[Reader-list] Review: Sarai Reader 06: Turbulence

[aarti at sarai.net]

Dear All,

The first review of Sarai Reader 06: Turbulence is out in the Himal. I am
pasting below with the link.


Enjoy! and if you haven't bought or downloaded your copy yet, what are you
waiting for ?? ;)

love
Aarti


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Fluid dynamics: A prediction for the 24th century
http://www.himalmag.com/2007/january/review3.htm

by | Siddharth Anand

These are warning signs, the end of the world is nigh.
– Kavita Pai, Turbulence

Sarai Reader 06:Turbulence
edited by Monica Narula, Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Ravi Sundaram, Jeebesh
Bagchi Awadhendra Sharan and Geert Lovink
Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, 2006

In a clue so cryptic as to discourage even the doughtiest crossword
zealot, Turbulence, the latest Reader from the New Delhi-based new-media
initiative Sarai, gestures towards a fast-forward future – one that has
already arrived, and is very chaotic. Dubbed “a practice for and of a time
that has no name” by an editorial collective based in Delhi and Amsterdam,
Turbulence is the sleekest, edgiest and grittiest avatar yet of the Sarai
Reader Series.

Now in its sixth year, the Reader has acquired a reputation of being the
wild child of the publishing calendar. It has become known for collections
so ambitious and diverse that each preface over the years has included a
defence of ‘eclecticism’ – and every review has chosen to comment on it.
While proving that it is possible to be both eclectic and consistent,
Turbulence seeks to push the boundaries beyond a mere celebration of
communicative diversity, by setting out to map terrain that is, at times,
unnerving.

The title of this new volume is perhaps the most intriguing of any Reader
to date. Turbulence, as any student of science knows, is a crucial factor
of fluid dynamics, and refers to the opposite of the phenomenon of
‘laminar flows’ – an ordered flow of fluid such that information about
future behaviour of that flow can be predicted by determining the exact
nature of the present.

Turbulent flow, on the other hand, while proceeding in the same general
direction as laminar flow, has to contend with the additional complexity
of randomly fluctuating velocities. A further engagement with physics
reveals deeper, more profound, metaphors: turbulence is the transition
from order to disorder; turbulence increases with an increase in velocity;
turbulence increases with friction and grittiness, and remains one of the
unsolved problems in physics. However, it is by only the most veiled of
gestures – the cryptic clue mentioned at the beginning of this review –
that Sarai Reader 06 reveals its intention to serve as an
atlas-cum-almanac for the exact point of transition into turbulence: 2300
AD.

This is, admittedly, a long shot. But as the opening quote of art writer
Cédric Vincent’s “Mapping the Invisible: Notes on the reason of conspiracy
theories” states, “there is no such thing as a coincidence 
 Nothing
happens in this universe 
 unless an entity wills it to happen.” Apart
from signalling the dawn of the 24th century, 2300 also happens to be the
critical value of another scientific term – the ‘Reynolds’ constant’, at
which a fluid normally shifts from laminar to turbulent flow. Hence, ‘Re
2300’ is the point at which turbulence is achieved in a fluid system under
normal conditions.

Ideological and obdurate
Turbulence clarifies its intentions with R Krishna’s opening piece, “The
Time of Turbulence”. From that point on, the collection sucks the reader
into a compelling and chaotic world of pirates, profiteers, hyper-textual
encounters and “modernity’s fractally germinating, ever questioning
bastards”. Vincent’s succinct unpacking of the concept of the conspiracy
theory sits shoulder to shoulder with anthropologist Michael Taussig’s
excellent “Cement and Speed” – a text that somehow speaks simultaneously
of the love of craft, the violence of development, and the collapse of
time, space and distance.

The Reader itself is divided into short sections that are both internally
coherent and chronologically cohesive. Both Taussig’s and Vincent’s texts
are found under the first section, “Transformations”. In the “Weather
Report” section, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina lies alongside a
first-person account of the tsunami that struck Southasia’s southern
shores in 2004. A funeral party mourning the killing of a 16-year-old girl
in Kashmir by security forces is witness to the fury of the almighty in
“Zalzala”, meaning ‘earthquake’.

“Strange Days” is one of the most engaging sections of the Reader, and
provides a historical context to the present-day flux. Ground-level
texture from the ghadar of 1857 sits uneasily alongside Bangladeshi
journalist Naeem Mohaiemen’s account of the deification and contested
legacy of Shiraj Sikder, the leader of Bangladesh’s violent leftist
Sharbahara Party. Meanwhile, Delhi literature professor Debjani Dengupta’s
text is a narrative carefully pieced together around the Direct Action Day
that took place in 1946 in Calcutta.

As with the Sarai Readers that preceded it, Turbulence moves beyond the
purely textual, with images by Ravi Aggarwal and Monica Narula, among
others. “Like Cleopatra”, a graphic series by the Delhi- and Assam-based
artist Parismita Singh, stretches the fabric of street-survival and
alienation to breaking point, as it builds a seemingly innocuous narrative
of life in Delhi University’s North Campus.

Sarai Reader 06, like the rest of the series, works precisely because the
contributions seem to have been edited by a thoughtful and light hand.
Each text speaks out for itself, unburdened by the baggage of its
neighbours. The Reader’s single underlying theme, if there is one, is
probably best summed up by Berlin-based computer wizard Frank Rieger’s
closing text. “If we don’t enjoy taking on the system, we will get tired
of the contest,” he notes. “And they will win. So instead of being angry,
ideological and obdurate, let’s be funny, flexible and creative.”