[Reader-list] shahr Ke Nissan

[sadan]

Dear Friends,
For some time, We have been working on the issue of visual representations 
that a city produces and which in tern construct the images of city. As a 
part of Sarai independent fellowship programme we did a small study on this 
subject last year. we have taken some pictures (now part of sarai archive). 
On the other hand, we tried to analyse the politics that go into the making 
of this visual city. Our aim was not just to collect photos of ordinary 
looking visual representations(signs, graffiti, advertisements etc) but the 
field work was primarily oriented towards getting an understanding of the 
public sphere of Delhi. In the context of Delhi, this exercise, we felt is 
more crucial as we do not have much to read on the subject. In the context of 
the wider arena of acedemic writings on public sphere, the intervention of 
our exercise wishes to open up the issue of visual public and the subject of 
gaze for a debate that has largely been ignored by the scholars working in 
the framework of Habermass. In recent decades, we have seen a sudden outburst 
on the subject of gaze, especially coming from scholars working in different 
aspects of gender politcis. However, because most of these studies are coming 
from the corner of gender studies, the general tendency has been to reduce 
the location of public sphere as a site primarily oriented towards the 
politics of gendered gaze. Gender, is no doubt a central strategy in the 
construction of public sphere but it is certainly not the only one. Recent 
writings on the gaze and public sphere sadly do not address other dimensions 
of the gaze and public sphere. In brief, we tried to locate the question of 
gaze by  bringing into account of themes  like, city's 'other', claims of 
state aand their resistence, the fuzzy geography of city etc.that go into the 
making of city in the eyes and imagination of citizens. However, i must make 
it clear that at this stage, all these issues have not been analysed in 
exhaustive fashion and the study merely provides an entry into field of 
visual public sphere.
Now our work is in second stage and we are working on the economy of this 
visual  city. A brief proposal is given below(as attachment file). We would 
like to have your comments and observations.

Shahar Ke Nissan: The Politics and Poetics of the Visual Symbolic Spaces of 
Delhi 
 Phase II: Looking at Sites of Production 
---Prabhas Ranjan and Sadan Jha 
Introduction 
Visual representational spaces play a crucial role in shaping the public 
culture of a city. These representations constitute a field consisted of wall 
writings, advertisements, posters with political and social messages, 
bathroom graffiti etc. These visual symbolic spaces act both as entry points 
as well as locations where the meanings, images and belongingness to/of the 
city and its culture are contested upon. The claims made over the urban 
visual spaces can also be analysed as the play of power over citizen's gaze. 
In this way, the field of inquiry remains not just the urban landscape but 
this landscape itself gets transformed into the body. This is the body with 
all sorts of inscriptions of power (gender, class, caste etc.) written 
densely all over its vast and uneven terrain. The problem is how to read this 
landscape, this body and this eye? 
 
The background/ current engagements 
 For some times, we have been involved in the task of understanding the ways 
in which city expresses its images and its culture in and through the network 
of symbolic visual spaces. Focused primarily on the city of Delhi, we have 
also made an attempt to read visual symbolic images of two other Indian 
cities?Jammu(J&K) and Hazipur(Bihar). Seed grant scheme of Sarai, provided an 
opportunity to map this field of visual symbolic spaces and build an archive 
of city images. We are also involved in the reading of this text at its few 
selective locations. With the help of camera, we have made an attempt to 
ethnographically study non-bourgeois city. Locations selected, for the study 
of visual culture of the non-bourgeois city of Delhi, are those that 
constitute an open, vast and scattered domain of city life. These are 
non-fantastic, non-charismatic images of city. An attempt has also been made 
to present a. personal experiences of doing field work on the visual symbolic 
cultures of Delhi; b. a reading of the politics that go into the making of 
this field of visual culture of Delhi and c. to build an archive of  
collected images. 
The Plan of the Work 
After charting out broader contours of the area of study and problematizing 
the subject we now intend to study the economics of the production of these 
city spaces. Advertisements of ordinary characters, posters and other 
symbolic spaces that circulate in the mass production sectors of the bazaar 
economy (i.e. stickers and small rectangular tin plates) as very locations of 
this economy shall be studied at the physical sites of their production. It 
will be an attempt to understand the ways in which painters, copywriters and 
workers who are involved in the production of these visual spaces 
conceptualise and visualise this arena of urban semiotics. An attempt will 
also be made to understand the ways in which these people look at the market 
of these symbolic spaces. It is like exploring the city of images where they 
are physically take shape and by whom they acquire their forms. It is an 
attempt to trace the genealogy of this city. However, this process must not 
be seen from positivist vantage points of the word ?genealogy'. 
Secondly, moving upward in the economic discourse of the symbolic spaces, we 
shall be working to get a detail account of the visual culture of the local 
market. Visual symbolic language of the bazaar will be studied in the course 
of work. Our hypothesis is that visual language of advertisements circulates 
not just as reference points or the advertisements in the processes of 
commercial exchanges. These advertising spaces, these visual languages move 
as commodities and services in themselves that in turn produce complicated 
economic web. The manner in which the language of local market respond the 
forces of globalisation in and through commercial hoardings, sign boards of 
shops and wall writings will be analysed. 
Thirdly, we shall continue to map the field of urban visual symbolic spaces. 
Some of the interesting spaces like bathroom graffiti and the space of train 
will be studied and the documentation of the field will continue. Both these 
spaces are crucial as they problematise the relationship of city, body and 
construction of city's  'other'.
Thanking You
Sadan Jha
Prabhas Ranjan.