[Reader-list] Sahar Ke Nishan: Politics & Poetics of Visual Representations

[pratap pandey]

With respect to your wish to "capture the complexities
of different kinds which are products as well as
producers of relationship between agencies of 
‘globalization’ and ‘traditional culture’", you could
look into T-shirt messages and jean-tags.

T-shirts and jeans perhaps exemplify the "mobile" city
culture you talk about in your posting. What is even
more interesting, they are always "worn" -- they turn
the body itself into a site for a message (this body
may deliberately or despite itself become such a
site).
Via T-shirts and jeans, one could even think of the
body-as-space, and the agency of the city in
turning/enforcing the body into a site for visual
consumption/representation.

T-shirts have a heirarchy of their own. Where you buy
your T-shirts is also an indication of who buys what
kind of T-shirt. For instance, "Tommy Hilfiger" is
found in Janpath, too. In Karol Bagh, and also in Khan
Market and South-Ex. But so is "Tomy Hillfigger".

jean-tags (the brand-name of a jean, usually placed on
or above the back-pocket) are completely fascinating.
There are the "standard" brand-names, but there are
also countless "non-standard" non-brand names, like
"Tuff". Of course, you might have to peer at a few
backsides, but that only makes fieldwork more
interesting!


 --- jha sadan <jhasadan at hotmail.com> wrote: > Dear
Friends,
> 
> We are doing a  project on the visual
> representational spaces of Delhi.  
> This is a brief note and an excerpt from our field
> notes. Your comments and 
> suggestions will be of great help for us to see the
> field in better and more 
> disturbing ways.
> 
> Sahar Ke Nishan: Politics and Poetics of Visual
> Representations (Delhi)
> 
> Thematic Areas covered
> 
> Although, at this stage of our research, it is bit
> difficult to classify and 
> categorise pictorial spaces which we have covered
> yet a brief list of them 
> is important:
> 
> Advertisements in the forms of hoardings of shops
> and other similar market 
> forces. Here, we have tried to capture the
> complexities of different kinds 
> which are products as well as producers of
> relationship between agencies of 
> ‘globalization’ and ‘traditional culture’. However,
> it needs to keep in mind 
> that both these words/concepts are used here very
> loosely. These 
> advertisements lead us to those processes in and
> through which local 
> symbolic spaces work hand in hand with standard
> symbolic spaces.
> 
> Multiple use of certain spaces: During the field
> work we have come across 
> many once upon a time government hoardings,
> hoardings of road signs and 
> walls which are used as locations to put posters and
> for writing different 
> messages. The very use of these spaces as standard
> place as recognised 
> places are interesting. If you remember, one of our
> meetings, you had 
> suggested abut few such spaces( notice boards,
> information boards of art 
> galleries etc.)
> 
> Posters and Hoardings depicting Pahalwans and their
> culture. These are again 
> abundant and offer interesting semiotic readings.
> The location of these 
> hoardings quite interestingly pose several questions
> on the socio-cultural 
> dynamics of a city. From the perspective of
> semiotics, for example, many of 
> these pahalwan posters present Hanumanji as the
> fatherly ideal figure but 
> Hanumanji is devoid of all his insignias and
> symbols. His gada has been 
> taken over by pahalwans and Hanumanji is shown only
> as showing the figures 
> of Ram and Sita. There may be various ways of
> entering into this semiotic 
> field but this is not a place to go into the details
> of it.
> 
> Advertisements of local sex doctors, hakims, faith
> heelers, astrologers etc. 
> An extremely rich field and a very problematic one.
> One of the most 
> troublesome aspect of this field is its vastness and
> its fluid character in 
> terms of their cultural belongingness. This is the
> category where, the 
> mobility of the city culture can be seen at it’s
> best.
> 
> Wall writings putting common man at the center.
> These kinds of writings 
> range from warnings( gadhe ke put yahan mat mut) to
> the following social 
> message:
> 
> Yadi IAS wa IPS adhikari nihswarth bhav se maatra
> betan par nirvar hokar 
> desh ki seva karain to desh maatra ek maah main hi
> sudhar jaiga.—Srinath 
> graam+ post, Nadini, Zila- Mirzapur. Uttar Pradesh.>
> (If IAS officers  
> discharge theire duties in honest and selfless
> manner , the state of the 
> country would improve in just one month. --Srinath.
> Village+post-Nadini, 
> Zila- Mirzapur. Uttar Pradesh)
> 
> Pictorial Spaces circulating myths. Although all
> kinds of spaces create 
> their own myths and operate in various mythic
> structures but even we get 
> down from the couch wagon of Roland Barthes and move
> to Lajpat Roy market of 
> Delhi, we get stickers telling the whole story of a
> temple.
> 
> Religious and moral messages.  Here, we would like
> to mention a case of an 
> old lady living(?)/ working(her wrok is defined
> here, primarily from our 
> vantage point, and not as her own occupational
> engagement) in the area of 
> Shakti Nagar. In this area, we find walls written
> all over with religious 
> slogans. We have come to know about the author, this
> lady, and planning to 
> interview her if possible. This wall writing has a
> potential to provide a 
> very rich field,  to explore various constructs of
> psycho-religious 
> discourses of the city
> 
> Dalit Spaces. Pictures of Guru Ravidas at street
> side cobblers’ shop is a 
> good example and offers interesting reading.
> 
> There are various other spaces and lot of examples
> but now I would like to 
> mention some of the unexplored areas which we are
> planning to cover and 
> which we feel extremely difficult. These are
> classroom desks (we have not 
> been getting entry into schools, In the university,
> due to exams, desks have 
> been removed yet we are trying to get to this
> space;) Monumental spaces 
> (this we will cover in next few weeks) and most
> important among difficult 
> spaces is the graffities of public urinals and
> toilets( we are trying our 
> best to document this space).
> 
> Our  field work covers the following areas:
> 
> East Delhi:
> Yamuna Vihar, Chand Bagh, Bhajan Pura, Dayal Pur,
> Karawal Nagar, Jagat Puri, 
> Lakshmi Nagar, Shakar Pur, Ganesh Nagar, Sita Puri,
> Pqatparganj and Pandav 
> Nagar.
> 
> West Delhi
> Mahavir Enclave, Sadh Nagar, Mangla Puri, Palam, Raj
> Nagar, Uttam Nagar, 
> Mangol Puri and Vikash Puri.
> 
> North Delhi
> Inderlok, Shakti nagar, Jahangir Puri, Azadpur Gaon,
> Azad pur, Kabel Park, 
> Majlish Park Camp,, Model Town, Kamla Nagar, Vijay
> Nagar, Azad Market, Sadar 
> Bazar, Jhandewalan, Idgah Road, Malka Ganj, Ridge
> area, Karol Bagh, Darya 
> Ganj and ther area near ISBT.
> 
> South Delhi
> South Extension, Houz Khas, Yusuf Sarai and Green
> Park.
> 
> This is not an exhaustive list of the areas covered
> during the field work 
> neither it is to say that all the areas mentioned
> above are documented 
> exhaustively (keeping in mind the horizontal
> coverage this word, 
> documentation demands). This is just to give you an
> idea of the geography of 
> our field work. We selected these areas both on the
> basis of certain 
> predetermined notions and also due to the proximity
> of these areas with our 
> own locations of stay and daily movements.
> 
> In the coming weeks, we are planning to revisit
> these areas. We would also 
> like to expand the field little further. In coming
> weeks, the focus will be 
> more on recovering comparative field experiences at
> different geographical 
> locations.
> 
> ------------------------
> Recovering Experiences
> 
> We are obsessed with the idea of recovering our own
> experiences during the 
> course of field work. We would like to share an
> excerpt of field diary.
> 
> 10 December 2001
> 
=== message truncated === 

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