawrence Liang refurs to, turns out to
be one more complex element of a quiet politics of
occoupation, that gets missed out when we focus on the
more obvious linarities?

Solly




		
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