A basic pdf version of the short keynote public presentation of Sarai-CSDS

1. The Sarai Programme
Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) Delhi
www.sarai.net

2. sarai
an enclosed space in a city
or, beside a highway
सराय
a tavern - a meeting place - a public house
ồỂỔ%
where travellers and caravans can find
shelter, sustenance and companionship
‫
ﺳﺮﺍﯼ‬
a destination and a point of departure
a place to rest in the middle of a journey

3. neb sarai
ber sarai
sarai mor sarai
kalu sarai
caravan serai
sheikh sarai arab ki sarai
seraglio sarai
jea
lado sarai
katwaria sarai
yusuf sarai
sarai julena - sarai rohilla - sarai kale khan
sarajevo

4. Sarai-CSDS : Distributed Public Creativity
Interdisciplinary Experimental Media Practice
Research Contemporary Art
Architecture for Public Knowledge Generation
Presentations
Talks
Discussion Lists Archive
& Web Content Screenings Publications
Exhibitions Workshops
Seminars

5. KNOWLEDGE is CREATIVITY
CREATIVITY is KNOWLEDGE
ART is RESEARCH
RESEARCH is ART
THEORISTS are PRACTITIONERS
PRACTITIONERS are THEORISTS
nothing is certain
there is nothing ‘new’ in new media

6. Sarai : Activities, Nodes and Processes
Cybermohalla Language Continuing Research
collaboration with ngo Hindi Language Resources
critical pedagogy
Intellectual Property
Localization of FLOSS Software
locality media labs Hindi Lists and Publications Piracy/Commons/Open Source
free & ‘social’ software Translation
working class spaces Information Society
young people
Art & Media Projects Surveillance/Censorship/
interpreting and imagining Information Politics
Sarai Media Lab
urban experience
Raqs Media Collective
Urban Environments
Installations/Video
Publications Architecture/Zoning/Ecology/
Radio/Print/Web
Health/Labour
Sarai Readers (English) Residencies
Publics and Practices
Sarai.txt (English)
Archive
Deewan-e-Sarai (Hindi) Cinema/Video/Music/Cable
Media Nagar (Hindi) dvd/vcd/cd/books/pamphlets Viewership/Circulation/Distribution
Cybermohalla Publications documents/images/posters Production/Re-Production/Piracy
(Hindi and English) popular cultural materials
Online Presence : Websites/Lists/Blogs/Online Archive/E Books
Events : Conferences/Seminars/Workshops/Talks/Screenings
Outreach : University & City Events/Informal Meetings
Collaborations : Local/Regional/International
Distributed Research Network : Fellowships and Stipends

7. www.sarai.net

8. Events at Sarai

9. Conferences
Seminars
Workshops

10. Sarai Publications

11. 'The Public Domain' : Sarai Reader 01, 2001
(http://www.sarai.net/journal/reader1.html)
'The Cities of Everyday Life' : Sarai Reader 02, 2002,
(http://www.sarai.net/journal/reader2.html ).
'Shaping Technologies' : Sarai Reader 03, 2003
(http://www.sarai.net/journal/reader3.html)
'Crisis/Media' : Sarai Reader 04, 2004
(http://www.sarai.net/journal/reader4.html)
The Sarai Reader Series
'Bare Act' : Sarai Reader 05, 2005
Copyleft Publishing
(http://www.sarai.net/journal/reader_05.html)

12. <http://www.sarai.net/
journal/reader4.htm>

13. 10 / Sarai Reader 2004: Crisis/Media
Peace is War
The Collateral Damage of Breaking News
A R U N D H AT I R OY
T
here’s been a delicious debate in the Indian press of late. A prominent English daily
announced that it would sell space on Page Three (its gossip section) to anyone who
was willing to pay to be featured. (The inference is that the rest of the news in the
paper is in some way unsponsored, unsullied, ‘pure news’.) The announcement provoked a
series of responses – most of them outraged – that the proud tradition of impartial
journalism could sink to such depths. Personally, I was delighted. For a major mainstream
newspaper to introduce the notion of ‘paid for’ news (Noam Chomsky, Ed Herman and a few
others have been going on about it for some years now) is a giant step forward in the
project of educating a largely credulous public about how the mass media operates. Once
the idea of ‘paid for’ news has been mooted, once it’s been ushered through the portals
of popular imagination, it won’t be hard for people to work out that if gossip columns in
newspapers can be auctioned, why not the rest of the column space? After all, in this age
of the ‘Market’, when everything’s up for sale – rivers, forests, freedom, democracy and
justice – what’s special about news? Sponsored News – what a delectable idea! “This report
is brought to you by”. There could be a State regulated sliding scale for rates (headlines,
pg. 1, pg. 2, sports section etc.) Or on second thought we could leave that to be regula-
ted by the ‘Free Market’ – as it is now. Why change a winning formula?
The debate about whether mass circulation newspapers and commercial TV channels
are finely plotted ideological conspiracies or apolitical, benign anarchies that bumble along
as best they can, is an old one and needs no elaboration. After the September 11th attack
on the World Trade Centre, the US mainstream media’s blatant performance as the government’s
mouthpiece was the butt of some pretty black humour in the rest of the world. It brought
the myth of the ‘Free Press’ in America crashing down. But before we gloat – the Indian
mass media behaved no differently during the Pokhran nuclear tests and the Kargil war.
There was no bumbling and very little that was benign in the shameful coverage of the
December 13th attack on the Indian Parliament and the trial of S.A.R. Geelani who has been
sentenced to death by a sessions court – after having been the subject of a media trial
fuelled by a campaign of nationalist hysteria and outright lies. On a more everyday basis,
would anybody who depends on the Indian mass media for information know that 80,000
people have been killed in Kashmir since 1989, most of them Muslim, most of them by
Indian security forces? Most Indians would be outraged if it were suggested to them that
the killings and ‘disappearances’ in the Kashmir Valley put India on par with any Banana
Republic.

14. The
Cyber
Mohalla
Project

15. Collaboration between Sarai and Ankur
Ankur is an NGO working in the field of
Alternative, Critical and Non Formal Education
quot;...Listening to the Softest and the Loudest of Sounds ...quot;
quot;...At the Locality Media Labs Located in terror, neither is it
3 Compughar, technology is not a a Working
expensive. Class have computers and in 2 Illegal computer
We Neighbourhood here, but no
course. Neither is their any vocational training. What there is,
Settlements
Text
is an open environment. Here, we write that which we feel.
Whatever we write, we type onto the computer. This is not a
place where we young peoplenetworked with
Locality Labs and kids are under any kind of
pressurequot;. (Compughar - literally,the Sarai Media Lab basti
Cybermohalla R&D Lab & 'computer house' -
(neighbourhood) speak for the Ankur/Sarai digital lab at the
LNJP basti, Delhi)
60 Young Practitioners Meeting Thrice a Week
Oldest Locality Lab is 4 Years Old

17. Collaborative Writing, Editing, Listening
Story Telling Performances / Radio
“Fearless Speech Needs Fearless Listening”
Discussion Lists / Blogs
Broadsheets / Wall Magazines

19. http://nangla-maachi.freeflux.net

20. http://nangla.freeflux.net

22. Rescension
quot;A re-telling, a word taken to signify the simultaneous
existence of different versions of a narrative within
oral, and from now onwards, digital cultures...
A rescension cannot be an improvement, nor can it
connote a diminishing of value.
A rescension is that version which does not act as a
replacement for any Text other configuration of its
constitutive materials.
The existence of multiple rescensions is a guarantor of
an idea or a work's ubiquity. This ensures that the
constellation of narrative, signs and images that a
work embodies is present, and waiting for iteration at
more than one site at any given time. Rescensions are
portable, and taken together, constitute ensembles that
may form an interconnected web of ideas, images and
signs.quot;

23. Contemporary Art Projects
Produced at the Sarai Media Lab

24. Lost New Shoes
A Measure of
Anacoustic Reason
Temporary Autonomous Sarai
The Impostor in the Waiting Room
The Wherehouse

25. Text
Text

26. Text
Text

27. Text
Text

28. Text
Text

29. Text
Text

30. Text
Text

31. LEXWIKI

37. Flexibility & Multiplicity of Forms
Collaborations and Conversations
Networked Creative Practice(s)
Continuing (Non-Goal Oriented) Research Intensive Face to Face Interaction Over Long Periods
Emphasis on Process rather than Product

38. Locating Media and Art Practice at Sarai
within the context of a
Distributed Research Network

39. Undergraduate & Post Graduate Students
in Universities and Institutes
Research
MPhil and PhD Research Scholars
College and University Departments
Independent Researchers and Scholars
Working Academics
Students
Practice Artists and Performers
Critics and Curators
Free Software & Open Source Programmers
Archivists
Journalists
Professionals
Designers
Writers
Activists
Fans and Enthusiasts

40. apart from mid-career and young
artists, researchers, theorists
& practitioners,
people involved with sarai
have also included :
a worker in a fast food chain
a small town bank employee
a nurse in a maternity ward
a comic book writer
a composer of electronic music
a sound recordist
a lawyer
a pensioner
a sports journalist

41. Creation of a Dense Network of Interactions
Through Regular Postings on the Reader-List and Feedback from Peers & Sarai
Srinagar
Chandigarh
Delhi SARAI
Aligarh
Tezpur
Allahabad Shillong
Udaipur Jaipur
Udaipur
Ahmedabad
Mumbai Kolkata
Raipur
Pune Hyderabad
Goa
Vijayawada
Goa
Vijayawada
Bangalore Chennai
Madurai

42. Exchanges on
the Reader List
Helsinki transmit to a
Moscow Seoul
Hamburg Global Network
London Tokyo
Srinagar
through
Amsterdam Chandigarh Forwards,
Vienna Taipei
Delhi SARAI Shanghai Replies,
New York
Chicago Aligarh
Other Lists etc.
Tezpur
Los Angeles Allahabad Shillong
Udaipur Jaipur
Lahore
Dhaka
Istanbul Ahmedabad
Bangkok
Tehran Mumbai Kolkata
Singapore
Beirut Raipur
Karachi Kuala Lampur
Pune Hyderabad
Bandung
Mexico City Goa
Vijayawada
Sao Paulo Bangalore
Lagos Chennai
Sydney
Dakar
Melbourne
Madurai
Johannesburg
Colombo

43. Selected Independent Fellowship Research Topics
Ponytails-Rings-Punches : Female Boxers in India
Pankaj Rishi Kumar, Mumbai
Documenting the Making of a Hindi Film Song
Prashant Pandey, Delhi
Blank Noise : Notes Towards a Sound Installation in Womens Toilets
Building Testimonies on Sexual Harrassment in Public Space
Jasmeen Patheja, Bangalore
Manuel in the City : A Semi-Fictionalized Illustrated Book
on the Arrival and Absorption of Goan Migrants in Mumbai
Rochelle Pinto, Mumbai
Media Coverage of the Execution of Dhananjoy Chatterjee and is Impact
on Children in West Bengal
Biswajit Roy and Nilanjan Datta, Kolkata

44. Taran Khan’s Project
‘Socialist Wives’
Documentary Video, Archival Research,
Interviews, Oral History, Text, Performance

45. Corridor : The First Indian Graphic Novel
Sarnath Bannerjee

46. Nancy Adajania’s Project
on Digital Manipulation
and Popular Photography

47. Shahid Datawala’s
Photographic
Research Project on
the Ambience of
Cinema Spaces
in Delhi

48. Narratives of Everyday Life The ‘New’ Economy
Labour
Conflict & Violence Urban Environment Architecture
Urban Childhood
Oral History Migration
Infrastructure
Sexuality
Language Technology, Politics & Culture
Media Histories and Practices Tactical Media
Surveillance
Cinema, TV, Radio, Performance, Music,
Information and Society
Print, Internet
Leisure
Sport The Contemporary City
Suburbs, Small Towns, Streets, Neighbourhoods
Intellectual Property
Open Source & Free Software Popular Culture
Experimental Media Forms
Cultures of Contemporary Art
Piracy Comics
Design Photography
Law and Legality Essays Typography