[Reader-list] I Can't Find Dhaka On Staten Island Ferry

[Naeem Mohaiemen]

I have a collaboration with Salahuddin Ahmed for a contribution to
Neurotransmitter's "FM Ferry Experiment".  Text for the collaboration
below, followed by the text for "FM Ferry Experiment".

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I Can't Find Dhaka
Naeem Mohaiemen/Salahuddin Ahmed

"May liked it. She said: what a pretty road, it's so much more open
than Calcutta. But as for my grandmother, she kept saying: I've never
seen any of this. Where's Dhaka?"

In Amitav Ghosh's Shadow Lines, the grandmother returns to Dhaka on a
mission: to convince her relative to leave East Pakistan and move to
India.  It is 1964, and a few pages later communal riots will engulf
old Dhaka and her family. But in this moment, it is still the shock of
the familiar unfamiliar that devours her.

Marinate on becoming strangers in that same city, without the device
of physical, political displacement.  Forty years after Ghosh's
time-frame Dhaka is alien to many. Designed to carry five million, it
is now home to fifteen million citizens.  And still the numbers swell,
desperate for work as villages empty out.  Those who cannot manage to
get to the Middle East, come to Dhaka. But security paranoia swallows
public space and shopping malls are the new oases, security guards at
every door-- Habermas' prison in reverse.

Salahuddin Ahmed runs Atelier Robin Architects in Dhaka. Naeem
Mohaiemen works in Dhaka and New York.
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The FM Ferry Experiment
live broadcast from the Staten Island Ferry

concept and programming by:
neuroTransmitter (Valerie Tevere + Angel Nevarez)

September 14, 15, 20, 21, 22, 27, 28, 29
12 - 4 pm EST (NYC)

WSIA 88.9FM
http://www.fmferryexperiment.net

In-Studio:
Hurricane Deck of the Staten Island Ferry
reached via:
Whitehall Terminal -- 1 Whitehall St. Manhattan
St. George Terminal - 1 Bay St.
Staten Island

For eight days in September, neuroTransmitter presents The FM Ferry
Experiment, a project which transforms the Staten Island Ferry into a
floating radio station, broadcasting out to the NYC region as it
continuously travels between Staten Island and Lower Manhattan.

In 1967, The New York Avant-Garde Festival (1963-1980) founded by
Charlotte Moorman, landed on the Staten Island Ferry for 24-hours. In
the spirit of this festival, The FM Ferry Experiment integrates
broadcast and performance into one of New York's most traveled public
spaces, expanding its architecture out into the airwaves, engaging
publics on the ferry and on-the-air.

Live programs consisting of performances, lectures, and conversations
will take place on the Staten Island Ferry, and will be broadcast
along with music, sound, and ambient noise via WSIA 88.9 FM and
http://www.fmferryexperiment.net

In-studio performances and appearances by:
31 Down, Dafne Boggeri, Ralf Homann, Jesal Kapadia & Sreshta Premnath,
Tianna Kennedy, Emily Jacir & Jamal Rayyis, Edward Miller, School of
Missing Studies with Peter Ferko, Xaviera Simmons, Brooke Singer &
Brian Rigney Hubbard, Sandra Skurvida, Alex Villar, Bojidar Yanev

audio works by:
Julieta Aranda, Fia Backström, Mark & Stephen Beasley, Wiebe E.
Bijker, Bik Van der Pol, Nao Bustamante, Paul Chan, free103point9,
Wynne Greenwood & K8 Hardy, Maryam Jafri, Hassan Khan, Fabiano Kueva,
Brandon LaBelle, Pedro Lasch with Thomas Lasch & Audio Wizards,
Cristóbal Lehyt, LIGNA, Lana Lin, Jill Magid with Ed Vas, Naeem
Mohaiemen (with Salahuddin Ahmed), Antoni Muntadas, Max Neuhaus, Phill
Niblock, Carsten Nicolai, Jenny Perlin, Cesare Pietroiusti, Radio
Sonideros (Sara Harris, Adolfo Guzman-Lopez, Keren Ness, Clare
Robbins), Steve Roden, Marina Rosenfeld, Kristen Roos & Jackson
2Bears, Martha Rosler, Scanner, Hanna Rose Shell & Luke Fischbeck,
Jason Simon, Skyline, Judi Werthein

plus further socio-spatial experimentation, conversations, news
bulletins, music, archival broadcasts, and sing-alongs…

http://www.fmferryexperiment.net
################################
neurotransmitter - Initiated in 2001 by Angel Nevarez and Valerie
Tevere as a project whose work fuses conceptual practices with
transmission, sound performance, and mobile broadcast. Their work
re-articulates radio in multiple contexts considering new
possibilities for the broadcast spectrum as public space. Recent
projects include: WUNP, unitednationsplaza, Berlin, Germany; The
Contemporary Museum, Baltimore; The New Museum, NY; viafarini, Milan,
Italy; The Anna Akhmatova Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia; Govett
Brewster Museum, NZ; Centre d'Art Passerelle, Brest, France; and Museu
da Imagem e do Som, Sao Paulo, Brazil. Tevere is an artist and
Associate Professor of Media Culture at the College of Staten Island,
CUNY. Nevarez is an artist, DJ, and musician.