[Reader-list] There has been a change of plan: Raqs Media Collective

[Jose-Carlos Mariategui]

Dear Monica:

Thanks for the information on the Raqs solo-exhibition in Dehli.  I just
must say that it is in my perspective strange to see that this is the first
solo exhibit of Raqs in Dehli, taking into consideration that Raqs is Indian
and that it has been exhibiting internationally for many years.  Perhaps as
in the case of many of us (that we face as non-westerns), it is more
feasible to develop projects in Europe or the US.

To which factors you attribute this situation?  Has Raqs exhibited in other
cities of India or in cities of neighbouring countries?   How difficult is
it?

I am not criticising the situation but questioning it, because when we do
'something for abroad' it may dissociate the project with immediate reality.

I believe there is a need (and an struggle) to present works in local and
regional contexts and there may be strategies for its deployment.  I had
recently curated a screening of recent video art from Latin America
(www.videografiasinvisibles.org) that went first to Europe too but now is
going to be presented in all Latin America (thanks to the support of the
Spanish Cooperation Agency's network of Cultural Centres of Spain in all
Latin America).  Sometimes these supranational organizations may be very
useful (more than national organizations).

Perhaps this would be an interesting topic of discussion during the Pacific
Rim New Media Summit at ISEA 2006.  Specially on how we can develop parallel
networks in the Pacific Rim.

All the best,

Jose-Carlos




on 7/29/06 2:33 PM, Monica Narula at monica at sarai.net wrote:

> Raqs Media Collective : 'There Has Been a Change of Plan'
> (Selected Works 2002-2006)
> Nature Morte Gallery, A 1 Neeti Bagh, New Delhi
> August 5 - 26, 2006
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ----------------------------------------
> Sometimes, adjustments have to be made. Schedules need calibration.
> There are contingencies, questions, obstinate demands, weak excuses,
> strong desires. You return to the city you never left. You pause,
> take stock. Sit still and let a conversation begin. Maybe?
> 
> Around you, aeroplanes sit on wooden platforms in a wilderness like
> widows on a funeral pyre. Clocks measure fatigue, anxiety and modest
> epiphanies across latitudes. A door to nowhere stands obstinately
> against the sky. All your cities are a blur.
> 
> "Do you like looking at maps?"
> 
> Meanwhile, measures are taken, shoes lost and found, ghost stories
> gather, the city whispers conspiracies to itself, the situation is
> tense but under control. Someone offers you a postcard.
> 
> Now: Let's see what happens.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ----------------------------------------
> Raqs Media Collective is pleased to announce its first solo
> exhibition in Delhi - 'There Has Been A Change of Plan' at Nature
> Morte Gallery. The exhibition features selected works (2002 - 2006)
> in the form of cross media installations with networked computers,
> objects, postcards, video, sound, prints and projections.
> 
> Works exhibited include: 'Lost New Shoes', selections from 'A Measure
> of Anacoustic Reason', 'Location (n)', '28.28 N / 77.15 E :: 2001/02
> (Co-Ordinates of Everyday Life, Delhi 2001-2002)', 'Erosion by
> Whispers', 'Preface to a Ghost Story' and 'There Has Been a Change of
> Plan'. (See Details in PDF attatchment with this mail)
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ----------------------------------------
> About Raqs Media Collective
> www.raqsmediacollective.net
> 
> (Excerpt from the Wikipedia Entry on Raqs Media Collective -
> www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raqs_Media_Collective)
> 
> Raqs Media Collective was formed in 1992 by independent media
> practitioners Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula and Shuddhabrata
> Sengupta. Based in Delhi, their work engages with urban spaces and
> global circuits, persistently welding a sharp, edgily contemporary
> sense of what it means to lay claim to the world from the streets of
> Delhi. At the same time, Raqs articulates an intimately lived
> relationship with myths and histories of diverse provenances. Raqs
> sees its work as opening out a series of investigations with image,
> sound, software, objects, performance, print, text and lately,
> curation, that straddle different (and changing) affective and
> aesthetic registers, expressing an imaginative unpacking of questions
> of identity and location, a deep ambivalence towards modernity and a
> quiet but consistent critique of the operations of power and property.
> 
> In 2001 Raqs co-founded Sarai (www.sarai.net) at the Centre for the
> Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) in Delhi where they coordinate
> media productions, pursue and administer independent research and
> practice projects and also work as members of the editorial
> collective of the Sarai Reader series. For Raqs, Sarai is a space
> where they have the freedom to pursue interdisciplinary and hybrid
> contexts for creative work and to develop a sustained engagement with
> urban space and with different forms of media.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Monica Narula
> Raqs Media Collective
> Sarai-CSDS
> 29 Rajpur Road
> Delhi 110054
> www.raqsmediacollective.net
> www.sarai.net
> 
>