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

[Jose-Carlos Mariategui]

Dear Monica:

Thanks for your detailed answer.

Obviously the global side is not the one to be questioned, not only because
to question some type of global process may be absolutely complicated since
no clear specific rules apply.  In this sense, a good word you use is
'neutral' grounds, since globalization cleans up local reality to much more
unpredictable spaces, with universalized information loosing its
contextualization and its former canonization and therefore a source of
reality.  

Though globalization is a complex process, it may not be compared to a local
process.  Even in local terms, the processes may be more challenging and
complicated since when you 'talk' to a global audience there is in deed a
group of people that know your work and are willing to see what is the most
recent work developed (there is an international audience).  Though these
avid group may seen interesting it is also 'neutral' and somewhat irrelevant
to the specific local contexts.

My reality, at least working for many years in Latin America is that few
local people are interested in those global questionings (except obviously
from a minuscule local group of cosmopolitan intellectuals and artist that
are culturally versed).  This is why the exploration of what happens in the
city along with the local engagement is more difficult, silent, problematic
(even erroneous) and usually unheard and unimportant for an international
audience.

I can put once more the case of Peru to clarify this much more: the VAE
Festival ( www.festivalvae.com), which one of few constant annual new media
art festivals in Latin America, does a lot of things outside the capital
city, Lima.  Those interactions are silent and inexistent to everyone in
Lima (and obviously to the global audience).  Nevertheless, these small
things ('acts'), done with more difficulty, being more expensive (since
there are no technical conditions), more problematic (not a steady audience
if an audience at all) had been happening with some intensity for the last 3
or 4 years.  Today we can say that some of those places are 'waiting' for
the Festival to happen in their locality every year.  So after some years of
'struggle' and allocating resources, there is a contribution to a local
experience that through workshops and presentations may trigger new local
practices and an expansion of their knowledge.

This is today even much more important if we consider that young people are
already 'digital natives' which means they use technology as a 'mother
tongue' though quite unfortunately the content available (specially through
TV) is very poor.  In that sense, when you mean that it is difficult for
someone with a non-visual arts
background to enter the art context, I think
that more than arts background we need people with 'media' background, which
I believe a vast majority of young people are.  One of our aims in involving
artists from Peru and abroad in this local exchanges is questioning what the
outcome is going to be.  As I told you perhaps it will require many years to
see something out there, but sooner or latter something may happen. I had
found that with younger audiences the involvement in new media art is almost
immediate, they are media ready (and I am not speaking here necessarily of
the Internet, but other 'offline' media such as the TV or radio).

So these local situations (transformations, change) are absolutely necessary
and in my perspective, without trying to criticize too much, are usually
unimportant to the international audience.  So here I have new questions:
If you mean there is not a local audience for your work (which I think is a
very harsh statement), are you just thinking in a global audience?   If from
a local perspective these processes seem important, to what degree you think
the experience could be mounted or duplicated to other realities?  In my
perspective it may be difficult but possible, thherefore to activate a group
of peripheral projects and participants can led to interesting results.

While you are refereeing to Raqs projects with international curators, if
the purpose of working globally obviously resituates the people, what will
be then the difference to work in Dehli or in New York, for example?  I
believe that Dehli and the Sarai centre are places of confrontation that had
triggered many of your works and that is what is valuable.  This is why I
believe as much as the local gives to us, we must give back...don't you
think?

All the best,

Jose-Carlos





on 7/31/06 7:26 AM, Monica Narula at monica at sarai.net wrote:

> dear Jose-Carlos

Thanks for your mail. It opens up many questions. Some
> responses, far  
from 'explanatory' and perhaps starting strands of
> thought...

- The art context in India is primarily around what is termed as
> the  
"visual arts". 95% of the works shown and transacted are paintings.
> 
Followed at a distance by sculptures/objects and then the rare  
photographic
> show. Photography has yet to find a stable space, though  
there is some
> important work being done in this domain. It is only in  
the last few years
> that there has been somewhat of a shift towards  
the showing of video works
> and some installation work. These works  
are emerging both from established
> and newer artists, and basically  
have a wider circulation outside India.

-
> It is extremely difficult for someone with a non-visual arts  
background to
> enter the art context here. The reasons for this are  
yet to be researched
> and understood. The recent entry of some  
documentary practitioners in to
> this context is due more to their  
international presence rather than any
> serious rethinking of the  
values and consensus that run the art contexts
> here. (The documentary  
film on the other hand has had for many years a
> decent and at times  
controversial public presence, and a committed public
> around it.)

- This situation will hopefully change over the next few years,
> with  
more diverse kinds of practitioners making interesting works and
> 
staking a claim in the art space - which we think has begun. This  
process
> will be interesting as it will mean changes in the ways 'art  
practice' sees
> itself in relation to other practices and also to ways  
in which new publics
> can and will emerge around the domain of the  
'art context'.

- We have shown
> our CD works (GVHM, No_des and Ectropy) in Delhi and  
Bangalore and these
> works have a circulation (also as cds). Also many  
of our works travel -
> lightly - through publications and the web. In  
terms of installation, we
> could not find a context to show (we have  
shown a few works within means
> affordable to us in Sarai). This is  
slowly going to loosen up over the next
> decade, as art contexts will  
probably become more curious to practices from
> other domains.

- It is an interesting process how many of our installation
> works  
emerge, and expectedly a complex one. Works have emerged through
> 
conversations and the sharing of ideas and questions with some  
extremely
> curious and sharp people in many parts of the world. (I  
would not club them
> all together in any one idea of an institutional  
context.). In this let me
> share a recent interaction. A young curator  
located between Lithuania and
> Sweden has been in dialogue with us for  
more than two years. We share ideas,
> critiques, questions, resources  
etc. Over this period he has invited us to
> think on an idea that has  
been exciting and troubling him for some time.
> This process of  
thinking may find an expression in an installation to be
> first hosted  
in a place that he has access to, which will definitely by
> outside  
India. As a process, we find this exciting and challenging, along
> 
with our work here in Sarai/Delhi. And i do think that such an  
interaction
> - whether from a 'local' context or a 'global' one -  
deserves respect and
> engagement.

- Some of our work has emerged from collaboration and in
> 'neutral'  
grounds. This made possible very intriguing dialogues and
> processes.  
Sometimes I do wish that we could ourself host a few of these
> 
unpredictable encounters.

- We are yet fully to understand the complex
> processes that we are  
all part of in today's world and will give ourselves a
> few more years  
before we find ourselves able to speak definitively on
> 'publics' and  
'places'. We have found very demanding and challenging
> interlocutors  
and viewers in many different ways and places. This has made
> our own  
map of the world more dense and knotty, and not merely defined by
> 
national borders.

best
M

On 30-Jul-06, at 7:32 AM, Jose-Carlos Mariategui
> wrote:

> 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
>>
>>
>
>
>
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Monica Narula
Raqs Media
> Collective
Sarai-CSDS
29 Rajpur Road
Delhi
> 110054
www.raqsmediacollective.net
www.sarai.net


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